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Despite its importance in different occupational and everyday contexts, vigilance, typically defined as the capacity to sustain attention over time, is remarkably limited. What explains these limits? Two theories have been proposed. The Overload Theory states that being vigilant consumes limited information-processing resources; when depleted, task performance degrades. The Underload Theory states that motivation to perform vigilance tasks declines over time, thereby prompting attentional shifts and hindering performance. We highlight some conceptual and empirical problems for both theories and propose an alternative: the Strategic Allocation Theory. For the Strategic Allocation Theory, performance on vigilance tasks optimizes as a function of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, including metacognitive factors such as the expected value of effort and the expected value of planning. Limited capacities must be deployed across task sets to maximize expected reward. The observed limits of vigilance reflect changes in the perceived value of, among other things, sustaining attention to a task rather than attending to something else. Drawing from recent computational theories of cognitive control and meta-reasoning, we argue that the Strategic Allocation Theory explains more phenomena related to vigilance behavior than other theories, including self-report data. Finally, we outline some of the testable predictions the theory makes across several experimental paradigms. This article is categorized under: Philosophy > Foundations of Cognitive Science Psychology > Attention.

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We studied the impact of humor on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) decision-making performance and the cognitive control exerted during this task, considering sex as a moderator, and examined whether cognitive control mediated the influence of humor on decision-making. Sixty participants (30 females) performed an extended version of the IGT (500 trials divided into 20 blocks). We randomly assigned them to either an experimental group (Humor Group; Hg; n = 30), where humorous videos were interspersed in the decision-making trials or a control group (Non-Humor Group; NHg; n = 30), where nonhumorous videos were interspersed in the decision-making trials. We recorded participant performance and feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P3b event-related potentials (ERP) during IGT feedback as task monitoring and attention allocation indicators, respectively. We expected that whereas humor would improve IGT decision-making under risk in females during the last blocks (17-20) as well as cognitive control (specifically attention allocation and task monitoring) across the entire IGT, it would impair them in males. Contrary to our expectations, humor improved IGT decision-making under risk for both sexes (specifically at blocks 19 and 20) and attention allocation for most IGT blocks (P3b amplitudes). However, humor impaired IGT decision-making under ambiguity in males during the block six and task monitoring (FRN amplitudes) for most IGT blocks. Attention allocation did not mediate the beneficial effect of humor on decision-making under risk in either sex. Task monitoring decrements fully mediated the humor's detrimental influence on men's decision-making under ambiguity during block six.

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Few studies have considered bilingualism's impact on cognitive development within the sociolinguistic and cultural context of the immigrant communities where bilingualism is commonly practiced. In the United States, many Mexican-origin bilingual youth practice their bilingual skills by brokering (i.e., translating/interpreting between languages) for their immigrant parents who have low English proficiency. Meanwhile, these youth may also experience discrimination in their daily life. The present study focuses on Mexican-origin bilingual youth brokers (N=334) in order to examine how discriminatory experiences (i.e., daily and ethnic discrimination) and bilingual brokering experiences captured by profiles are related to cognitive control performance (i.e., attentional control and inhibition). We found no significant direct influence of either bilingual broker profiles or discriminatory experiences on cognitive control. However, the associations between discriminatory experiences and cognitive control performance depended upon brokering experiences. Specifically, greater discrimination was associated with lower cognitive control performance among moderate brokers (with moderate bilingual experiences), but the association was attenuated among efficacious brokers (with positive bilingual experiences). Findings highlight the need to consider the sociolinguistic heterogeneity of both discriminatory experiences and language use when investigating cognitive control performance in bilinguals.

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Cognitive control of behavior is crucial for well-being, as allows subject to adapt to changing environments in a goal-directed way. Changes in cognitive control of behavior is observed during cognitive decline in elderly and in pathological mental conditions. Therefore, the recovery of cognitive control may provide a reliable preventive and therapeutic strategy. However, its neural basis is not completely understood. Cognitive control is supported by the prefrontal cortex, structure that integrates relevant information for the appropriate organization of behavior. At neurophysiological level, it is suggested that cognitive control is supported by local and large-scale synchronization of oscillatory activity patterns and neural spiking activity between the prefrontal cortex and distributed neural networks. In this review, we focus mainly on rodent models approaching the neuronal origin of these prefrontal patterns, and the cognitive and behavioral relevance of its coordination with distributed brain systems. We also examine the relationship between cognitive control and neural activity patterns in the prefrontal cortex, and its role in normal cognitive decline and pathological mental conditions. Finally, based on these body of evidence, we propose a common mechanism that may underlie the impaired cognitive control of behavior.

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Executive functions are related to the control of cognition, emotion, and behavior. They are essential to lifelong outcomes, including school performance. Naturalistic interventions embedded in children's daily activities and environments have greater effects. Therefore, this pilot study aimed to develop a naturalistic program suitable for schools, based on Goal Management Training (GMT), and to analyze its effects on executive functions and behavior. The participants consisted of 35 students from 2nd to 5th grade with executive dysfunction complaints. They underwent neuropsychological assessments of working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and intellectual capacity. Teachers and parents answered questionnaires on executive functions and behavior. Students were randomly assigned to an active control group, who participated in sessions on citizenship, and an experimental group (EG), stimulated through the executive function program, both with 16 sessions conducted by psychologists. After the intervention, all participants were reevaluated. The two-way Wald-type statistic (WTS) revealed greater improvement in executive functions for the EG, including working memory and inhibition. Additionally, parents and teachers, blind to the experimental conditions, reported improvements in some measures of executive functions and behavior. The results are encouraging, but further studies should test the intervention when implemented with larger samples and by teachers.

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Background: Studies on physical activity interventions indicated a facilitative effect on cognitive performance in persons with intellectual disabilities; however, research is scarce, especially in low/middle-income countries. Aim: We explored the effects of a 6-week enriched physical education program on inhibitory control and attention functions in Ecuadorian children with intellectual disabilities. Methods: Thirty children with mild intellectual disabilities (10-14 years old) were randomly assigned to an intervention or control group. Before and after the intervention, attention and inhibitory control were measured using computer-based nonverbal tasks. Results: The findings showed significantly more accurate and faster responses in the vigilance task in the intervention group than in the controls. There were no significant intervention-related changes in inhibitory control; however, there were more prominent accuracy tendencies toward improvement in the intervention group. Conclusions: Results provide evidence of the potential of physical activity programs to enhance attention in this population, which could serve as a mediator for inhibitory control.

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To the best of our knowledge, neurophysiological markers indicating changes induced by non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) on cognitive performance, especially one of the most investigated under these procedures, working memory (WM), are little known. Here, we will briefly introduce frontal midline theta (FM-theta) oscillation (4-8 Hz) as a possible indicator for NIBS effects on WM processing. Electrophysiological recordings of FM-theta oscillation seem to originate in the medial frontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex, but they may be driven more subcortically. FM-theta has been acknowledged to occur during memory and emotion processing, and it has been related to WM and sustained attention. It mainly occurs in the frontal region during a delay period, in which specific information previously shown is no longer perceived and must be manipulated to allow a later (delayed) response and observed in posterior regions during information maintenance. Most NIBS studies investigating effects on cognitive performance have used n-back tasks that mix manipulation and maintenance processes. Thus, if considering FM-theta as a potential neurophysiological indicator for NIBS effects on different WM components, adequate cognitive tasks should be considered to better address the complexity of WM processing. Future research should also evaluate the potential use of FM-theta as an index of the therapeutic effects of NIBS intervention on neuropsychiatric disorders, especially those involving the ventral medial prefrontal cortex and cognitive dysfunctions.

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BACKGROUND: Cognitive control and the attribution of incentive salience are two key neuropsychological processes proposed to explain substance use disorder (SUD). However, little is known about how they interact to influence the severity of drug use in people with SUD. OBJECTIVE: To determine if cognitive control exerts a moderating effect on the relation between the attribution of salience to drug/reward-related cues and the severity of drug use in SUD cases. METHOD: Sixty-nine SUD cases with methamphetamine as the main drug of consumption were selected and evaluated. Participants performed the Stroop, Go/No-Go, and Flanker tasks to identify a latent cognitive control factor, and the Effort-Expenditure for Reward task, as well as answering the Methamphetamine Incentive Salience Questionnaire to measure the attribution of incentive salience. Severity of drug use was determined by the KMSK scale and an exploratory clinical interview. RESULTS: As expected, higher incentive salience attribution predicted greater severity of methamphetamine use. Unexpectedly, however, we found a moderating effect of impaired cognitive control on the relations between higher incentive salience scores and higher monthly drug use, and between younger age at onset of systematic drug use and higher incentive salience scores. CONCLUSION: Results show the moderating role of cognitive control on the relation between incentive salience attribution and severity of drug use in SUD cases, and help explain the chronic, relapsing nature of addiction, knowledge necessary to develop more precise prevention and treatment strategies.

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Response facilitation has often been portrayed as a "low level" category of social learning, because the demonstrator's action, which is already in the observer's repertoire, automatically triggers that same action, rather than induces the learning of a new action. One way to rule out response facilitation consists of introducing a delay between the demonstrator's behavior and the observer's response to let their possible effects wear off. However, this may not rule out "delayed response facilitation" in which the subject could be continuously "mentally rehearsing" the demonstrated actions during the waiting period. We used a do-as-the-other-did paradigm in two orcas to study whether they displayed cognitive control regarding their production of familiar actions by (1) introducing a delay ranging from 60 to 150 s between observing and producing the actions and (2) interspersing distractor (non-target) actions performed by the demonstrator and by the subjects during the delay period. These two manipulations were aimed at preventing the mental rehearsal of the observed actions during the delay period. Both orcas copied the model's target actions on command after various delay periods, and crucially, despite the presence of distractor actions. These findings suggest that orcas are capable of selectively retrieving a representation of an observed action to generate a delayed matching response. Moreover, these results lend further support to the proposal that the subjects' performance relied not only on a mental representation of the specific actions that were requested to copy, but also flexibly on the abstract and domain general rule requested by the specific "copy command". Our findings strengthen the view that orcas and other cetaceans are capable of flexible and controlled social learning.

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In recent years, a growing corpus of research has been conducted utilizing a variety of behavioral and neurophysiological methodologies to investigate the relationship of emotion and cognition, yielding unique insights into fundamental concerns about the human mind and mental disease. Electroencephalography (EEG) has been utilized to investigate how emotional states alter neural markers of cognitive control. The current study is a systematic analysis of EEG research that looks at affective modulation (mood, emotion) of cognitive control and its many sub-processes (e.g., cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory). The PRISMA standards were followed in this review, which looked at experimental designs and tasks, as well as methodological elements of EEG recording and analysis across research. A total of 35 articles were chosen for qualitative synthesis as a consequence of the search. The examination of event-related potentials (ERPs), which showed affective modulation of 19 different components, was the most common electrophysiological approach used across research. The majority of the investigations focused on N2 and P3, indicating that affective induction has a strong influence on attentional processes and response inhibition. Future research should look into different methodologies such as source location and connection metrics to better understand the brain's areas and dynamic response during affective induction activities. It is also suggested that the technical components of the report be more explicit in order to promote study comparability and replication.

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Mediated priming refers to the activation of a target word by a prime word through an intermediate word. This type of priming provides behavioral evidence of between- and within-level spreading activation in the lexical system. Studies of toddlers show phonosemantic between-level mediated priming that supports a cascade of activation between different levels of processing. However, it is not clear whether the activation can spread freely within the same level. This study explored whether 24-month-old toddlers show mediated priming effects at the semantic level (e.g., cat [prime] - mouse [mediator] - cheese [target]) with a preferential looking task using an eye tracker. The results show a smaller proportion of target looking and greater pupil size in the related condition than in the unrelated condition; these effects were greater in the second half of the analysis window. We interpret these data as a spreading activation that is partially free but modulated during infancy. We also provide evidence of pupil dilation as a neurophysiological marker in a preferential looking task with priming. We discuss the results in light of the cognitive control, inhibition, and general cognitive skills of toddlers.

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BACKGROUND: Working memory performance is associated with better academic achievements in children and adolescents, and it is positively related to CRF. However, what level of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) discriminates higher working memory performance is not known. The purpose of this study was to identify CRF thresholds linked to working memory in adolescents. METHODS: Data of 141 adolescents (53.2 % girls) were collected (14.9 years) from a cross-sectional study during the year 2019. CRF was assessed by the 20-m shuttle run test, and maximal oxygen uptake was calculated using the Mahar´s equation. Working memory was evaluated by the Corsi blocks test and performance was classified by percentiles. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to identify CRF thresholds. RESULTS: The ROC analysis indicated that CRF could be used to discriminate working memory in adolescents. CRF thresholds of ≥45.03 ml.kg- 1.min- 1for boys and ≥36.63 ml.kg- 1.min- 1for girls were found to be indicative of "normal" working memory performance. CONCLUSIONS: CRF could discriminate low and normal working memory performance in 14-16- year-old adolescents. These thresholds could allow for earlier identification and intervention of low working memory performance using CRF.

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Over the last few decades, different interventions were shown to be effective in changing cognitive performance in preschoolers from poor homes undertaking tasks with executive demands. However, this evidence also showed that not all children included in the intervention groups equally increased their performance levels, which could be related to individual and contextual variability. The present study aimed to explore the impact of a computerized cognitive training intervention with lab-based tasks in preschoolers from Unsatisfied Basic Needs (UBN) homes under the consideration of their baseline performance. In the context of a randomized controlled trial design, different interventions were administered to children according to their baseline performance in a variety of cognitive tasks (i.e., executive attention, inhibitory control, working memory, and planning demands). The results showed different patterns of impact on performance depending on the experimental group, supporting the importance of considering individual and contextual differences in the design of interventions aimed at optimizing executive functions in poverty-impacted sample populations in early stages of development.

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The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is a popular method for examining real-life decision-making. Research has shown gender related differences in performance, in that men consistently outperform women. It has been suggested that these performance differences are related to decreased emotional control in women compared to men. Given the likely role of emotion in these gender differences, in the present study, we examine the effect of a humor induction on IGT performance and whether the effect of humor is moderated by gender. IGT performance and parameters from the Expectancy Valence Model (EVM) were measured in 68 university students (34 men; mean age 22.02, SD = 4.3 and 34 women; mean age 22.3, SD = 4.1) during a 100 trial-IGT task. Participants were exposed to a brief video before each of the IGT decisions available; one half of the samples (17 men and 17 women) was exposed to 100 humor videos, while the other half was exposed to 100 non-humor videos during the task. We observed a significant interaction between gender and humor, such that under humor, women's performance during the last block (trials 80-100) improved (compared to women under non-humor), whereas men's performance during the last block was worse (compared to men under non-humor). Consistent with previous work, under non-humor, men outperformed women in the last block. Lastly, our EVM results show that humor impacts the learning mechanisms of decision-making differently in men and women. Humor impaired men's ability to acquire knowledge about the payoff structure of the decks, and as a consequence, they were stuck in suboptimal performance. On the other hand, humor facilitated women's ability to explore and to learn from experience, improving performance. These findings deepen our understanding of the mechanisms underlying IGT decision-making and differential effects of humor in men and women.

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Due to movement automatization, the engagement of high-order cognitive processing during the motor execution of a task is expected to decrease over repetitions and practice. In this study, we assessed single session changes in the prefrontal hemodynamic signals in response to training a piano chord progression in an ecological experimental setting. We acquired functional near-infrared spectroscopy signals from 15 subjects without any previous experience on playing keyboard instruments. Our findings were that oxygenated hemoglobin changes at orbitofrontal cortex followed an inverted U-shaped curve over task execution, while the subjects' performance presented a steady slope. These results suggest an initial executive function engagement followed by facilitation of motor execution over time.

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OBJECTIVE: To increase the understanding of social adjustment and autism spectrum disorder symptoms in adolescents born very preterm by studying the role of emotion recognition and cognitive control processes in the relation between very preterm birth and social adjustment. STUDY DESIGN: A Dutch cohort of 61 very preterm and 61 full-term adolescents aged 13 years participated. Social adjustment was rated by parents, teachers, and adolescents and autism spectrum disorder symptoms by parents. Emotion recognition was assessed with a computerized task including pictures of child faces expressing anger, fear, sadness, and happiness with varying intensity. Cognitive control was assessed using a visuospatial span, antisaccade, and sustained attention to response task. Performance measures derived from these tasks served as indicators of a latent cognitive control construct, which was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. Mediation analyses were conducted with emotion recognition and cognitive control as mediators of the relation between very preterm birth and social problems. RESULTS: Very preterm adolescents showed more parent- and teacher-rated social problems and increased autism spectrum disorder symptomatology than controls. No difference in self-reported social problems was observed. Moreover, very preterm adolescents showed deficits in emotion recognition and cognitive control compared with full-term adolescents. The relation between very preterm birth and parent-rated social problems was significantly mediated by cognitive control but not by emotion recognition. Very preterm birth was associated with a 0.67-SD increase in parent-rated social problems through its negative effect on cognitive control. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings provide strong evidence for a central role of impaired cognitive control in the social problems of adolescents born very preterm.

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OBJECTIVE: To examine the associations of physical fitness and physical activity with executive function in children with overweight and obesity. STUDY DESIGN: A cross-sectional study involving 100 children with overweight and obesity (10.1 ± 1.1 years old; 58.0% boys). We assessed physical fitness components (ie, muscular strength, speed-agility, and cardiorespiratory fitness) using the ALPHA battery, and physical activity and sedentary time by accelerometry. Cognitive flexibility was measured by the Design Fluency Test and Trail Making Test, inhibition by the Stroop test, and planning ability by the Zoo Map Test. RESULTS: Handgrip strength was positively associated with planning ability (P = .025). Speed-agility was positively related to cognitive flexibility and inhibition (P < .05). Cardiorespiratory fitness and an overall fitness Z-score were positively associated with indicators of cognitive flexibility (P < .05). No associations were found for physical activity and sedentary time with executive function (P ≥ .05). CONCLUSIONS: Muscular strength, speed agility, and cardiorespiratory fitness are associated with executive function in children with overweight and obesity. Cognitive flexibility seems to be more robustly associated with all fitness components, whereas planning ability and inhibition might depend on the component analyzed. The positive associations found in the present study in children with overweight and obesity call for more exercise-based randomized controlled trials in this population.

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Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) relates to the deployment of decision-making processes at the network edge or mobile devices rather than in a centralized network entity like the cloud. This paradigm shift is acknowledged as one key pillar to enable autonomous operation and self-awareness in mobile devices in IoT. Under this paradigm, we focus on mobility-based services (MBSs), where mobile devices are expected to perform energy-efficient GPS data acquisition while also providing location accuracy. We rely on a fully on-device Cognitive Dynamic Systems (CDS) platform to propose and evaluate a cognitive controller aimed at both tackling the presence of uncertainties and exploiting the mobility information learned by such CDS toward energy-efficient and accurate location tracking via mobility-aware sampling policies. We performed a set of experiments and validated that the proposed control strategy outperformed similar approaches in terms of energy savings and spatio-temporal accuracy in LBS and MBS for smartphone devices.

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Previous research has investigated the effects of violence and warfare on individuals' well-being, mental health, and individual prosociality and risk aversion. This study establishes the short- and long-term effects of exposure to violence on short-term memory and aspects of cognitive control. Short-term memory is the ability to store information. Cognitive control is the capacity to exert inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Both have been shown to affect positively individual well-being and societal development. We sampled Colombian civilians who were exposed either to urban violence or to warfare more than a decade earlier. We assessed exposure to violence through either the urban district-level homicide rate or self-reported measures. Before undertaking cognitive tests, a randomly selected subset of our sample was asked to recall emotions of anxiety and fear connected to experiences of violence, whereas the rest recalled joyful or emotionally neutral experiences. We found that higher exposure to violence was associated with lower short-term memory abilities and lower cognitive control in the group recalling experiences of violence, whereas it had no effect in the other group. This finding demonstrates that exposure to violence, even if a decade earlier, can hamper cognitive functions, but only among individuals actively recalling emotional states linked with such experiences. A laboratory experiment conducted in Germany aimed to separate the effect of recalling violent events from the effect of emotions of fear and anxiety. Both factors had significant negative effects on cognitive functions and appeared to be independent from each other.

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Many advances have been made over the last decades in describing, on the one hand, the link between reward-based learning and decision-making, and on the other hand, the link between impulsivity and decision-making. However, the association between reward-based learning and impulsivity remains poorly understood. In this study, we evaluated the association between individual differences in loss-minimizing and gain-maximizing behavior in a learning-based probabilistic decision-making task and individual differences in cognitive impulsivity. We found that low cognitive impulsivity was associated both with a better performance minimizing losses and maximizing gains during the task. These associations remained significant after controlling for mathematical skills and gender as potential confounders. We discuss potential mechanisms through which cognitive impulsivity might interact with reward-based learning and decision-making.