Luis J Fuentes

• PhD
• Principal Investigator at University of Murcia

We employed the retro-cue paradigm to examine performance improvements resulting from permanent versus temporary removal in verbal working memory. Permanent removal entails discarding a subset of working memory representations marked as definitively irrelevant, while temporary removal involves momentarily setting aside the uncued subset of represen...

Esta investigación pretendía explorar el impacto del Procedimiento de Consecuencias Diferenciales (PCD) en la estimulación de la Conciencia Fonológica y de la Velocidad de Denominación en alumnos prelectores. El estudio utilizó una muestra de 61 alumnos de edades comprendidas entre 5 y 5 años y 11 meses. Los resultados indicaron que los alumnos de...

Flexible updating of information in Visual Working Memory (VWM) is crucial to deal with its limited capacity. Previous research has shown that the removal of no longer relevant information takes some time to complete. Here, we sought to study the time course of such removal by tracking the accompanying drop in load through behavioral and neurophysi...

This study aimed to ascertain the contribution of children’s effortful control (EC) to math achievement by testing the mediational involvement of math anxiety. Participants were 704 children (367 girls) aged between 7 and 12 years ( M = 9.43, SD = 1.23). Children’s EC was measured by parent’s report, math anxiety was assessed through self-report, w...

We investigated whether chronotype and time-of-day modulate the time course of automatic and controlled semantic processing. Participants performed a category semantic priming task at either the optimal or non-optimal time of day. We varied the prime-target onset asynchrony (100-, 450-, 650-, and 850-ms SOAs) and kept the percentage of unrelated ta...

We assessed whether self-related automatic and others-related controlled processes are modulated by chronotype and time-of-day. Here, a shape-label matching task composed of three geometrical shapes arbitrarily associated with you, friend, and stranger was used. Twenty Morning-types, and twenty Evening-types performed the task at the optimal and no...

The aim of this study was to examine the reliability, validity, and factorial structure of the Spanish version of the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (CIPS). A sample of 271 Spanish students was recruited to complete a translated version of the original 20-item CIPS. In our sample, the instrument showed high internal consistency reliability (ωTota...

Recent research evidence has shown the importance of different psychological constructions for analyzing problems associated with lack of adequate behavior management in human beings. The model of the different levels of behavioral analysis – microanalysis level, molecular level and molar level – allows us to approach the study of executive functio...

Flexible updating of information in Visual Working Memory (VWM) is crucial to deal with its limited capacity. Previous research has shown that the removal of no longer relevant information takes some time to complete. Here, we sought to study the time course of such removal by tracking the accompanying drop in load through behavioral and neurophysi...

Background Decrements in performance and the propensity for increased mind-wandering (i.e., task-unrelated thoughts) across time-on-task are two pervasive phenomena observed when people perform vigilance tasks. In the present study, we asked whether processes that lead to vigilance decrement and processes that foster the propensity for mind-wanderi...

We assessed whether self-related automatic and others-related controlled processes are modulated by chronotype and time-of-day. Here, we used a shape-label matching task in which three geometrical shapes (square, circle, triangle) were arbitrarily associated with labels referred to oneself (you) or others (friend and stranger). Participants with Mo...

The study explore the modulation of time course of automatic and controlled processing by chronotype and time of testing. We used a category semantic priming task with a low proportion of related targets. Facilitatory priming was expected with the short 100-ms SOA wile inhibitory priming was expected with long SOAs. Important differences were found...

Circadian rhythm patterns vary across individuals, producing the existence of different chronotypes. Chronotype refers to the preferences of individuals to perform their daily life activities, being classified as intermediate-types (no specific circadian preference), morning-types (preference for early morning hours) and evening-types (preference f...

Background Circadian rhythm patterns vary across individuals, producing the existence of different chronotypes. Chronotype refers to the preferences of individuals to perform their daily life activities, being classified as intermediate-types (no specific circadian preference), morning-types (preference for early morning hours) and evening-types (p...

Background: Circadian rhythm patterns vary across individuals, producing the existence of different chronotypes. Chronotype refers to the preferences of individuals to perform their daily life activities, being classified as intermediate-types (no specific circadian preference), morning-types (preference for early morning hours) and evening-types (...

When differential outcomes follow correct responses to each of multiple to-be-learned associations between a sample stimulus and a comparison stimulus (the differential outcomes procedure, DOP), performance is significantly better in comparison with when the associated stimuli and the outcomes are matched randomly (the non-differential outcomes pro...

Background Decrements in performance and the propensity for increased mind-wandering (i.e., task-unrelated thoughts) across time-on-task are two pervasive phenomena observed when people perform vigilance tasks. Whether vigilance decrement and mind-wandering (MW) are independent phenomena is still an open question. In the present study, we addressed...

The aim of this study was to examine the reliability, validity, and factorial structure of the Spanish version of the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (CIPS). A sample of 271 Spanish students was recruited to complete a translated version of the original 20-item CIPS. In our sample, the instrument showed high internal consistency reliability (ωTota...

We explored the effects of parietal damage on inhibitory effects of visuospatial attention, inhibition of return (IOR) and inhibitory tagging (IT), in the vertical meridian. We combined a vertical spatial cue paradigm with a Stroop task employing three different temporal intervals between the spatial cue and the target (700, 1200 and 2000 ms) in tw...

Structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) studies have shown that children that differ in some mathematical abilities show differences in gray matter volume mainly in parietal and frontal regions that are involved in number processing, attentional control, and memory. In the present study, a structural neuroimaging analysis based on radiomics an...

Background: In this study we assessed the effects of progesterone on vigilance tasks that require sustained attention. In contrast to previous research, we differentiated two components of vigilance: the exogenous component, involved in monotonous and tedious tasks such as the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT); and the endogenous component, involved...

Current theoretical accounts on the oscillatory nature of sustained attention predict that entrainment via transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at alpha and theta frequencies on specific areas of the prefrontal cortex could prevent the drops in vigilance across time‐on‐task. Nonetheless, most previous studies have neglected both the...

Research on reading comprehension in immigrant students is heterogeneous and conflicting. Differences in socioeconomic status and cultural origins are very likely confounds in determining whether differences to native pupils can be attributed to immigrant status. We collected data on 312 Spanish students of Native, of Hispanic origin–therefore with...

We typically observe a decrement in vigilance with time-on-task, which favors the propensity for mind-wandering, i.e., the shifting of attention from the task at hand to task-unrelated thoughts. Here, we examined participants’ mind-wandering, either intentional or unintentional, while performing vigilance tasks that tap different components of vigi...

In previous studies, we showed that a custom computer-based cognitive training program, mainly tapping working memory (WM), and integrated in real-life school environment, improved cognitive and academic skills in a group of primary school children. Improvements correlated with modulations of their functional brain connectivity at rest. In the pres...

Math anxiety (MA) affects students of all age groups. Because of its effects on children’s academic development, the need to recognize its early manifestations has been highlighted. We designed a European-Spanish version of the Scale for Early Mathematics Anxiety (SEMA; Wu et al. (2012)), and assessed its psychometric properties in a sample of chil...

Background Current theoretical accounts on the oscillatory nature of sustained attention predict that entrainment via transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at alpha and theta frequencies on the frontoparietal network could prevent the drops in vigilance across time-on-task. Nonetheless, most previous studies have neglected both the fa...

Background: The current study examined people’s propensity to mind wander when they perform vigilance tasks that tap different components of vigilance, namely arousal or executive. We suggest that the propensity to mind-wander may occur not only spontaneously (unintentional), but also deliberately (intentional) and that this distinction may have co...

Brain areas related to mathematical abili- ties in children have been mainly assessed through their activation in fMRI, while volume-based analysis have been employed in sMRI to discover structural differ- ences. However, a recent technique in precision medicine allows to enhance the sMRI analysis by extracting a large number of features, also call...

In categorization tasks, two memory systems may be involved in the learning of categories: one explicit and rule-based system, and another implicit and procedure-based system. Learning of rule-base categories relies on some form of explicit reasoning, whereas procedural memory underlies information-integration category-learning tasks, in which perf...

Abstract The simple manipulation of pairing specific outcomes with the sample stimuli strongly affects discriminative learning and memory processes. This procedure has been named the Differential Outcomes Procedure (DOP) and is usually compared to a control condition (the non-differential procedure, NOP) consisting in the random administration of t...

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common neurobehavioral disorder in childhood and can significantly affect a child's personal and social development and academic achievement. Taking into account the model of attentional networks proposed by Posner et al., the aim of the present study was to review the literature regarding...

Chronotype refers to the time of day preferred by individuals to perform daily activities according to their circadian rhythm. We asked whether synchrony effects, that is, the difference in performance between the optimal and non-optimal time of day as a function of chronotype, are observed in two tasks that differently involve the endogenous compo...

Background Attention and perception are strongly biased toward information about oneself compared to information about others. The self-attention network, an integrative theoretical framework for understanding the self-prioritization effects (SPE), proposes that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), and the posterior superior temporal sulcus...

Working memory (WM) has been thought to be the cause of associative memory deficits in older adults. Previous research has demonstrated the benefits of a discriminative learning procedure, the differential outcomes procedure (DOP), to ameliorate such associative-memory maintenance deficits in situations that simulate adherence to medical prescripti...

Background Adherence to treatment is a crucial factor for patients who have chronic illnesses or multiple morbidities and polypharmacy, which is frequently found in older adults. The non-adherence to medications has important economic and social consequences as well as impacts on the health of the patients. One of the reasons that can explain the l...

When a cueing procedure that usually triggers inhibition of return (IOR) effects is combined with tasks that tap semantic processing, or involve response-based conflict, an inhibitory tagging (IT) emerges that disrupts responses to stimuli at inhibited locations. IT seems to involve the executive prefrontal cortex, mainly the left dorsolateral pref...

We have shown that a computer-based program that trains schoolchildren in cognitive tasks that mainly tap working memory (WM), implemented by teachers and integrated into school routine, improved cognitive and academic skills compared with an active control group. Concretely, improvements were observed in inhibition skills, non-verbal IQ, mathemati...

The functional validity of the signal obtained with low-cost electroencephalography (EEG) devices is still under debate. Here, we have conducted an in-depth comparison of the EEG-recordings obtained with a medical-grade golden-cup electrodes ambulatory device, the SOMNOwatch + EEG-6, vs those obtained with a consumer-grade, single dry electrode low...

In cueing tasks, predictive and non-predictive exogenous spatial cues produce distinct patterns of behavioral effects. Although both cues initially attract attention, only non-predictive cues lead to inhibitory effects (worse performance at the cued location as compared to the uncued location) if the time elapsed between the cue and the target is l...

We studied the effects of task load variations as a function of flight complexity on combat pilots' gaze behavior (i.e., entropy) while solving in-flight emergencies. The second company of the Spanish Army Attack Helicopter Battalion (n=15) performed three sets of standardized flight exercises with different levels of complexity (low [recognition f...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206431.].

Dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are two complex neuro-behaviorally disorders that co-occur more often than expected, so that reading disability has been linked to inattention symptoms. We examined 4 SNPs located on genes previously associated to dyslexia (KIAA0319, DCDC2, DYX1C1 and FOXP2) and 3 SNPs within genes relate...

Candidate SNP´s frequencies in European population. (DOCX)

Contains the SNP genotyping raw data for each performed comparative as *.ped and *.map files, and a subfolder named “Freq_two locus” containing the frequency of the composite genotypes (two by two). (RAR)

Association results for single markers at different genetic models in female samples. (DOCX)

Association results for single markers at different genetic models in male samples. (DOCX)

Association results for single markers at allelic model in female samples. (DOCX)

Association results for single markers at allelic model. (DOCX)

Mean values and standard deviation (SD) of the psychometric characteristics across ages for ADHD and ADHD-control samples. (DOCX)

Principal component analysis. Graphic representation of the two principal components obtained through the PLINK program for the cases and controls of dyslexia, ADHD and comorbidity after whole genome genotyping with OmniExpress Beadchips (Illumina Inc.). Green dots = Dyslexia; grey = Dyslexia controls; pink = ADHD; black = ADHD controls; blue = com...

Association results for single markers at different genetic models. (DOCX)

Association results for single markers at allelic model in male samples. (DOCX)

Mean values and standard deviation (SD) of the psychometric characteristics across ages for dyslexia and dyslexia-control samples. (DOCX)

Mean values and standard deviation (SD) of the psychometric characteristics across ages for comorbid and comorbid-control samples. (DOCX)

Description of cognitive tasks. (DOCX)

The current study examines the relationship between 18‐month‐old toddlers’ vocabulary size and their ability to inhibit attention to no‐longer relevant information using the backward semantic inhibition paradigm. When adults switch attention from one semantic category to another, the former and no‐longer‐relevant semantic category becomes inhibited...

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has been fixed in the paper.

Math Anxiety (MA) is characterized by a negative emotional response when facing math-related situations. MA is distinct from general anxiety and can emerge during primary education. Prior studies typically comprise adults and comparisons between high- versus low-MA, where neuroimaging work has focused on differences in network activation between gr...

The goal of the current study was to identify factors that contribute to individual differences in school functioning. We proposed a model including direct effects of Effortful Control (EC) on Spanish 6- to 12-year olds' (N = 142) academic achievement and social adaptation at school, with these relations partially mediated by learning-related behav...

It has recently been reported that the differential outcomes procedure (DOP) might be one of the therapeutical techniques focused at promoting autonomy in the elderly to deal with their medical issues. Molina et al. (2015) found that a group of healthy young adults improved their learning and long-term retention of six disorder/pill associations wh...

Student academic achievement has been positively related to further development outcomes, such as the attainment of higher educational, employment, and socioeconomic aspirations. Among all the academic competences, mathematics has been identified as an essential skill in the field of international leadership as well as for those seeking positions i...

Driver fatigue can impair performance as much as alcohol does. It is the most important road safety concern, causing thousands of accidents and fatalities every year. Thanks to technological developments, wearable, single-channel EEG devices are now getting considerable attention as fatigue monitors, as they could help drivers to assess their own l...

Introducción. La utilización de pruebas estandarizadas para la evaluación de las habilidades atencionales, es una práctica habitual dentro de contextos clínicos y educativos. Puesto que el concepto de atención resulta algo ambiguo, este estudio intenta examinar la relación entre algunas de estas pruebas y la atención ejecutiva, tal y como es concep...

Objective: Deficits in fine motor coordination have been suggested to be associated with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). However, despite the negative impact of poor fine motor skills on academic achievement, researchers have paid little attention to this problem. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between ADHD d...

Math Anxiety (MA) is characterized by a negative emotional response when facing math-related situations. MA is distinct from general anxiety and can emerge during primary education. Prior studies typically comprise adults and comparisons between high-versus low-MA, where neuroimaging work has focused on differences in network activation between gro...

Difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories is known as overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM). OGM has been related with clinical psychopathology (e.g., depression, schizophrenia, etc.). People presenting an OGM style usually recall more repetitive summary-type memories, so-called categoric memories, (e.g., ‘each time I saw her’...

In one task-switching experiment, we compared bilinguals and monolinguals to explore the reliability of the bilingualism effect on the n-2 repetition cost. In a second task-switching experiment, we tested another group of bilinguals and monolinguals and measured both the n-1 shift cost and the n-2 repetition cost to test the hypothesis that bilingu...

Background: Task (over)load imposed on operators who work at safety-critical environments is a main contributing factor to the occurrence of catastrophic errors. Laboratory research has shown that gaze metrics represent a valid tool to asses operator task load. Thus, gaze metrics have the potential to improve operator and system safety by providing...

The present research explores working memory (WM) development in monolingual as well as emergent bilingual children immersed in an L2 at school. Evidence from recent years suggests that bilingualism may boost domain-general executive control, but impair nonexecutive linguistic processing. Both are relevant for verbal WM, but different paradigms cur...

Although several recent studies investigated the hemispheric contributions to the attentional networks using the Attention Network Test (ANT), the role of the cerebral hemispheres in modulating the interaction among them remains unclear. In this study, two lateralized versions of this test (LANT) were used to investigate theal effects on the attent...

Attention switching is a crucial ability required in everyday life, from toddlerhood to adulthood. In adults, shifting attention from one word (e.g., dog) to another (e.g., sea) results in backward semantic inhibition, that is, the inhibition of the initial word (dog). In this study, we used the preferential-looking paradigm to examine whether atte...

Family environment has been found to be an essential contributor to children’s social development (Boyum & Parke, 1995; Eisenberg et al., 1996, 2001) but the mechanisms through which family can influence children’s social competences are still matter of study. Zhou et al. (2002) have proposed that a positive family climate would foster children’s e...

The data article includes reaction time and accuracy from four experiments. It descries three independent variables: the social meaning of geometric shape (include self, friend and stranger), the label of identify (self, friend and stranger), the body perceptive (first-person perspective and third-person perspective), see (Sun et al., 2016) [1].

Introduction: Although the critical feature of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity/impulsivity behavior, the disorder is clinically heterogeneous, and concomitant difficulties are common. Children with ADHD are at increased risk for experiencing lifelong impairments in multiple...

Working memory (WM) is essential to academic achievement. Any enhancement of WM abilities may improve children’s school performance. We tested the usefulness of the differential outcomes procedure (DOP) to enhance typically developing children’s performance on a spatial WM task. The DOP involves a conditional discriminative learning task in which a...

Memory for medical recommendations is a prerequisite for good adherence to treatment, and therefore to ameliorate the negative effects of the disease, a problem that mainly affects people with memory deficits. We conducted a simulated study to test the utility of a procedure (the differential outcomes procedure, DOP) that may improve adherence to t...