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The developing brain in a multitasking world
... Lehetséges ugyanakkor az is, hogy egy unalmas feladat mellett végzett párhuzamos tevékenység (pl. beszélgetés vezetés közben) segíti az éberségi állapot 6 (alerting network) fenntartását, ami javíthatja a teljesítményt (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). ...
... A kisgyermekek és óvodások számára a multitasking egy kiemelt kihívást jelentő tevékenység, hiszen ekkor még éretlen a végrehajtó figyelmi hálózat (executive network), amely többek között a fókuszált figyelem fenntartásáért és a disztraktor ingerekkel szembeni ellenállásért felel. Ennek következtében figyelmük könnyen elterelhető olyan párhuzamosan megjelenő, figyelemfelkeltő ingerek jelenlétében, mint például a bekapcsolt televízió (Petersen & Posner, 2012;Rothbart & Posner, 2015). Ezt alátámasztja az is, hogy a televízió bekapcsolását követően lerövidül az az idő, amit a 6 és 12 hónapos csecsemők a játékoknak szentelnek, továbbá tekintetük gyakrabban vándorol el a készülék irányába. ...
... Úgy véli lehetséges, hogy a játék találkozik a felhasználó pszichológiai szükségleteivel, ami által az egyén belekerülhet egy olyan spirálba, amely a játék révén felerősíti az eleve meglévő agresszív viselkedéses tendenciáit. Ezzel összecseng az, hogy az impulzív, figyelemzavaros személyek általában hosszabb időt töltenek videójátékok használatával (Gentile, Swing, Lim & Khoo, 2012), többet ülnek képernyő előtt vagy gyakrabban keresik a média multitasking lehetőségét (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). Az ADHD-s személyekre ráadásul jellemző lehet az is, hogy intenzív közösségi média használattal próbálnak meg megküzdeni a múlt negatív eseményeivel, illetve a pesszimista jövőképpel (Settanni, Marengo, Fabris, & Longobardi, 2018). ...
Az információs-és kommunikációtechnológiai eszközök (IKT) használata ma már szinte elengedhetetlen a mindennapjaink során. Míg korábban elsősorban a számítógépet, a televíziót és a videójátékokat soroltuk az IKT-eszközök közé, ma már számolnunk kell az okostelefonok és táblagépek használatával is. Az elmúlt tíz évben ugyanis közel duplájára nőtt az egy, vagy több okoseszközzel rendelkező háztartások száma (Common Sense Media, 2020). Magyarországon 2018-ban a 17 és 74 év közöttiek 69%-a használta telefonját internet elérésre, ez a szám 2011-ben még csak 10% volt. Bár hazánkban is folyamatosan növekszik az interneteléréssel és a saját tulajdonú okostelefonnal rendelkező háztartások száma, jenleg még elmaradás tapasztalható ezen a területen az Európai Uniós átlaghoz képest. Ez az elmaradás legmarkánsabban 65 és 74 év közti korosztályban figyelhető meg. Míg az idősebb korosztályban megfigyelhető egy csökkenő tendencia az IKT-eszközök használatát illetően, addig a fiatalabb korosztályban igen jelentős a felhasználók köre. A 16 és 24 év közöttiek 97%-a internetezik napi rendszerességgel (Központi Statisztikai Hivatal, 2020). Egy amerikai felmérésben (Common Sense Media, 2020) emellett rámutattak arra is, hogy a 2-4 éves gyermekek közel 50%-a rendelkezik saját okostelefonnal vagy táblagéppel. Ezeket ráadásul a környezetükben lévő felnőttek segítsége nélkül is képesek gördülékenyen kezelni (Kabali, Irigoyen, Nunez-Davis, Budacki, Mohanty, Leister & Bonner, 2015). A nyolc év alattiak leggyakrabban videókat néznek, játszanak, illetve elektronikus mesekönyveket néznek/hallgatnak, míg idősebb korban (8-18 év) az elektronikus könyveket a közösségi média platformok használata és a böngészés váltja fel (Common Sense Media, 2020; Common Sense Media, 2019a). A Common Sense Media 2020-as kimutatása-amelynek elkészültéhez több mint 1400 szülő járult hozzá-rámutatott arra, hogy a két év alatti gyermekek átlagosan közel napi ötven percet töltenek képernyő előtt. Ehhez képest az 5-8 éves korosztályra már megközelítőleg napi három óra médiahasználat a jellemző. Ennek egyharmadát az okostelefonokon/táblagépeken végzett tevékenység teszi ki.
... Lehetséges ugyanakkor az is, hogy egy unalmas feladat mellett végzett párhuzamos tevékenység (pl. beszélgetés vezetés közben) segíti az éberségi állapot (alerting network) fenntartását, ami javíthatja a teljesítményt (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). ...
... A kisgyermekek és óvodások számára a multitasking egy kiemelt kihívást jelentő tevékenység, hiszen ekkor még éretlen a végrehajtó figyelmi hálózat (executive network), amely többek között a fókuszált figyelem fenntartásáért és a disztraktor ingerekkel szembeni ellenállásért felel. Ennek következtében figyelmük könnyen elterelhető olyan párhuzamosan megjelenő, figyelemfelkeltő ingerek jelenlétében, mint például a bekapcsolt televízió Rothbart & Posner, 2015). Ezt alátámasztja az is, hogy a televízió bekapcsolását követően lerövidül az az idő, amit a 6-12 hónapos csecsemők a játékoknak szentelnek, továbbá tekintetük gyakrabban vándorol el a készülék irányába. ...
... A digitális média és a figyelemzavar között megfigyelt kapcsolatot illetően olyan magyarázat is született, amely amellett érvel, hogy a digitális technológiával töltött idő csökkenti a más, kognitíve stimulálóbb tevékenységekben való elköteleződést. Ez visszavetheti a fejlődést az élet több területén is, érintheti a társas készségeket, a nyelvi kompetenciát vagy a munkamemória-kapacitást is (Christakis, 2009 (Gentile, Swing, Lim & Khoo, 2012), többet ülnek képernyő előtt, vagy gyakrabban keresik a média multitasking lehetőségét (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). Az ADHD-s személyekre ráadásul jellemző lehet az is, hogy intenzív közösségimédia-használattal próbálnak meg megküzdeni a múlt negatív eseményeivel, illetve a pesszimista jövőképpel (Settanni, Marengo, Fabris, & Longobardi, 2018 Ebből fakadóan a figyelemzavarral élő gyerekekre is intenzívebb médiahasználat lehet jellemző, mivel a szülők ezzel próbálhatják szabályozni a gyermekük viselkedését (Radesky, Zuckerman, Peacock-Chambers & Silverstein, 2016). ...
A figyelem az életünk meghatározó része, a legapróbb cselekedeteinket is átszövi kora gyermekkortól egészen az időskorig. Mindenki tud példát mondani arra, amikor figyelt, amikor valamire direkt nem figyelt, amikor észrevett valami változást, amit mások nem, amikor elfáradt és nem tudott tovább figyelni, és arra is, amikor felfrissült és újra oda tudott figyelni. Persze ebben nagyok az egyéni különbségek, hiszen arra, hogy mire, mennyire és hogyan figyelünk, hat az, hogy milyen természetűek vagyunk. Az viszont mindenkire igaz, hogy figyelem nélkül sok szórakoztató tevékenységet nem tudnánk gyakorolni. A figyelmi képességünk alapvető, elválaszthatatlan része a kommunikációnak, a digitális eszközhasználatnak, a sportnak és a művészetnek. Ugyanakkor a figyelmi képességeink alapvetőségének akkor kerülünk igazán tudatába, amikor valamelyik „része” hiányzik. A figyelmi deficitek széles körben megjelennek a neuropszichológiától a különböző függőségeken át a figyelemhiányos hiperaktivitás-zavarig. Jelen kötet célja közérthetően bemutatni a figyelem (kognitív) pszichológiájának sokszínűségét és egyes aspektusainak gyakorlati relevanciáját olyan alkalmazott szemlélettel, amely érthető az érdeklődő laikusoknak és hasznára lehet számos diszciplínában tanuló (jövőbeli) szakembernek.
... A NE modula às estruturas frontais e parietais, sendo que o hemisfério direito e estruturas talâmicas apresentam um envolvimento com os estados tônico e fásico. (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). ...
... Coutinho, Mattos & Abreu (2018) a chamam de rede de atenção visual, sendo ela assimétrica e com dominância à direita. Esta rede parece ter uma influência muito grande do movimento ocular (movimento sacádico) para promover a seleção dos inputs (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). A rede de Orientação se localiza nos campos frontais ocular, Lobo parietal superior, Junção parietal temporal, Superior colliculus e Pulvinar, tendo como neuromodulador a Acetilcolina (Voelke, Rothbart & Posner, 2016). ...
... Um outro componente do sistema atencional é a atenção executiva, que envolve mecanismos de monitoramento e resolução de conflitos entre pensamentos, sentimentos e comportamento. Rothbart & Posner (2015) afirmaram que a atenção executiva é um preditor da regulação das emoções. Uma maneira de entender o trabalho da rede da atenção executiva seria quando a atenção muda para um novo foco (Coutinho, Mattos & Abreu, 2018). ...
... In addition, we focussed on two untested aspects relating to media-multitasking: how this influences the ability to managing multiple cognitive tasks concurrently generally and how this changes across the lifespan (we tested ages ranging from 7 to 70 years). Multitasking ability is associated with substantial maturational change from childhood through to adolescence 18 . During this age period there is also the potential for considerable neural plasticity in brain regions involved in cognitive control 19 . ...
... During this age period there is also the potential for considerable neural plasticity in brain regions involved in cognitive control 19 . However, currently, it is not known how these developmental changes moderate the relationship between pervasive technology use and cognitive control 18,20 . High levels of technology multitasking have been associated with both impaired executive function 21 , and improved inhibitory control in early adolescents 22 . ...
... In addition, while media-multitasking in children and young adults was associated with cognitive benefits in our study, there might also be a range of potential negative consequences. It has been proposed that technology use steals time from other activities that could have a benefit for cognitive and social development 18 . For example, many social skills are known to develop during childhood and young adulthood and it has recently been suggested that the social isolation created through excessive technology multitasking is associated with negative social outcomes in this age group 25 . ...
The exponential rise in technology use over the past decade, and particularly during the COIVD-19 pandemic, has been accompanied by growing concern regarding the consequences of this technology use for our cognition. Previous studies on the influence of technology-multitasking (the use of two or more technologies simultaneously) on cognitive performance have provided mixed results. However, these past studies have generally ignored the considerable developmental trajectories that cognitive abilities undergo across the lifespan. In a large community-based science project we investigated the relationship between media-multitasking and cognitive flexibility (multitasking ability) in participants aged 7–70 years. Higher levels of every-day technology multitasking were associated with higher levels of multitasking performance across an age range in which multitasking ability undergoes developmental change. These findings suggest that age is an important moderator of the relationship between technology use and cognition.
... At this level, there are behavioral considerations, such as a child's ability to direct eye movement towards priority tasks at hand, or an individual's ability to physically engage with the attention priority while shielding, ignoring, or removing off-task stimuli (e.g. inhibitory control) (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). These are the basic behavioral and cognitive necessities which mediate an individual's ability to process and sustain focus on a set of stimuli, a neurological process often referred to as attention scope (Cowan, Fristoe, Elliott, Brunner, & Saults, 2006). ...
... task-switching) or mutually dividing mental faculties between two concurrent tasks (e.g. multitasking) Rothbart & Posner, 2015). ...
... The majority of multitasking research often casually interchanges the terms multitasking and task-switching, sometimes within the same study. Or, the two are colloquially referenced as multitasking as they produce similar effects (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). This study used the colloquial reference of multitasking. ...
Students are increasingly more distracted and off-task with technology. While contemporary research has clearly argued the pervasive nature and problematic effects of media distracted behavior, research has yet to identify and validate, by way of a real-world experiment, an efficacious and promising practical or pedagogical response.
This dissertation study used a quasi-experimental, longitudinal experiment to test regulating smartphone applications that purport to mitigate distracted technology use and heighten the student attention.
To test whether or not different regulating applications “work” as purported, this study examined two different regulating applications and their effects on the media distracted behavior, student engagement, behavioral regulation, perceptions of technology dependency, and course performance.
The experiment included first-year college students enrolled in a mandated entry- level science course at a medium-sized public STEM and applied science university. Stratified random assignment permitted experimental, contamination, and control treatment group comparisons. Long-term motivation effects (including student-held feelings with self-efficacy, expectancy-value, and achievement goals) were also considered. Last, varying application affordances and design approaches were contrasted by way of feelings related to self- determination.
The results of quantitative and qualitative data analyses indicated that applications sporadically and minimally lowered student reported media distracted behavior in and outside of
class, but had no effect on engagement, behavioral regulation, or perceived dependency on technology. Unexpectedly, there was a negative effect on Chemistry motivation, as students reported lower expectancy-value, more negative achievement goals, and lower self-efficacy. Last, application use negatively affected student performance in the course as those asked to use regulating applications generally performed poorer as compared to those in the control and contamination groups.
Challenging the promising assertions of regulating applications, the results of this dissertation suggest that rather than alleviate the problem, these particular apps may actually exacerbate media distraction’s negative effects by also diminishing engagement, regulation, achievement, and motivation.
... Among these resources, attention is an essential prerequisite for deploying other higherorder processes (Wartella et al., 2019). Rothbart and Posner (2015) defined attention as a cognitive function for language, memory, and perception, accompanied with the control system growth of the human brain. Attention is linked with alerting, orienting, and regulating (i.e., executing) brain network functions (Rueda et al., 2012). ...
... Attention is linked with alerting, orienting, and regulating (i.e., executing) brain network functions (Rueda et al., 2012). While the orienting attention network develops from infancy, the development of the executive attention network starts at 18-20 months (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). During childhood, increased gray matter and anterior cingulate connectivity to other areas of the brain results in children's improvement in conflict resolution skills and the executive attention network development. ...
... During childhood, increased gray matter and anterior cingulate connectivity to other areas of the brain results in children's improvement in conflict resolution skills and the executive attention network development. Interventions in children to enhance attention performance exploit the plasticity of their brain network (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). The development of these functions can be improved by various activities, such as computerized-based tasks (Rueda et al., 2012), games, and exercise (Halperin et al., 2013;Healey & Halperin, 2015;Waters et al., 2015), digital cognitive training games (Ramos & Melo, 2018), and action video games (Green & Bavelier, 2003. ...
This quasi-experimental study investigated the effect of an educational tablet app based on the Theory of Multiple Intelligences with game mechanics and multiple-media features on young children’s attention. Participants (N = 128) aged between 3 and 4 years from a preschool in a northeastern city of China were divided into the experimental and the control groups based on their gender and age. The experimental group underwent training in using the app twice a week for 12 weeks, while the control group followed regular activities. Gaze duration (which indicates sustained attention) and first fixation latency (which reveals attention orientation speed) were analyzed before and after the training. Although Children’s fixation latency was not associated with the intervention, compared to the control group, the experimental group showed significant improvement in gaze duration, suggesting a better-sustained attention development. The result reinforces the previous findings that educational digital game apps could promote young children’s attention development.
... Orienting is a network that emphasizes on the ability to prioritize sensory input by selecting a modality or location (18), and the main activation regions of orienting are in the parietal and frontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction area of the right hemisphere (21). Executive control is the dominant network that represents the ability to accomplish target tasks by inhibiting interference and resolving conflicts among thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (22). According to previous brain imaging studies, the executive control network was mainly distributed in the anterior cingulate gyrus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (23), and BDNF can sustain neuronal survival in these regions by enhancing the cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1R) transcripts (24,25). ...
... Based on the total mean map and differential wave topographic map, the TFR results of each electrode, and relevant literature, we defined the following three regions of interest in the directed network: parietal lobe (P3, Pz, and P4), occipitotemporal lobe (PO3, PO4, PO7, and PO8), and occipital lobe (O1, Oz, and O2). The beta band (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25) in the 500-700-ms time window was analyzed. The electrodes of the executive control network were set as Fz, FCz, Cz, and Pz, and the theta frequency band (4-7 Hz) in the 300-700-ms time window was analyzed (Figure 4). ...
Objective:
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a member of the neurotrophic family that plays a vital role in regulating neuronal activity and synaptic plasticity in the brain, affects attention. However, studies investigating the association between BDNF and attention in long-term high-altitude (HA) migrants are limited in the literature. As HA affects both BDNF and attention, the relationship between these factors becomes more complex. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the relationship between peripheral blood concentrations of BDNF and the three attentional networks in both behavioral and electrical aspects of the brain in long-term HA migrants.
Materials and methods:
Ninety-eight Han adults (mean age: 34.74 ± 3.48 years, 51 females and 47 males, all have lived at Lhasa for 11.30 ± 3.82 years) were recruited in this study. For all participants, the serum BDNF levels were assessed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; event-related potentials (N1, P1, and P3) were recorded during the Attentional Networks Test, which was used as the measure of three attentional networks.
Results:
Executive control scores were negatively correlated with P3 amplitude (r = -0.20, p = 0.044), and serum BDNF levels were positively correlated with executive control scores (r = 0.24, p = 0.019) and negatively correlated with P3 amplitude (r = -0.22, p = 0.027). Through grouping of BDNF levels and three attentional networks, executive control was found to be significantly higher in the high BDNF group than in the low BDNF group (p = 0.010). Different BDNF levels were associated with both orienting scores (χ2 = 6.99, p = 0.030) and executive control scores (χ2 = 9.03, p = 0.011). The higher the BDNF level, the worse was the executive function and the lower was the average P3 amplitude and vice versa. Females were found to have higher alerting scores than males (p = 0.023).
Conclusion:
This study presented the relationship between BDNF and attention under HA. The higher the BDNF level, the worse was the executive control, suggesting that after long-term exposure to HA, hypoxia injury of the brain may occur in individuals with relatively higher BDNF levels, and this higher BDNF level may be the result of self-rehabilitation tackling the adverse effects brought by the HA environment.
... An important, yet often overlooked factor in understanding the influence of electronic storybooks on knowledge acquisition is the current developmental state of executive functions (Altun, 2021;. During the preschool years (and even later) the maturation of J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f executive functions, such as working memory (WM) capacity and the executive attention network, is still ongoing, thus preschoolers are characterized by high distractibility and a short attention span (Garon et al., 2008;Petersen & Posner, 2012;Rothbart & Posner, 2015). Since the maturation of the executive attention network is a key to top-down attention and maintaining attentional focus in the presence of distractors, focusing on relevant information may be particularly difficult for those with less efficient attentional mechanisms (Petersen & Posner, 2012). ...
... Taken (Petersen & Posner, 2012). It has been shown that information processing is J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f more stimulus-driven in children with less matured executive attention network (and, hence, poorer cognitive control functions), therefore they are more easily distracted by salient stimuli on the screen compared to those with stronger cognitive control functions (Gathercole & Alloway, 2009;Rothbart & Posner, 2015). In the case of electronic storybooks, if a child attends to a piece of irrelevant information and only switches their attention toward the relevant stimulus later in time, there will be a mismatch between the narration and the embedded multimedia element. ...
Interactive features and multimedia elements in electronic storybooks might enhance knowledge acquisition in children due to the playful learning experience they provide. However, to date, there is no systematic research on the long-term efficacy of storybooks, and the individual cognitive factors that influence information processing when using these apps. Therefore, in Experiment 1, we focused on long-term improvements. Children (M = 5.55 years, SD = 0.51, N = 33) were divided into an Interactive App group (N = 16) and a Print Book group (N = 17), then they were exposed to a story. Their recall performance was measured immediately after the exposure and three weeks later. In Experiment 2, we focused on individual differences in cognitive factors (working memory and sustained attention). Children (M = 5.56 years, SD = 0.62, N = 32) were exposed to three stories with interactive, multimedia-only elements and an audio-only condition. Caregivers were asked to fill out the ADHD Rating Scale-IV regarding each child. According to our results, in Experiment 1, children in the Interactive App group performed better compared to the Print Book group and this improvement persisted over time. In Experiment 2, we replicated the results of Experiment 1, however, children with poorer sustained attentional abilities performed worse in multimedia and interactive conditions compared to the audio-only condition. Our results indicate that electronic storybooks can facilitate learning because they enhance encoding efficacy. However, the benefit is only evident in children with good attentional control abilities. Our results guide parents and educators on how to choose and design age-appropriate applications for learning.
... Moreover, Rothbart (2015) found a positive effect of multitasking with attentional networks in video games to improve performance [15] . Furthermore, while smartphones encourage multitasking, they can serve as learning devices that can control learner sentiment and increase learning motivation. ...
... Moreover, Rothbart (2015) found a positive effect of multitasking with attentional networks in video games to improve performance [15] . Furthermore, while smartphones encourage multitasking, they can serve as learning devices that can control learner sentiment and increase learning motivation. ...
Business game learning environments that utilize smartphones possess latent potential. Previous research on smartphone learning has often focused on learning that uses mobility. Moreover, previous studies have revealed that different learning devices can improve interest and attitude toward learning. Further, smartphones have been proven to control learner sentiment and increase learning motivation when used as learning devices. However, other studies contradict these findings, suggesting that smartphone learning can result in multitasking and ultimately hinder learning. Based on the results of an investigation of high school students’ use of smartphones for business game learning, this study considers the effect of multitasking on learning. The results indicate that students with multitasking skills in the present study tended to have a more positive attitude toward the business game. This result also contributes to the effective use of smartphones in classroom activities.
... Search-and-reach tasks of three-dimensional (3D) real-world objects in a changing visual environment are crucial to the efficient performance of everyday multitasking activities. 1,2 Multitasking refers to the execution of two or more tasks/executive brain processes performed in the same time, either simultaneously (parallel-brain information processing) or in rapid succession (serial-brain information processing). 3,4 Overt and covert visual attention networks are key to appropriate control of visuomotor systems and efficient performance of everyday multitasking activities. ...
... 3,4 Overt and covert visual attention networks are key to appropriate control of visuomotor systems and efficient performance of everyday multitasking activities. 2,5 The lack of peripheral vision in patients with homonymous visual field defects, such as the hemianopia or quadrantanopia type in 30% to 85% of patients with acquired brain injury, 6 are associated with lower activation of their attention brain mechanisms 7,8 and a tendency to scan visual scenes using more frequent fixations and shorter saccades than visually normal controls. 9 Moreover, it has been shown objectively that patients with homonymous visual field defects have 73% lower visual-processing speed than healthy controls. ...
Purpose:
To examine whether a noncomputerized multitasking compensatory saccadic training program (MCSTP) for patients with hemianopia, based on a reading regimen and eight exercises that recreate everyday visuomotor activities using three-dimensional (3D) real-world objects, improves the visual ability/function, quality of life (QL), and functional independence (FI).
Methods:
The 3D-MCSTP included four in-office visits and two customized home-based daily training sessions over 12 weeks. A quasiexperimental, pretest/posttest study design was carried out with an intervention group (IG) (n = 20) and a no-training group (NTG) (n = 20) matched for age, hemianopia type, and brain injury duration.
Results:
The groups were comparable for the main baseline variables and all participants (n = 40) completed the study. The IG mainly showed significant improvements in visual-processing speed (57.34% ± 19.28%; P < 0.0001) and visual attention/retention ability (26.67% ± 19.21%; P < 0.0001), which also were significantly greater (P < 0.05) than in the NTG. Moreover, the IG showed large effect sizes (Cohen's d) in 75% of the total QL and FI dimensions analyzed; in contrast to the NTG that showed negligible mean effect sizes in 96% of these dimensions.
Conclusions:
The customized 3D-MCSTP was associated with a satisfactory response in the IG for improving complex visual processing, QL, and FI.
Translational relevance:
Neurovisual rehabilitation of patients with hemianopia seems more efficient when programs combine in-office visits and customized home-based training sessions based on real objects and simulating real-life conditions, than no treatment or previously reported computer-screen approaches, probably because of better stimulation of patients´ motivation and visual-processing speed brain mechanisms.
... Multitasking is a fundamental aspect of everyday activities. The ability to multitask closely relates to flexible cognitive control (Rothbart & Posner, 2015), in particular, the selection and monitoring of higher order internal goals while other sub-goals are being performed. This is subserved by a set of frontal and parietal regions, which together assemble the required cognitive operations for task-relevant behavior (Norman & Shallice, 1986;Duncan & Owen, 2000;Miller & Cohen, 2001;Duncan, 2013;Cole & Schneider, 2007;Fedorenko et al., 2013). ...
... Previous studies have each identified parts of the FPN-DAN-SMN correlated with general cognitive or multitasking performance (e.g., Al-Hashimi et al., 2015;Cole et al., 2012;Erickson et al., 2007;Garner & Dux, 2015), yet all regions have been reported to be recruited more in multitask compared to single-task conditions during continuous multitasking (Al-Hashimi et al., 2015). Our experiment used a computer game to generate continuous engagement and a task with a set of goals, sub-tasks, and execution steps, a scenario that better reflects complex acts of real-word multitasking (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). Conventional multitasking paradigms used in the laboratory typically employ explicit instructions for participants to respond to each task separately even when they overlap in time (Al-Hashimi et al., 2015;Dux et al., 2009). ...
Multitasking is a fundamental aspect of everyday life activities. To achieve a complex, multi-component goal, the tasks must be subdivided into sub-tasks and component steps, a critical function of prefrontal networks. The prefrontal cortex is considered to be organized in a cascade of executive processes from the sensorimotor to anterior prefrontal cortex, which includes execution of specific goal-directed action, to encoding and maintaining task rules, and finally monitoring distal goals. In the current study, we used a virtual multitasking paradigm to tap into real-world performance and relate it to each individual’s resting-state functional connectivity in fMRI. While did not find any correlation between global connectivity of any of the major networks with multitasking ability, global connectivity of the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) was predictive of EVET score. Further analysis showed that multivariate connectivity patterns within the sensorimotor network (SMN), and between-network connectivity of the frontopartietal network (FPN) and dorsal attention network (DAN), predicted individual multitasking ability and could be generalized to novel individuals. Together, these results support previous research that prefrontal networks underlie multitasking abilities and show that connectivity patterns in the cascade of prefrontal networks may explain individual differences in performance.
... It depends on the goal that the teacher wants to achieve in working with students. The task enables better cognitive processing of what is listened to (Rothbart & Posner, 2015;Santrock, 2018). The success of the listening process is reflected in the quality of the experience, that is, in the last stage of listening -the response (Barker & Gaut, 1996;DeVito, 2014;Brownell, 2015), and thus a quality foundation is laid for conducting a dialogue that follows. ...
Listening to music is one of the three fields within music education, primarily focusing on developing cognitive and emotional-aesthetic aspects of a student's personality. The paper discusses the relationship between the concept of active learning and experiential listening to music, and forms of active teaching are analyzed. The basic assumption is that these two constructs are inseparably linked and are to be used as forms of active teaching. Different categories of the experiential listening process during active learning and the criteria for their assessment will be presented. Finally, the conversational method and the possibilities of creating active listeners will be pointed out.
... To understand and quantify the psychological reasons for a person, one must analyze and understand what happened in 8 stages of human life as shown in Fig 3. Brain training can improve the attention networks needed for multitasking. Attention network efficiency, sensation seeking, and effortful control might influence the frequency and efficiency of multitasking [25]. The fact that men are better in focusing and women are better at multitasking [26]must be considered in the brought up of the new human while going through eight stages of life. ...
... populations (Rothbart et al., 2015).The ANT paradigm has also been applied to the study of attention in high altitude hypoxic conditions, as found in the study by Ma Hailin et al. (Wang et al., 2014) on the attentional networks of migrants exposed to prolonged high altitude, which found that high altitude hypoxia can negatively affect attention. ...
To explore the effect of anxiety levels on attentional networks in high altitude migrants and to verify the mediating and moderating role of sleep quality and haemoglobin concentration(HGB). One hundred and forty high altitude transplants living on the plateau for two years were selected and anxiety levels were captured by the SCL-90 questionnaire, behavioural data by the ANT experimental procedure, sleep quality by the Pittsburgh Sleepiness Index and HGB by means of venous blood sampling. The results revealed a significant difference between the high and low anxiety groups in the attentional executive network and no difference in the alertness and orientation networks; a difference in sleep quality between the high and normal HGB groups.Sleep quality was fully mediated between anxiety level and attentional executive network, accounting for 45% of the total effect; sleep quality and HGB were moderated mediation between anxiety level and attentional executive network ( β = 0.19, t = 2.03, p < 0.05), and only for individuals with high HGB did the sleep quality of individuals with high anxiety levels differ from that of individuals with low anxiety levels. It was only for individuals with high HGB that differences existed. It is concluded that as anxiety levels increase, this affects the sleep quality of high altitude migrants and thus their attentional network efficiency, and that as HGB increase, this alleviates the poor sleep quality of high altitude migrants with increased anxiety levels and thus improves their attentional network efficiency.
... Seemingly ordinary, this task is one of the most critical drivers of mental engagement in students in the teaching of Music Education because it is directly related to attention. When listening to a musical example, tasks improve cognitive processing (Rothbart & Posner, 2015;Santrock, 2018). Thought activation is a condition for active listening, a prerequisite for apperception. ...
Music is a source of positive emotions, pleasure, and aesthetic experience and is considered one of the favourite student activities in teaching Music Culture. However, for the assumption that music encourages the individual's overall development, from the aesthetic to the cognitive aspect, the individual needs to perceive and experience the heard example, i.e., to apperceive it. For students to experience music emotionally and thus ponder and enjoy it, it is necessary for them to be mentally engaged and actively participate in the teaching process. The paper discusses the relationship between students' mental activation and ap-perception of the reproduced musical piece. The basic assumption is that students' cognitive engagement in the Music Culture class is a prerequisite for achieving apperception. The introductory part will present and explain the concepts of perceptions, apperceptions, and mental activation. The second part of the paper aims to show and explain the connection between mental activation and apperception. Possible forms and ways of mental activation of students in teaching in conjunction with apperception will be presented and analyzed to understand their interconnectedness better. In addition, a practical example will be demonstrated, emphasizing the use of audiovisual materials in teaching, which nurtures one's own opinion and supports and motivates students to express their individual experiences. By mentally engaging students, not only is apperception achieved, but it leads to better quality teaching where knowledge is actively acquired and better understood.
... "Alerting" refers to the ability to maintain an alert state to receive information input; "orienting" refers to the ability to select information from a large amount of sensory input; and "executive control" is the ability to coordinate and control cognitive 'executive control' is the ability to coordinate and control cognitive operations and resolve response conflicts.Fan et al. devised the attention network test (ANT) based on Posner's theory , a paradigm that combines cueing with a flanker task to examine the alerting, orienting and executive control functions of the attention network by varying the type of cue and target stimulus. It is a valid method for measuring the function of the brain's attentional network (Wang et al., 2005).The paradigm can also be used to measure specific attentional network deficits in special populations, to guide the treatment of specific attentional network deficits and to measure differences in the development of attentional networks in normal populations (Rothbart et al., 2015).The ANT paradigm has also been applied to the study of attention in high altitude hypoxic conditions, as found in the study by Ma Hailin et al. (Wang et al., 2014) on the attentional networks of migrants exposed to prolonged high altitude, which found that high altitude hypoxia can negatively affect attention. ...
To explore the effect of anxiety levels on attentional networks in high altitude migrants and to verify the mediating and moderating role of sleep quality and haemoglobin concentration(HGB). One hundred and forty high altitude transplants living on the plateau for two years were selected and anxiety levels were captured by the SCL-90 questionnaire, behavioural data by the ANT experimental procedure, sleep quality by the Pittsburgh Sleepiness Index and HGB by means of venous blood sampling. The results revealed a significant difference between the high and low anxiety groups in the attentional executive network and no difference in the alertness and orientation networks; a difference in sleep quality between the high and normal HGB groups.Sleep quality was fully mediated between anxiety level and attentional executive network, accounting for 45% of the total effect; sleep quality and HGB were moderated mediation between anxiety level and attentional executive network (β = 0.19, t = 2.03, p < 0.05), and only for individuals with high HGB did the sleep quality of individuals with high anxiety levels differ from that of individuals with low anxiety levels. It was only for individuals with high HGB that differences existed. It is concluded that as anxiety levels increase, this affects the sleep quality of high altitude migrants and thus their attentional network efficiency, and that as HGB increase, this alleviates the poor sleep quality of high altitude migrants with increased anxiety levels and thus improves their attentional network efficiency.
... Durante la infancia, la habilidad de fijar la atención en un objeto está compitiendo con múltiples y complejos objetos distractores, el desarrollo del proceso atencional en este periodo se caracteriza principalmente por un incremento paulatino en el lapso en que se mantienen los recursos atencionales sobre un estímulo, incrementa la cantidad de elementos que pueden ser retenidos en un momento dado y mejora la habilidad para ignorar o inhibir el procesamiento de estímulos irrelevantes a la tarea (Anderson & Reidy, 2012;Rothbart & Posner, 2015). Para la evaluación de la atención se utilizan tareas de cancelación, atención selectiva espacial y/o búsqueda visual y tareas tipo Stroop, entre otras (Etchepareborda & Abad-Mas, 2001;Martínez, 2015). ...
La Batería Neuropsicológica para preescolareses un instrumento que permiteevaluar los procesos cognitivos quepresentan cambios relevantes duranteesta etapa de desarrollo, tales comoorientación, atención y concentración,memoria, lenguaje, tanto en la expresióncomo en la comprensión, habilidadesmotoras finas y gruesas, habilidadesacadémicas y funciones ejecutivas.Se hace uso de tareas que han mostradoser sensibles a los cambios asociados ala edad tanto en niños con un desarrollonormotípico como en poblacionesclínicas. Las normas de fueron obtenidasen una muestra de niños mexicanosde 3 años a 5 años 11 meses encontrándosediferencias estadísticamente significativasen los 16 índices que evalúa laprueba entre los grupos de edad. Estabatería permite obtener datos cuantitativosy cualitativos del desempeño cognoscitivo,lo cual facilita la identificaciónde las áreas que presenten mayor compromiso y así diseñar intervencionesadecuadas y oportunas.
... F,g11re 9.2 Paying attention: Flip-flopping between the right-facing rabbit and the left-facing duck First, as human beings, we do not and cannot notice everything around us at the same time. Our neuro-physiologica l make-up entails that we can only focus on one thing at any given moment (Nijboer, Borst, van Rijn & Taatgen, 2014;Polanyi, 1958;Rothbart & Posner, 2015). To illustrate this, Figure 9.2 is a classic picture of two different images. ...
Experiences are personal, subjective and felt. Visitors have different cultural backgrounds and expectations, how is it then possible to create similar positive and personal experiences for most if not all visitors? Tourism mediators play an important role in the process of managing and crafting the tourist experience. Using diverse examples, this theoretical chapter presents the attention structure approach to understanding tourist experiences, and explains why the control and structuring of visitor attention is at the centre of the tourist experience. It builds on and complements the many tourist experience concepts and theories. The attention structure framework situates the production and consumption of tourist experiences in the “attention economy”, and frames tourist experiences as attention products. This framework highlights the importance of not just managing the attention of visitors, it also points to the need to manage distractions (e.g. visitor anxiety, bad weather, negative preconceptions) and incorporating such distractions into the mediation of tourist experiences. By being able to control, structure and manage visitor attention, it is possible to craft and manufacture desired tourist experiences even though visitors have different backgrounds and expectations. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Richard Sharpley; individual chapters, the contributors.
... For the most part, these studies focused on performance (e.g., Janssen et al., 2015;Pashler, 1994;Salvucci & Taatgen, 2011) and on identifying the characteristics of an efficient multitasker (e.g., Buhner et al., 2006;Colom et al., 2010;Sanbonmatsu et al., 2013;Szumowska & Kossowska, 2016). Recently, the question of the consequences of multitasking has also been receiving attention (e.g., Carrier et al., 2015;Courage et al., 2015;Rothbart & Posner, 2015). However, the question of why people engage in multitasking and when they are most likely to do so has received relatively less scientific attention, even though it seems crucial to a full understanding of the phenomenon. ...
With the constantly increasing popularity of human multitasking, it is crucial to know why people engage in simultaneous task performance or switch between unfinished tasks. In the present article, we propose that multitasking behavior occurs when people have multiple active goals; the greater their number, the greater the degree of multitasking. The number of currently considered goals is reduced where one goal's significance overrides the others, reducing the degree of multitasking. We tested these hypotheses in a series of six studies in which we manipulated either goal activation or goal importance and investigated how this affected the degree of multitasking. The results showed that the more active goals participants actively entertained, the more likely they were to plan to engage in multitasking (Studies 1 and 5), and the more often they switched between tasks (Study 2). They also multitasked more under high interruption condition assumed to activate more goals than low interruption condition (Study 3). Further, we demonstrated that the degree of multitasking was significantly decreased by reducing the number of simultaneously considered goals, either via increasing the relative importance of one of the goals (Study 4) or via inducing greater commitment to one of the goals through a mental contrasting procedure (Study 5). Study 6, carried out in an academic context, additionally showed that the importance of a class-related goal negatively predicted media multitasking in class. The results thus show that goal activation is the underlying mechanism that explains why people multitask. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... Finally, no studies included in this review examined gene × parental behavior interactions on working memory, independent of inhibitory control. It is also possible that gene × environment interactions impact common EF, or the generally cognitive abilities underlying EF, rather than specific EF components, like inhibitory control (Friedman & Miyake, 2017;Rothbart & Posner, 2015). Future research should explore these possibilities. ...
Child genotype is an important biologically based indicator of sensitivity to the effects of parental behavior on children’s executive function (EF) in early childhood, birth to age 5. While evidence for gene × parental behavior interactions on children’s early EF is growing, researchers have called the quality of evidence provided by gene × environment interaction studies into question. For this reason, this review comprehensively examined the literature and evaluated the evidence for gene × parental behavior interactions on children’s early EF abilities. Psychology and psychiatry databases were searched for published peer-reviewed studies. A total of 18 studies met inclusion criteria. Twenty-nine of 89 (33%) examined interactions were significant. However, a p-curve analysis did not find the significant interactions to be of evidential value. A high rate of false positives, due to the continued use of candidate gene and haplotype measures of child genotype and small sample sizes, likely contributed to the high rate of significant interactions and low evidential value. The use of contemporary molecular genetic measures and larger sample sizes are necessary to advance our understanding of child genotype as a moderator of parental effects on children’s EF during early childhood and the biopsychosocial mechanisms underlying children’s EF development during this critical period. Without these changes, future research is likely to be stymied by the same limitations as current research.
... Rosen, 2008). Therefore, switching between different tasks requires considerable cognitive effort and is controlled by the executive function networka top-down mental process (Rothbart and Posner, 2015). During media use, users switch between different tasks more often than in general settings (Brasel and Gips, 2011), thereby placing extensive demand on their executive function. ...
Purpose
The longitudinal impact of media multitasking on the development of executive function has been understudied, as most of the existing studies are cross-sectional. This longitudinal study addresses this research gap and uses multiple measures, i.e. behavioral and self-reported, to explore the impact of media multitasking on the executive function of Chinese adolescents.
Design/methodology/approach
This study followed 99 Chinese adolescents (M age = 14.41, SD = 1.10; 42 boys and 57 girls) for one year using both behavioral (2-back, Stroop Color and Number-letter tasks) and self-reported (questionnaire) measures. The adolescents were categorized as either heavy/high media multitaskers (HMMs; 19 boys and 29 girls) or light/low media multitaskers (LMMs; 23 boys and 28 girls). They were tested at baseline, 6 months later and 12 months later.
Findings
The results indicated that the accuracy scores for all cognitive tasks differed with age, but the switch-cost in the shifting task and the self-reported measures of executive function did not. And there were consistent differences between the HMMs and LMMs in the self-reported measures and 2-back accuracy. However, the interaction effect was found only in shifting ability, indicating a decline in the LMMs' self-reported problematic shifting behavior in daily life.
Originality/value
This study used behavioral and self-reported measures to confirm the longitudinal impact of media multitasking on executive function. The impact of media multitasking on executive function is more apparent in daily-life behavior than in cognitive task performance.
... For these reasons, SPS might be an important trait to consider for university counsellors (Holmbeck & Wandrei, 1993;Pritchard et al., 2007). Given that levels of university stress are on an upward trend (Beiter et al., 2015;Mackenzie et al., 2011), and that the modern world is increasingly saturated with excessive stimulation (Rothbart & Posner, 2015), the pressures facing HSPs are set to increase. Identifying highly sensitive students may be informative, not merely because they may find university more challenging, but also because they may respond better to intervention (Belsky & van IJzendoorn, 2015;Pluess & Boniwell, 2015). ...
Adjusting to university represents a substantial challenge in the lives of emerging adults and has been the focus of significant educational and personality psychology research. To date, however, no study has examined university adjustment as a function of sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) - a personality trait characterised by strong emotional reactivity and a heightened ability to detect and deeply process environmental stimulation, but with a consequent risk for debilitating feelings of overwhelm. Using a multiethnic sample of 580 first year South African psychology students, we examined university adjustment differences between students scoring high and low on SPS. Furthermore, we tested whether the effects of SPS on adjustment were a) independent from the five-factor model and b) moderated by levels of early parental care. We found that students scoring high (vs low) on SPS reported significantly worse adjustment to university. Opposite to theoretical claims, we only found a moderating effect for parental care for students low on SPS. By deconstructing SPS into its component factors, we discovered that poor adjustment was driven by a propensity towards negative affect, but the ability of high SPS individuals to carefully and deeply process stimulation served to partially offset adjustment difficulties. Importantly, SPS appeared to capture variation in university adjustment independent of the five-factor model. We conclude that SPS may be a useful personality construct for identifying students who find university adjustment particularly overwhelming and could thus benefit from targeted support and intervention.
... Simultaneous multitasking in both experimental and everyday tasks is to divide and distribute sources of attention effectively. It is important to note that the only tasks we performed consist of multiple components or processes and include switching or resisting brain regions (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). However, in a world abundant with sensory information, it is impossible to perceive everything around us at any time. ...
Attentional resources limit our perceptual capacities. One vital point is whether these resources are allotted severally to every sense or shared between them. We addressed this problem via means of topics to carry out a dual-task, both in the same modality or other modalities (visual and auditory). The primary task is to count the number of passes of the participants while watching the video that requires visual and auditory attention. Concurrently, they were also asked to notice the pure tones and visual events in the song during the video while counting their pass numbers. The results show that while the auditory task reduced the detection ability visual events task, the dual-task had a significant effect. Previous studies support that tasks requiring simultaneous auditory and visual attention affect each other. Our results have clear implications for showing that performance decreases in dual-task as the perceptual load increases.
... Ability of the central nervous system to select, weight, and integrate sensory information to develop accurate and meaningful perceptions of the body and environment that allow for maintenance of postural control as task and environmental conditions change 43,44 Perceptual function: verticality Ability to orient the body in relation to the line of gravity 10,21,45 Cognitive/mental function Executive function A set of complex cognitive skills, including insight, judgement, memory, problem solving, and attention, that are responsible for the planning, initiation, sequencing, and monitoring of goal-directed behavior 46-48 Multi-task capacity Ability to successfully participate in multiple tasks and/or reconcile concurrent sources of sensory input during goal-directed behavior 48,49 Arousal and alertness Arousal: responsiveness to stimuli 1 Alertness is a basic arousal process that allows the individual to respond to external stimuli. 18 Behavioral factors Balance confidence Degree of certainty that an individual has in their ability to maintain balance and remain stable while performing tasks 36,50 Falls self-efficacy A person's perception about their abilities to deal with a fall 23 Fear of falling A lasting concern or worry about falling regardless of history of fall(s) 51,52 Activity avoidance ...
The movement system was identified as the focus of our expertise as physical therapists in the revised vision statement for the profession adopted by American Physical Therapy Association in 2013. Attaining success with the profession’s vision requires the development of movement system diagnoses that will be useful in clinical practice, research, and education. To date, only a few movement system diagnoses have been identified and described, and none of these specifically address balance dysfunction. Over the past two years, a Balance Diagnosis Task Force, a subgroup of the Movement System Task Force of the Academy of Neurologic Physical Therapy (ANPT), focused on developing diagnostic labels (or diagnoses) for individuals with balance problems. This paper presents the work of the Task Force that followed a systematic process to review available diagnostic frameworks related to balance, identify ten distinct movement system diagnoses that reflect balance dysfunction, and develop complete descriptions of examination findings associated with each balance diagnosis. A standardized approach to movement analysis of core tasks, the Framework for Movement Analysis developed by the ANPT Movement Analysis Task Force, was integrated into the examination and diagnostic processes. The aims of this perspective paper are to 1) summarize the process followed by the Balance Diagnosis Task Force to develop an initial set of movement system (balance) diagnoses, 2) report the recommended diagnostic labels and associated descriptions, 3) demonstrate the clinical decision-making process used to determine a balance diagnosis and develop a plan of care, and 4) identify next steps to validate and implement the diagnoses into physical therapist practice, education, and research.
Impact
The development and use of diagnostic labels to classify distinct movement system problems is needed in physical therapy. The ten balance diagnosis proposed can aid in clinical decision making regarding intervention.
... Neurologically, selective attention is thought to involve the allocation of neural resources to specific target stimuli, while simultaneously inhibiting or suppressing resources dedicated to unattended stimuli (Dayan et al., 2000;Moore and Zirnsak, 2017;Parks and Madden, 2013;Petersen and Posner, 2012;Salo et al., 2017). Such neurocognitive abilities are known to develop throughout childhood and adolescence, with attentional function generally improving and becoming less variable with increasing age (Amso and Scerif, 2015;Petersen and Posner, 2012;Rothbart and Posner, 2015). ...
Selective attention processes are critical to everyday functioning and are known to develop through at least young adulthood. Although numerous investigations have studied the maturation of attention systems in the brain, these studies have largely focused on the spatial configuration of these systems; there is a paucity of research on the neural oscillatory dynamics serving selective attention, particularly among youth. Herein, we examined the developmental trajectory of neural oscillatory activity serving selective attention in 53 typically developing youth age 9-to-16 years-old. Participants completed the classic arrow-based flanker task during magnetoencephalography, and the resulting data were imaged in the time-frequency domain. Flanker interference significantly modulated theta and alpha/beta oscillations within prefrontal, mid-cingulate, cuneus, and occipital regions. Interference-related neural activity also increased with age in the temporoparietal junction and the rostral anterior cingulate. Sex-specific effects indicated that females had greater theta interference activity in the anterior insula, whereas males showed differential effects in theta and alpha/beta oscillations across frontoparietal regions. Finally, males showed age-related changes in alpha/beta interference in the cuneus and middle frontal gyrus, which predicted improved behavioral performance. Taken together, these data suggest sexually-divergent developmental trajectories underlying selective attention in youth.
... That argument is supported by this study's neuroimaging evidence from Chinese adolescents. Second, as the media have penetrated daily lives, it is possible that our brains, especially those of the young, have been shaped by media activities, including media multitasking (Gazzaley & Rosen, 2016;Rothbart & Posner, 2015). HMMs engage in more media activities, and their brains are often more restless, and possibly over-used. ...
This study examined the association between media multitasking and executive function in Chinese adolescents by comparing heavy/high and light/low media multitaskers, i.e., HMMs and LMMs, with self-reports, behavioral measures and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The participants were 12 HMMs (media multitasking scores above the 75th percentile) and 10 LMMs (media multitasking scores below the 25th percentile) chosen from a sample of 61 adolescents. Each participant completed a self-reported questionnaire on executive function and three executive function cognitive tasks: 2-back, Color Stroop, and Number-letter Determination) while wearing the fNIRS. The results indicated that: (1) the HMMs showed more impairment in executive function than the LMMs based on questionnaire data analysis; (2) there were no significant differences between the HMMs and LMMs in their performance on the cognitive tasks; and (3) the HMMs showed greater prefrontal activation than the LMMs during the 2-back and Color Stroop tasks. These findings implied that media multitasking might be associated with the reduced effectiveness in the brain areas responsible for executive function. These findings provide evidence of the negative relationship between media multitasking and executive function; and indicated the benefits of using multiple assessment methods in studying this topic.
... When referring to research on multitasking, a common association is to think of psychology and the way people allocate their cognitive resources to more than one task at the same time. To mention some of the more recent studies, Paridon and Kaufmann (2010) study multitasking from a psychological point of view in workrelated situations, focusing on its effects on performance and subjective strain, and Rothbart and Posner (2015) study switching between tasks from a neurological point of view, investigating what enables multitasking and how multitasking affects the brain, especially in children. Reissland and Manzey (2016) have examined the different strategies participants in controlled settings used for multitasking and measured how long it takes for the participants to complete a task, whereas Rosen, Carrier and Cheever (2013) observed how people study (in a nearly natural setting, as they see it) and what they are distracted by and how often, focusing on mediainduced task-switching. ...
PDF available: http://jultika.oulu.fi/files/isbn9789526224909.pdf
This thesis examines multimodal practices used for managing multiple parallel activities, and studies how participants in social interaction make visible their local prioritisation of one activity over another. It consists of a summary and three original articles, which present different practices with which participants manage their involvement in multiactivity by making publicly visible their prioritisation of one activity over another. The thesis uses the conversation analytic method to study naturally occurring conversations, and the data for the study consists of video recordings of everyday interactions in both domestic and work settings. The languages used in the data are English, Finnish, and French.
The thesis shows how participants in face-to-face interaction use priority displays to visibly give priority to one activity over another by (re-)allocating some of their embodied resources — the body, gaze, and hands — away from the lower hierarchised activity and to the prioritised one. What activity is prioritised can be either due to a participant’s trouble in conducting the activities simultaneously, or, as argued in this thesis, done for interactional purposes, such as prompting action from a co-participant. The embodied practices for making the hierarchisation of activities visible are recognised and oriented to by co-participants, who adjust their own activities to enable a successive coordination of the simultaneous activities, leading to the minimisation of parallel involvements. The findings also suggest that, in addition to a participant’s direct involvement in two or more parallel activities, publicly visible and socially relevant orientation to two or more parallel activities could be considered as involvement in said activities. This thesis contributes to research on social interaction and the organisation of multiactivity by providing new knowledge on how participants manage and orient to the different temporal and sequential demands related to multiactivity.
... La evidencia previa sugiere que, entre los beneficios del uso de las redes sociales y digitales, se incluyen el aprendizaje temprano, la exposición a nuevas ideas y conocimientos, el desarrollo de la empatía, mayores oportunidades de contacto social y apoyo, y nuevas oportunidades para acceder a mensajes e información de promoción de la salud (Moreno y Gannon, 2013;Naslund et al., 2016;Tomopoulos, 2010). No obstante, los riesgos de tales medios incluyen efectos negativos para la salud en el sueño, la atención y el aprendizaje, una mayor incidencia de obesidad y depresión, así como una mayor exposición a contenido y contactos inexactos, inapropiados o inseguros (Conners-Burrow et al., 2011;Hinkley et al., 2014;Rothbart y Posner, 2015). ...
Recientes estudios resaltan el potencial de la tecnología en el desarrollo de habilidades socioemocionales. El objetivo de este trabajo fue analizar el interés de los docentes de Educación Primaria y Educación Secundaria Obligatoria por incorporar recursos digitales para la implementación de la IE en el aula. La muestra estuvo compuesta por 357 profesores (59 % mujeres) con edades comprendidas entre 21 y 64 años de 35 centros educativos españoles. Nuestros resultados parecen indicar que existe un alto interés de los docentes por los recursos digitales para trabajar las habilidades socioemocionales. Sin embargo, los datos revelan una importante falta de formación en cuanto a recursos digitales, así como la existencia de problemas relacionados con la disponibilidad de material tecnológico adecuado. Este trabajo espera proporcionar una base y establecer una agenda para futuras investigaciones sobre el diseño de tecnología que apoye y ayude a enseñar habilidades sociales y emocionales.
... In his book, CrazyBusy, Edward Hallowell states that "multitasking is a mythical activity" and, even 2000 years ago, Publius Syrius knew "to do two things at once is to do neither." 1 A visit to any college campus will provide many opportunities to witness young people using their cell phones while reading, studying, and attending lecture, even though there is a wealth of research showing that learning, memory, and cognitive efficiency suffer when attention is divided during multitasking. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] In the clinical setting, cellular phones are used to prescribe, consult, monitor, and access drug and disease information, but cell phone use can be distracting. In one specific case, a patient undergoing an AV node ablation procedure died because the anesthesiologist, who was texting and posting on Facebook, did not notice the patient's falling blood oxygen level. ...
Objective The primary purposes of this study were to determine the extent to which multitasking affects the speed and accuracy with which Doctor of Pharmacy students identify prescription errors and whether there is a relationship between students' self-perception of their multitasking ability and their actual ability.Methods One hundred twenty-one second-year pharmacy students enrolled in the required course Introduction to Dosage Forms spent one week in an experimental (multitasking) condition and one week in a control (undistracted) condition. Subjects were given 10 minutes to check 10 prescriptions and record any identified filling errors. A cellular phone was placed in each room. Subjects in the experimental (multitasking) condition answered a call from a researcher posing as a talkative customer during the prescription-checking task while subjects in the control condition were not interrupted by a cell phone call during the task. Subjects' completion times and accuracy were recorded.Results When subjects were multitasking, they took significantly longer to complete the prescription-checking task than when they were not multitasking. Furthermore, when subjects were multitasking, they scored significantly lower on the prescription-checking task than when they were not multitasking. Finally, students' self-perceptions of their multitasking abilities were not related to the speed with which they completed the prescription-checking task nor to their accuracy.Conclusion Multitasking negatively affects speed and accuracy of prescription verification in student pharmacists. Our procedure can be used as an in-class activity to demonstrate the limits of attention and to shape how future pharmacists practice.
... Recently, the question of the consequences of multitasking has also been receiving attention (e.g., Carrier et al., 2015;Courage et al., 2015;Rothbart & Posner, 2015). However, the question of why people engage in multitasking and when they are most likely to do so has received relatively less scientific attention, even though it seems crucial to a full understanding of the phenomenon. ...
With the constantly increasing popularity of human multitasking, it is crucial to know why do people engage in simultaneous task performance or switch between unfinished tasks. In the present paper, we propose that multitasking behavior occurs when people have multiple active goals, the greater their number, the greater the degree of multitasking. The number of currently considered goals is reduced where one goal’s significance overrides the others, reducing the degree of multitasking. We tested these hypotheses in a series of six studies in which we manipulated either goal activation or goal importance and investigated how this affected the degree of multitasking. The results showed that the more active goals participants actively entertained, the more likely they were to plan to engage in multitasking (Study 1 & 5), and the more often they switched between tasks (Study 2). They also multitasked more under high interruption condition assumed to activate more goals than low interruption condition (Study 3). Further, we demonstrated that the degree of multitasking was significantly decreased by reducing the number of simultaneously considered goals, either via increasing the relative importance of one of the goals (Study 4) or via inducing greater commitment to one of the goals through a mental contrasting procedure (Study 5). Study 6, carried out in an academic context, additionally showed that the importance of a class-related goal negatively predicted media multitasking in class. The results thus show that goal activation is the underlying mechanism that explains why people multitask.
... La gestión y el desempeño en contextos multitarea guarda relación directa con la flexibilidad y el control inhibitorio (Rothbart y Posner, 2015). No se han encontrado estudios que aborden directamente la memoria de trabajo en relación con el uso excesivo de internet. ...
La adicción a internet es un problema de salud pública cada vez mayor, y los estudiantes universitarios reúnen una serie de características que les convierte en población de riesgo. Numerosos estudios sugieren una relación entre adicciones y alteración en las funciones ejecutivas. Se presenta una revisión bibliográfica que tiene por objetivo identificar variables neuropsicológicas de riesgo para el desarrollo de la adicción a las diferentes aplicaciones de la web en la etapa universitaria. Se realizó una búsqueda sistemática de estudios empíricos publicados entre 2000 y 2019 sobre la relación entre adicción a internet y función ejecutiva en esta población a través de bases de datos online (Medline, PsycInfo, PubMED, ScienceDirect, Scopus y Web of Science). Tras eliminar registros duplicados y aplicar criterios de elegibilidad, se seleccionaron 30 artículos. Los resultados sugieren la implicación de las funciones ejecutivas (control inhibitorio, toma de decisiones y fluidez verbal), aunque no permiten establecer un perfil de riesgo claro para el desarrollo de adicciones a internet. Parece necesario profundizar en la naturaleza de esta relación, diferenciando entre las diferentes aplicaciones y controlando variables como el género, la naturaleza de la tarea y el tipo de estímulo, con el fin de elaborar estrategias preventivas eficaces.
... Furthermore, a study found better multitasking performance among online gaming addicts, although only in ecological tasks as opposed to artificial laboratory tasks . Performance within multitasking contexts is thought to be directly related to flexibility and inhibitory control (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). ...
... Furthermore, a study found better multitasking performance among online gaming addicts, although only in ecological tasks as opposed to artificial laboratory tasks . Performance within multitasking contexts is thought to be directly related to flexibility and inhibitory control (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). ...
... A digitális játékok során a felhasználók sokféle ingernek vannak kitéve, valamint gyakran az is a játék célja, hogy egyszerre több dolgot figyeljenek, ahogy ez a kutatásunkban alkalmazott lufis játékban is történt. A gyerekek elméje gyorsan alkalmazkodik az adott környezethez (például Rothbart & Posner, 2015), ezért elképzelhető, hogy már a kétperces játék is hatással volt a figyelemmegosztási képességre. Ugyanakkor az a magyarázat is helytálló lehet, hogy az ÉKM-játék valójában csak a szelektív figyelmet rontotta, hiszen nem fordult át a szelektív figyelmi helyzet előnye a megosztott figyelmi helyzet javára, csak eltűnt a különbség a kettő között. ...
Az érintőképernyős mobileszközöket (ÉKM: okostelefonok és tabletek) egyre többet és egyre fiatalabb korban használják a gyerekek. Ekkor az agy még nagyon plasztikus, így az ÉKM-használat befolyásolhatja a kognitív fejlődést, ami új kihívásokat támaszt a szülőkkel és pedagógusokkal szemben. Egy keresztmetszeti vizsgálatban összehasonlítottuk az ÉKM-eszközöket gyakran használó és az ilyen eszközöket nem használó óvodás korú gyerekek (szelektív és megosztott) figyelmi és szociokognitív képességeit. Majd kísérletesen vizsgáltuk, hogy miképp befolyásolja a gyerekek figyelmi teljesítményét, ha előzőleg (előkezelés) egy gyors vagy lassú sebességű digitális játékkal vagy egy nem digitális játékkal játszanak. A szelektív figyelmi feladatban a gyerekek figyelmére (ÉKM-használattól függetlenül) a globális fókusz volt jellemző (jobban teljesítettek, ha az egészre kellett figyelni, mint ha a részletre), a megosztott figyelmi feladatban azonban az ÉKM-használók atipikus, lokális fókuszt mutattak (jobban teljesítettek, amikor a kis ábra volt a célinger, mint amikor a nagy), és teljesítményük a globális próbákban elmaradt az ÉKM-eket nem használó gyerekekétől. Az ÉKM-használók gyengébb tudatelméleti teljesítményt mutattak, viszont az érzelmek felismerésében nem különböztek az ÉKM-et nem használóktól. Az előkezelésen alapuló vizsgálatunk a figyelmi működéssel kapcsolatos eredményeket kísérletesen is megerősítette: a tesztet megelőzően digitális játékkal játszó gyerekek globális fókuszt mutattak a szelektív feladatban és lokális fókuszt a megosztott figyelmi feladatban, a nem-digitális játék után viszont mindkét feladatban globális fókusz volt jellemző. Míg a nem-digitális és a lassú digitális játékkal játszó gyerekek a szelektív figyelmi feladatban jobban teljesítettek, mint a megosztottban, addig a gyors digitális játékkal játszók nem mutattak ilyen előnyt a szelektív figyelmi feladatban. Eredményeink azt mutatják, hogy az ÉKM-eszközök rövid- és hosszútávú használata és azon belül a digitális játékokkal való játék lokális figyelmi fókuszhoz vezet, talán azért, mert a digitális képernyők lokális információkban gazdagok, és ritkán látszódik egyben az egész kép. A gyors digitális játék, azáltal, hogy párhuzamosan több ingerre kell figyelni, a megosztott figyelmet fejleszti, de a szelektív figyelmet nem. Az ÉKM-használat elveszi az időt a társas tevékenységektől, ami magyarázhatja, hogy az ÉKM-használóknak nehézségeik vannak a komplexebb szociokognitív képességek terén (tudatelmélet). Eredményeink fontos ismereteket nyújtanak és irányt mutatnak a pedagógia és a pszichológia számára.
This chapter takes a multidisciplinary approach to multitasking. Media multitasking has, consequently, become a frequent topic amongst academics yet some remarkable new research is revealing that we may not be taking into full account the changes to our students’ ability to learn, given the changes to their brains. The risks of multitasking to student achievement have been well researched yet many of the positive related developments in neuroscience are less well known. This chapter reviews some of this research bringing together: information foraging theory; cognitive control; and confirmation bias as they relate to the multitasking Generation Z student in higher education. Some significant research findings are discussed, including using laptops and similar devices in the classroom. A small survey underpins these discussions at the end of the chapter, highlighting student perspectives on multitasking during lectures.KeywordsMultitaskingCognitionInformation foragingAcademic performance
IQ tests have charted massive gains over the last century, known as the Flynn Effect . Over the same period, the time society spends with screens has massively increased and intensified, for example, shorter and closer shots, increasing narrative complexity. In Movies on our Minds (2021), James Cutting suggests a potential bidirectional link between the two effects: generational increase in visual processing abilities led to movie makers increasing the demands their movies place on viewer cognition, which in turn has trained societal visual processing capacity. In this commentary we review the evidence for such a positive association. The evidence indicates that increasing screen time may be associated with faster visual processing but also a potentially decreased ability to process this information (i.e., reduced executive functions). Further, effects may be dependent on the type of screen experience (e.g., developmental appropriateness of content and delivery platform such as TikTok) and other environmental considerations (e.g., socioeconomic status, parenting), suggesting that the factors influencing our evolving media/mind niche may be more complex than originally proposed.
Este estudo tem como objetivo principal identificar e compreender como a utilização contínua de tecnologias de hiperconexão, nomeadamente os dispositivos de comunicação (telemóvel, computador, tablet entre outros), molda a experiência do tempo dos estudantes universitários, contribuindo para reconfigurar as suas vivências diárias e as perceções de tempo, condicionando, igualmente, as suas autoperceções identitárias enquanto alunos. Para tal, o estudo parte do debate centrado em três eixos que se interconectam: a) as tecnologias de hiperconexão como centrais nos seus quotidianos, b) as construções identitárias dos jovens-adultos c) os modos de experienciar as durações temporais.
O desenho de investigação assenta na Abordagem Mista de Conversão, constituindo-se como uma metodologia mista. Numa primeira fase é adotada uma abordagem qualitativa, através da realização de entrevistas com 33 estudantes dos ciclos de licenciatura e mestrado integrado da Universidade do Minho e da Universidade de Aveiro, de diferentes idades e áreas de estudo. Numa segunda fase, de abordagem quantitativa, foi aplicado um questionário a 732 alunos de licenciatura, mestrado e mestrado integrado de ambas as universidades.
Os resultados demonstram que o modo de experienciar e gerir os tempos quotidianos tem influência direta nas práticas de tecnologias digitais de hiperconexão. Por sua vez, constatou-se por meio da análise da amostra entrevistada e inquirida, que o género, o escalão etário e a atividade ocupacional constituem variáveis diferenciadoras quanto às formas de administrar, gerir e percecionar o tempo. Conclui-se que os usos das tecnologias digitais de hiperconexão têm relação estreita com os modos como os estudantes compreendem as suas próprias identidades. Nesse sentido, identifica-se que o papel das tecnologias na vida dos estudantes condiciona diretamente as identidades universitárias, a perceção do tempo e as formas de relacionamento pessoais e institucionais.
With the development of new technology, products such as tablets have begun playing an increasingly important role in early childhood education. This study investigated the effect of an educational tablet app based teaching method and a conventional teaching method on young children’s implicit memory. Participants (N = 123) aged between aged three to five from a preschool were divided into four groups, the number cognition and reading comprehension experimental and control groups. The experimental groups underwent using the educational tablet apps for 2 months, while the control group followed regular teaching activities. Participants’ implicit memory were analyzed before and after the training. Among the four groups, the implicit memory of children in the number cognition tablet instruction group improved significantly, followed by the reading comprehension conventional group. The result reinforces previous findings that learning contents presented by different teaching methods could promote young children’s implicit memory development.
Past years have seen studies examining effects of digital media on attention problems and sleep in adolescents. The majority of these studies support that using digital media is related to attention problems and lower sleep quantity, and sleep quality in adolescents. The chapter overviews studies in the field, and avenues for future research. It is still unclear whether the link between digital media, attention, and sleep is causal. Recent media effects theories suggest these relationships are complex and dynamic. To answer questions on the effects of digital media use on attention and sleep, we need more research investigating the cause-and-effect nature of the relationship (e.g., longitudinal designs, intervention studies, field studies). Future studies should use more objective measures (i.e., tracking apps/wearables). Instead of focusing on the general effects of “social media” or “smartphones” we need a better understanding of which content within these media types are problematic for which individuals.
El objetivo del presente estudio fue observar el efecto de las variables nivel de estudios y adultez joven en la tarea de redes atencionales. Para ello, participaron 58 personas de población general separados en grupos de estudiantes y no estudiantes, y en adultez emergente y temprana, con los cuales se llevó a cabo un diseño experimental, utilizando como paradigma principal la tarea de redes atencionales. Los resultados mostraron que los grupos de estudiantes y no estudiantes no difirieron en rendimiento en ninguna de las condiciones de las redes, pero que, en cuanto a la variable adultez joven, hubo un efecto de interacción entre el tipo de adultez y la red de orientación, siendo el grupo adulto emergente más rápido que el grupo adulto temprano. Además, un análisis correlacional demostró que la edad correlacionó moderada y positivamente con el tiempo de reacción de todas las condiciones de la tarea atencional. Al final se discute la importancia del nivel de educación superior y la adultez joven sobre el funcionamiento de las redes atencionales en el campo de la psicología diferencial, y se mencionan las implicaciones de estos resultados en el ámbito clínico.
Fundamentals of Cognitive Science draws on research from psychology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, linguistics, evolution, and neuroscience to provide an engaging and student-friendly introduction to this interdisciplinary field. While structured around traditional cognitive psychology topics, from attention, learning theory, and memory to information processing, thinking, and decision making, the book also looks at neural networks, cognitive neuroscience, embodied cognition, and magic to illustrate cognitive science principles. The book is organized around the history of thinking about the mind and its relation to the world. It considers the evolution of cognition and how it demonstrates how our current thinking about cognitive processes is derived from pre-scientific philosophies and common sense, through psychologists' empirical inquiries into mind and behavior as they pursued a science of cognition and the construction of artificial intelligences. The architectures of cognition are also applied throughout, and the book proposes a synthesis of them, from traditional symbol system architectures to recent work in embodied cognition and Bayesian predictive processing. Practical and policy implications are also considered but solutions are left for the readers to determine. Using extended case studies to address the most important themes, ideas, and findings, this book is suitable for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in psychology and related fields. It is also suitable for general readers interested in an accessible treatment of cognitive science and its practical implications.
Aim: This study investigated the effects of exercises conducted with a Pilates ball on the motor skills of preschool children. Methods: 62 preschool children were randomly divided into two groups: an intervention group (IG) (n = 30) and a control group (CG) (n = 32). Exercises with a Pilates ball were practiced in IG. The One Leg Standing test, Functional Reach test, Ruler Drop test and Timed-Up and Go test were the outcome measures. Results: Static balance performance and dual-task performance were found to be significantly improved in the intragroup and intergroup comparisons, favoring the IG (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The exercises carried out in this study were found to be effective on static balance and dual-task performance. The study can guide an exercise program for the preschool age group. Clinical Trial Registration: NCT04575441 ( ClinicalTrials.gov )
The increasing use of digital technology among adolescents and young adults has led to concerns about possible detrimental effects on cognitive and brain functions. Indeed, as reviewed here, according to behavioral and brain-imaging studies, excessive media multitasking (i.e., using different digital media in parallel) may lead to enhanced distractibility and problems in maintaining attention. However, frequent video gaming may be beneficial for the development of working memory, task switching, and attention skills. All these cognitive skills depend on executive cognitive functions. Still scant but gradually cumulating brain-imaging results suggest that the negative effects of frequent media multitasking and the positive effects of frequent video gaming on cognitive skills in adolescents and young adults are mediated by effects on the frontal lobes, implicated in executive cognitive functions and still developing even through early adulthood.
Clubhouse is an auditory app that allows users to host various rooms surrounding a diverse range of topics from Artificial Intelligence to Philosophy. Along with its educational and serene approach, it is known for its popularity amongst celebrities, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerburg, CEO of Shopify, and its elusive invite and ios-only pass into gaining access into Clubhouse. Waiting lists are available in the case of not achieving an invite, but to further speed the process, various sellers on eBay, Reddit, Twitter, etc., charging invites from $10-$200. This research paper covers the phenomenon of Clubhouse and the emergence of audio-only rooms, along with a hypothesis of why Clubhouse is experiencing a downfall despite its seemingly successful business model.
Childhood screen time is associated with both attentional difficulties (for television viewing) and benefits (in action video gamers), but few studies have investigated today’s pervasive touchscreen devices (e.g. smartphones and tablets), which combine salient features, interactive content, and accessibility from toddlerhood (a peak period of cognitive development). We tested exogenous and endogenous attention, following forty children who were stable high (HU) or low (LU) touchscreen users from toddlerhood to pre-school. HUs were slower to disengage attention, relative to their faster baseline orienting ability. In an infant anti-saccade task, HUs displayed more of a corrective strategy of orienting faster to distractors before anticipating the target. Results suggest that long-term high exposure to touchscreen devices is associated with faster exogenous attention and concomitant decreases in endogenous attention control. Future work is required to demonstrate causality, dissociate variants of use, and investigate how attention behaviours found in screen-based contexts translate to real-world settings.
Célkitűzés
A tanulmány célja, hogy áttekintést nyújtson azon nemzetközi empirikus kutatások főbb eredményeiről, melyek azzal foglalkoznak, hogy az IKT-eszközök használata milyen összefüggést mutat a kognitív működéssel, személyiségvonásokkal. A kognitív működés területei közül a következőkre fókuszál a tanulmány; gondolkodás, figyelem és emlékezet, végrehajtó funkciók, intelligencia. A személyiségvonások közül az impulzivitás, szenzoros élménykeresés és kontrollhelyelvárás szerepe jelenik meg.
Az áttekintés módszertana
Az összefoglaló tanulmány olyan kutatások eredményeire támaszkodik, melyek nemzetközi színtéren született empirikus vizsgálatok a fent felsorolt témákon belül. A tanulmány törekszik a témában friss, releváns nemzetközi empirikus kutatások áttekintésére. A főbb eredmények és az ezekből levont következtetések: Az IKT-eszközök használata feltételezhetően eredményez bizonyos átalakulásokat kognitív működésünkben, azonban a kutatások eredményei arra a következtetésre vezetnek, hogy nem önmagában az IKT-használat az, ami a kognitív változásokat eredményezi, hanem az IKT-eszközök nem megfelelő használata. Vagyis valószínűleg a megfelelő IKT-használati szokások elsajátítása a kulcs abban, hogy az IKT-eszközök kognitív működésünkre gyakorolt negatív hatásainak mérséklésével ki tudjuk használni ezen eszközök előnyeit. Az IKT-eszközök nem megfelelő, problematikus használata olyan személyiségtényezőkkel mutat összefüggést, mint az impulzivitás (türelmetlenség, alacsony önkontroll és kitartás), gátolatlanság unalomintolerancia, külső kontrollos kontrollhelyelvárás. Kérdéses azonban, hogy ezen személyiségbeli jellemzőket valóban az IKT-eszközök bizonyos típusú használata idézi-e elő, vagy fordítva; az eleve ilyen személyiségvonással jellemezhető személyek hajlamosabbak a problematikus IKT-használatra? Ahhoz, hogy erre a kérdésre nagy bizonyossággal választ tudjunk adni, több randomizált kontrollált kutatásra van szükség a területen. A tanulmányban szereplő empirikus kutatásokat így kutatásmódszertani szempontból is fontos megvizsgálni annak érdekében, hogy árnyaltabb következtetéseket tudjunk megfogalmazni elemzésük révén.
Aim
The goal of this paper is to review the main findings of the international empirical studies which are focusing on the relationship of ICT-usage and cognitive functioning, and on the relationship of ICT-usage and personality factors. In the field of cognitive functioning, this paper studies the followings; reasoning, attention, memory functions, executive functions, intelligence. From the personality traits, this paper engages in impulsivity, sensory seeking and locus of control.
The methodology of the review
This paper reviews the relevant and up-to-date international empirical studies, which are made in the aforementioned fields. Main findings and conduisons: The usage of ICT- devices presumably results in changes in our cognitive functioning, but we can conclude from the results of the reviewed studies, that these changes are the impacts of the maladaptive use of these devices. So probably the most important issue is the acquirement of adequate habits in the filed of ICT-usage to moderate the ICT-devices' negative effects on our cognitive functioning, and to maximize the benefits of these devices.The maladaptive, problematic use of ICT-devices is in relationship with some personality traits, with impulsivity (impatience, low self-control, lack of persistence), with disinhibition, boredom susceptibility, and external locus of control. At the same time the direction of casuality is questionable, so we don't know, if problematic ICT-usage causes these changes in our personality, or conversely; people with these personality traits susceptible more to problematic ICT-usage? If we want to answer this question, we need more randomized controlled studies in this field. Therefore it is important to examine the methodology of the empirical studies which are appeared in this paper, in order to make accurate conclusions about them.
Three studies explored attentional orienting and soothing of distress in 3-and 6-month-old infants. Distress was precipitated by exposure to continuous auditory and visual stimulation, and followed by presentation of toys or computer displays to elicit soothing. In Study 1, infants calmed during 10-s toy presentations, but resumed distress equal to that prior to distraction upon toy withdrawal. Study 2 showed that distraction durations of 10, 30, and 60 s soothed infants equally during distraction, and all were followed by resumed levels of distress expression upon toy withdrawal. Study 3 found that manipulating the identity of the detractors improved soothing effects; location manipulations did not. The resurgence of distress expression following distraction suggests operation of a "distress keeper," an internal mechanism that appears to maintain distress levels during distraction so that distress expression resumes following distraction.
Brain training refers to practices that alter the brain in a way that improves cognition, and performance in domains beyond those involved in the training. We argue that brain training includes network training through repetitive practice that exercises specific brain networks and state training, which changes the brain state in a way that influences many networks. This opinion article considers two widely used methods - working memory training (WMT) and meditation training (MT) - to demonstrate the similarities and differences between network and state training. These two forms of training involve different areas of the brain and different forms of generalization. We propose a distinction between network and state training methods to improve understanding of the most effective brain training.
Regulation of thoughts and behavior requires attention, particularly when there is conflict between alternative responses or when errors are to be prevented or corrected. Conflict monitoring and error processing are functions of the executive attention network, a neurocognitive system that greatly matures during childhood. In this study, we examined the development of brain mechanisms underlying conflict and error processing with event-related potentials (ERPs), and explored the relationship between brain function and individual differences in the ability to self-regulate behavior. Three groups of children aged 4 to 6, 7 to 9, and 10 to 13 years, and a group of adults performed a child-friendly version of the flanker task while ERPs were registered. Marked developmental changes were observed in both conflict processing and brain reactions to errors. After controlling by age, higher self-regulation skills are associated with smaller amplitude of the conflict effect but greater amplitude of the error-related negativity. Additionally, we found that electrophysiological measures of conflict and error monitoring predict individual differences in impulsivity and the capacity to delay gratification. These findings inform of brain mechanisms underlying the development of cognitive control and self-regulation.
More than 5 million deaths a year are attributable to tobacco smoking, but attempts to help people either quit or reduce their smoking often fail, perhaps in part because the intention to quit activates brain networks related to craving. We recruited participants interested in general stress reduction and randomly assigned them to meditation training or a relaxation training control. Among smokers, 2 wk of meditation training (5 h in total) produced a significant reduction in smoking of 60%; no reduction was found in the relaxation control. Resting-state brain scans showed increased activity for the meditation group in the anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex, brain areas related to self-control. These results suggest that brief meditation training improves self-control capacity and reduces smoking.
Many of the diverse pleasures that people experience during recreational computing activities can be synthesised into a single concept known as flow. Flow is a state of intense mental focus that occurs when a person's perceptual and cognitive systems are challenged at near capacity without being exceeded. It typically results in feelings of enjoyment and reduced awareness of factors that are irrelevant to the task at hand. For example, sometimes while surfing the Web or playing computer games, people become so immersed in what they are doing that they lose track of time and temporarily forget about their physical surroundings, their sense of self and their usual concerns. Flow experiences are not limited to computing activities. People report experiencing flow while working, participating in sport, performing music, engaging in hobbies, and doing many other things. This paper suggests some instructional design principles that could potentially make online learning more conducive to flow experiences, and hence more enjoyable and intrinsically motivating. These suggestions have arisen from the findings of a qualitative study of the flow experiences of Web users and computer game players.
The dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4) 7-repeat allele has been found to interact with environmental factors such as parenting in children and peer attitudes in adults to influence aspects of behavior such as risk taking. We previously found that in toddlers, lower-quality parenting in combination with the 7-repeat allele of the DRD4 gene was associated with greater parent-reported Sensation Seeking (SS), but was unrelated to Effortful Control (EC). We now report findings from a followup assessment with the same sample of children showing that parenting quality interacts with the presence of the 7-repeat allele to predict EC in 3-to 4-year-old children. The change in these patterns of results may reflect the increased role of the executive attention network in older children and adults. However, due to the small sample size (N = 52) and the novelty of the results, these findings should be treated with caution and considered preliminary until they are replicated in an independent sample.
Background
The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) has consistently been implicated in the pathology of both drug and behavioral addictions. However, no study to date has examined OFC thickness in internet addiction. In the current study, we investigated the existence of differences in cortical thickness of the OFC in adolescents with internet addiction. On the basis of recently proposed theoretical models of addiction, we predicted a reduction of thickness in the OFC of internet addicted individuals.
Findings
Participants were 15 male adolescents diagnosed as having internet addiction and 15 male healthy comparison subjects. Brain magnetic resonance images were acquired on a 3T MRI and group differences in cortical thickness were analyzed using FreeSurfer. Our results confirmed that male adolescents with internet addiction have significantly decreased cortical thickness in the right lateral OFC (p<0.05).
Conclusion
This finding supports the view that the OFC alterations in adolescents with internet addiction reflect a shared neurobiological marker of addiction-related disorders in general.
The introduction of magnetoencephalography has made it possible to study electromagnetic signaling in deeper, paralimbic cortical structures such as the medial prefrontal/anterior cingulate (ACC) and medial parietal/posterior cingulate (PCC) cortices. Self-awareness and self-control have been attributed to these regions. To test the hypothesis that they are dysfunctional in pathological gambling with poor self-control, we studied gamblers with and without previous stimulant abuse and age- and sex-matched controls. We found that pathological gamblers were more impulsive than controls in a stop-signal task and attributed this to changes in the activity of the paralimbic network: Pathological gamblers had reduced synchronization at rest in the high gamma range (55-100 Hz) compared with controls and failed to show an increase in gamma synchronization during rest compared with the task, as observed in controls. Subgroup analysis revealed that pathological gamblers without a history of stimulant abuse had lower PCC power during the stop-signal task compared with controls and gamblers with previous stimulant abuse. Furthermore, gamblers with a history of stimulant abuse had up to four times higher power at the ACC site during rest and the task compared with controls. In conclusion, pathological gamblers had higher impulsivity and functional paralimbic abnormalities, which could not be explained by a history of stimulant abuse. In addition, previous stimulant abuse had a marked effect on the amplitude of oscillatory brain activity in the ACC and PCC, suggesting long-term deleterious effects of repeated dopaminergic drug exposure. These consequences should be investigated in more detail in longitudinal studies.
The present study examined the relationship between personality and individual differences in multi-tasking ability. Participants enrolled at the University of Utah completed measures of multi-tasking activity, perceived multi-tasking ability, impulsivity, and sensation seeking. In addition, they performed the Operation Span in order to assess their executive control and actual multi-tasking ability. The findings indicate that the persons who are most capable of multi-tasking effectively are not the persons who are most likely to engage in multiple tasks simultaneously. To the contrary, multi-tasking activity as measured by the Media Multitasking Inventory and self-reported cell phone usage while driving were negatively correlated with actual multi-tasking ability. Multi-tasking was positively correlated with participants' perceived ability to multi-task ability which was found to be significantly inflated. Participants with a strong approach orientation and a weak avoidance orientation - high levels of impulsivity and sensation seeking - reported greater multi-tasking behavior. Finally, the findings suggest that people often engage in multi-tasking because they are less able to block out distractions and focus on a singular task. Participants with less executive control - low scorers on the Operation Span task and persons high in impulsivity - tended to report higher levels of multi-tasking activity.
Organization of behavior into a nested hierarchy of tasks and subtasks is characteristic of purposive cognition in humans. While frontoparietal regions have been shown to represent many kinds of task events, their representation of task/subtask structure has not been directly investigated. On each trial of the current study, participants carried out a sequence of four visual target detections organized by task context into subtasks of different structure (three and one or two and two). Through extended regions of frontoparietal cortex, activity elicited by target detections depended upon the hierarchical level of the episode completed. Target detections completing the entire trial elicited greatest activity, followed by targets completing a subtask, and finally targets within one subtask. Results depended on task and subtask completion, rather than the complexity of the next task stage to be established. We suggest that, through large regions of frontoparietal cortex, control representations direct each step of a behavioral program. Completion of a subtask revises control representations related just to this subtask, leaving those related to the overarching task episode intact, while completion of the entire task revises the entire assembly of representations.
Self-regulation refers to the ability to control behavior, cognition, and emotions, and self-regulation failure is related to a range of neuropsychiatric problems. It is poorly understood how structural maturation of the brain brings about the gradual improvement in self-regulation during childhood. In a large-scale multicenter effort, 735 children (4-21 y) underwent structural MRI for quantification of cortical thickness and surface area and diffusion tensor imaging for quantification of the quality of major fiber connections. Brain development was related to a standardized measure of cognitive control (the flanker task from the National Institutes of Health Toolbox), a critical component of self-regulation. Ability to inhibit responses and impose cognitive control increased rapidly during preteen years. Surface area of the anterior cingulate cortex accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in cognitive performance. This finding is intriguing, because characteristics of the anterior cingulum are shown to be related to impulse, attention, and executive problems in neurodevelopmental disorders, indicating a neural foundation for self-regulation abilities along a continuum from normality to pathology. The relationship was strongest in the younger children. Properties of large-fiber connections added to the picture by explaining additional variance in cognitive control. Although cognitive control was related to surface area of the anterior cingulate independently of basic processes of mental speed, the relationship between white matter quality and cognitive control could be fully accounted for by speed. The results underscore the need for integration of different aspects of brain maturation to understand the foundations of cognitive development.
In this research, multitasking with media is defined as an audience behavior that combines media use with another non-media activity. This study examines (a) the prevalence and patterns of multitasking among 14- to 16-year-olds and (b) the media and audience factors that predict such behavior. Consistent with previous research, this study found that youth frequently multitask with media. Both (a) ownership of media in bedrooms as a media factor and (b) sensation seeking as an audience factor were found to be significant predictors of multitasking with media. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are further discussed.
Mindfulness meditation is a set of attention-based, regulatory, and self-inquiry training regimes. Although the impact of mindfulness training (MT) on self-regulation is well established, the neural mechanisms supporting such plasticity are poorly understood. MT is thought to act through interoceptive salience and attentional control mechanisms, but until now conflicting evidence from behavioral and neural measures renders difficult distinguishing their respective roles. To resolve this question we conducted a fully randomized 6 week longitudinal trial of MT, explicitly controlling for cognitive and treatment effects with an active-control group. We measured behavioral metacognition and whole-brain blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signals using functional MRI during an affective Stroop task before and after intervention in healthy human subjects. Although both groups improved significantly on a response-inhibition task, only the MT group showed reduced affective Stroop conflict. Moreover, the MT group displayed greater dorsolateral prefrontal cortex responses during executive processing, consistent with increased recruitment of top-down mechanisms to resolve conflict. In contrast, we did not observe overall group-by-time interactions on negative affect-related reaction times or BOLD responses. However, only participants with the greatest amount of MT practice showed improvements in response inhibition and increased recruitment of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, and right anterior insula during negative valence processing. Our findings highlight the importance of active control in MT research, indicate unique neural mechanisms for progressive stages of mindfulness training, and suggest that optimal application of MT may differ depending on context, contrary to a one-size-fits-all approach.
The present study examined whether action videogames can improve multi-tasking in high workload environments. Two groups with no action videogame experience were pre-tested using the Multi-Attribute Task Battery (MATB). It consists of two primary tasks; tracking and fuel management, and two secondary tasks; systems monitoring and communication. One group served as a control group, while a second played action videogames a minimum of 5 h a week for 10 weeks. Both groups returned for a post-assessment on the MATB. We found the videogame treatment enhanced performance on secondary tasks, without interfering with the primary tasks. Our results demonstrate action videogames can increase people's ability to take on additional tasks by increasing attentional capacity.
Effortful control (EC), or the trait-like capacity to regulate dominant responses, has important implications for children's development. Although genetic factors and parenting likely influence EC, few studies have examined whether they interact to predict its development. This study examined whether the DRD4 exon III variable number tandem repeat polymorphism moderated the relation between parenting and children's EC. Three hundred and eighty-two 3-year-olds and primary caregivers completed behavioral tasks assessing children's EC and parenting. Children's DRD4 genotypes moderated the relation between parenting and EC: Children with at least one 7-repeat allele displayed lower EC in the context of negative parenting than children without this allele. These findings suggest opportunities for modifying early risk for low EC.
The development of self-regulatory systems during the preschool years is accompanied by a dramatic increase in the ability to inhibit actions based on the directions of others. Several tasks have shown evidence of changes in self-regulation during the fourth year of life. The current cross-sectional study used a Simple Simon task, in which 33 3- to 4-year-old children were asked to respond to the command of one large toy animal but not to the command of another. Three important aspects of self-regulation were examined: the ability to inhibit action in the face of conflict, error detection/correction and the use of verbal and physical control strategies. The ability to inhibit a response in this task increased from 22% to 90% between 36 and 48 months of age. Post error slowing of Reaction Time (RT) indicative of error detection emerged at about the same age as successful inhibition. Physical rather than verbal self-regulation strategies were spontaneously employed by children to aid in the process of inhibition.
The ability to optimize behavioural performance when confronted with continuously evolving environmental demands is a key element of human cognition. The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), which lies on the medial surface of the frontal lobes, is important in regulating cognitive control. Hypotheses about its function include guiding reward-based decision making, monitoring for conflict between competing responses and predicting task difficulty. Precise mechanisms of dACC function remain unknown, however, because of the limited number of human neurophysiological studies. Here we use functional imaging and human single-neuron recordings to show that the firing of individual dACC neurons encodes current and recent cognitive load. We demonstrate that the modulation of current dACC activity by previous activity produces a behavioural adaptation that accelerates reactions to cues of similar difficulty to previous ones, and retards reactions to cues of different difficulty. Furthermore, this conflict adaptation, or Gratton effect, is abolished after surgically targeted ablation of the dACC. Our results demonstrate that the dACC provides a continuously updated prediction of expected cognitive demand to optimize future behavioural responses. In situations with stable cognitive demands, this signal promotes efficiency by hastening responses, but in situations with changing demands it engenders accuracy by delaying responses.
The ability of the human brain to learn is exceptional. Yet, learning is typically quite specific to the exact task used during training, a limiting factor for practical applications such as rehabilitation, workforce training, or education. The possibility of identifying training regimens that have a broad enough impact to transfer to a variety of tasks is thus highly appealing. This work reviews how complex training environments such as action video game play may actually foster brain plasticity and learning. This enhanced learning capacity, termed learning to learn, is considered in light of its computational requirements and putative neural mechanisms.
Executive attention is involved in the regulation of thoughts, emotions and responses. This function experiences major development during preschool years and is associated to a neural network involving the anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal structures. Recently, there have been some attempts to improve attention and other executive functions through training. In the current study, a group of 5 years old children (n=37) were assigned to either a training-group who performed ten sessions of computerized training of attention or a non-trained control group. Assessment of performance in a range of tasks, targeting attention, intelligence and regulation of affect was carried out in three occasions: (1) before, (2) after, and (3) two months after completion of training. Also, brain function was examined with a high-density electroencephalogram system. Results demonstrate that trained children activate the executive attention network faster and more efficiently than untrained children, an effect that was still observed two months after without further training. Also, evidence of transfer of attention training to fluid intelligence and, to a lesser degree, to regulation of affect was observed. Results show that efficiency of the brain system underlying self-regulation can be enhanced by experience during development, providing opportunities for curricular improvement.
Although the study of brain states is an old one in neuroscience, there has been growing interest in brain state specification owing to MRI studies tracing brain connectivity at rest. In this review, we summarize recent research on three relatively well-described brain states: the resting, alert, and meditation states. We explore the neural correlates of maintaining a state or switching between states, and argue that the anterior cingulate cortex and striatum play a critical role in state maintenance, whereas the insula has a major role in switching between states. Brain state may serve as a predictor of performance in a variety of perceptual, memory, and problem solving tasks. Thus, understanding brain states is critical for understanding human performance.
Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a part of the brain's limbic system. Classically, this region has been related to affect, on the basis of lesion studies in humans and in animals. In the late 1980s, neuroimaging research indicated that ACC was active in many studies of cognition. The findings from EEG studies of a focal area of negativity in scalp electrodes following an error response led to the idea that ACC might be the brain's error detection and correction device. In this article, these various findings are reviewed in relation to the idea that ACC is a part of a circuit involved in a form of attention that serves to regulate both cognitive and emotional processing. Neuroimaging studies showing that separate areas of ACC are involved in cognition and emotion are discussed and related to results showing that the error negativity is influenced by affect and motivation. In addition, the development of the emotional and cognitive roles of ACC are discussed, and how the success of this regulation in controlling responses might be correlated with cingulate size. Finally, some theories are considered about how the different subdivisions of ACC might interact with other cortical structures as a part of the circuits involved in the regulation of mental and emotional activity.
This is the first book to explore the cognitive science of effortless attention and action. Attention and action are generally understood to require effort, and the expectation is that under normal circumstances effort increases to meet rising demand. Sometimes, however, attention and action seem to flow effortlessly despite high demand. Effortless attention and action have been documented across a range of normal activities--from rock climbing to chess playing--and yet fundamental questions about the cognitive science of effortlessness have gone largely unasked.
This book draws from the disciplines of cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, behavioral psychology, genetics, philosophy, and cross-cultural studies. Starting from the premise that the phenomena of effortless attention and action provide an opportunity to test current models of attention and action, leading researchers from around the world examine topics including effort as a cognitive resource, the role of effort in decision making, the neurophysiology of effortless attention and action, the role of automaticity in effortless action, expert performance in effortless action, and the neurophysiology and benefits of attentional training.
Contributors: Joshua M. Ackerman, James H. Austin, John A. Bargh, Roy F. Baumeister, Sian L. Beilock, Chris Blais, Matthew M. Botvinick, Brian Bruya, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Marci S. DeCaro, Arne Dietrich, Yuri Dormashev, László Harmat, Bernhard Hommel, Rebecca Lewthwaite, Örjan de Manzano, Joseph T. McGuire, Brian P. Meier, Arlen C. Moller, Jeanne Nakamura, Evgeny N. Osin, Michael I. Posner, Mary K. Rothbart, M. R. Rueda, Brandon J. Schmeichel, Edward Slingerland, Oliver Stoll, Yiyuan Tang, Töres Theorell, Fredrik Ullén, Robert D. Wall, Gabriele Wulf.
What are the basic dimensions of temperament? How does temperament influence children's relationships to their physical and social worlds and their behavior and adjustment across the lifespan? In this book, Mary Rothbart comprehensively examines the role of temperament in the development of personality and psychopathology.
This book provides both a review of the literature and a theoretical framework for understanding the development of visual attention from infancy through early childhood, including the development of selective and state-related aspects in infants and young children as well as the emergence of higher controls on attention. They explore individual differences in attention and possible origins of ADHD.
The study of attention is central to psychology. This book presents the science of attention in a larger social context, which includes our ability voluntarily to choose and act upon an object of thought. The volume is based on fifty years of research involving behavioral, imaging, developmental, and genetic methods. It describes three brain networks of attention that carry out the functions of obtaining and maintaining the alert state, orienting to sensory events, and regulating responses. The book ties these brain networks to anatomy, connectivity, development, and socialization, and includes material on pathologies that involve attentional networks as well as their role in education and social interaction.
This book is the magnum opus of one of the most influential cognitive psychologists of the past 50 years. This new volume on the model he created (with Graham Hitch) discusses the developments that have occurred in the past 20 years, and places it within a broader context. Working memory is a temporary storage system that underpins onex' capacity for coherent thought. Some 30 years ago, Baddeley and Hitch proposed a way of thinking about working memory that has proved to be both valuable and influential in its application to practical problems. This book updates the theory, discussing both the evidence in its favour, and alternative approaches. In addition, it discusses the implications of the model for understanding social and emotional behaviour, concluding with an attempt to place working memory in a broader biological and philosophical context. Inside are chapters on the phonological loop, the visuo-spatial sketchpad, the central executive and the episodic buffer. There are also chapters on the relevance to working memory of studies of the recency effect, of work based on individual differences, and of neuroimaging research. The broader implications of the concept of working memory are discussed in the chapters on social psychology, anxiety, depression, consciousness, and on the control of action. Finally, the author discusses the relevance of a concept of working memory to the classic problems of consciousness and free will.
We review evidence for partially segregated networks of brain areas that carry out different attentional functions. One system, which includes parts of the intraparietal cortex and superior frontal cortex, is involved in preparing and applying goal-directed (top-down) selection for stimuli and responses. This system is also modulated by the detection of stimuli. The other system, which includes the temporoparietal cortex and inferior frontal cortex, and is largely lateralized to the right hemisphere, is not involved in top-down selection. Instead, this system is specialized for the detection of behaviourally relevant stimuli, particularly when they are salient or unexpected. This ventral frontoparietal network works as a 'circuit breaker' for the dorsal system, directing attention to salient events. Both attentional systems interact during normal vision, and both are disrupted in unilateral spatial neglect.
Current work, play, and learning environments require multitasking activities from children, adolescents and adults. Advances in web-enabled and multi-function devices have created a perceived need to stay “wired” to multiple media sources. The increased demand that these activities place on information processing resources has raised concerns about the quality of learning and performance under multitasking conditions. Young children, whose attention systems and executive functions are immature, are seen to be especially at risk. To evaluate these concerns the costs and benefits of “everyday” multitasking (e.g., driving, studying, multimedia learning) are examined in relation to the classic experimental literatures on divided attention in task-switching and dual-task performance. These literatures indicate that multitasking is almost always less efficient (time, accuracy) and can result in a more superficial learning than single-task performance. Alternatively, when the cognitive, perceptual, and response requirements of the tasks are controlled by the individual, when learning platforms are developmentally appropriate, and when practice is permitted, multitasking strategies can not only be successful but can result in enhanced visual and perceptual skills and knowledge acquisition. Future progress will come from advances in cognitive and computational modelling, from training attention and brain networks, and from the neuroergonomic evaluation of performance that will enable the design of work and learning environments that are optimized for multitasking.
Poor executive function (EF) has been associated with a host of short- and long-term problems across the lifespan, including elevated rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, drug abuse, and antisocial behavior. Mindfulness-based interventions that focus on increasing awareness of one's thoughts, emotions, and actions have been shown to improve specific aspects of EF, including attention, cognitive control, and emotion regulation. Reflecting a developmental neuroscience perspective, this article reviews research relevant to one specific mindfulness-based intervention, integrative body-mind training (IBMT). Randomized controlled trials of IBMT indicate improvements in specific EF components, and uniquely highlight the role of neural circuitry specific to the anterior cingulate cortex and the autonomic nervous system as two brain-based mechanisms that underlie IBMT-related improvements. The relevance of improving specific dimensions of EF through short-term IBMT to prevent a cascade of risk behaviors for children and adolescents is described and future research directions are proposed.
This paper presents a study on the analyzing reliability of smoke fire detector using accelerated life test. In general, the smoke fire detector is broken by dust which flow in smoke detection chamber. In order to conduct accelerated life test of smoke fire detector dust is set accelerated factor in this paper. The dust is fly-ash which is test particle 5th regulated by KS A 0090. The dust accelerated level is 60 g, 180 g and 360 g and failure time is measured by smoke sensitivity testing. It is considered to failure of detector if detector don't operate within 30 secconds when subjected to an air stream having a velocity of 20 cm/s~40 cm/s containing smoke with a concentration of 15% of rate of light-response of 1 m. The goodness of fit test and mean life prediction conduct using the failure time. The result show that life distribution fits the weibull distribution for failure time data and the mean lifes calculate 22.5 year in domestic product and 14.7 years in overseas product applied dust stress only.
Response selection account of task switching assumes that switching between competing task sets is accompanied by time cost (termed switch cost) as a source of prolongation of response selection process. The aim of the present study was to test the prediction of response selection account for switching conditions in which the level of interference between task sets, i.e., response selection requirement of tasks was manipulated. Switch task (parity and magnitude task) in combination with a version of NoGo signal task was used in two experiments. The overlap of task rules was manipulated between experiments. In the Experiment 1A the Stimulus-Response mappings (task rules) were bivalent: the same response outcomes were used in both tasks, in the Experiment 1B the rules were univalent (different response outcomes for the two tasks). Larger switch cost and intense reduction of switch cost subsequent to a NoGo signal were predicted for the bivalent switching conditions. In contrast with our prediction effective switching performance following task set inhibition was present in univalent condition. Explaining our results we refer to differences between interference conditions in terms of the mutual inhibitory effects between the task (S-R) rules.
Ophir, Nass, and Wagner (Proceedings of the National Association of Sciences 106:15583-15587, 2009) reported that individuals who routinely engage in multiple forms of media use are actually worse at multitasking, possibly due to difficulties in ignoring irrelevant stimuli, from both external sources and internal representations in memory. Using the media multitasking index (MMI) developed by Ophir et al., we identified heavy media multitaskers (HMMs) and light media multitaskers (LMMs) and tested them on measures of attention, working memory, task switching, and fluid intelligence, as well as self-reported impulsivity and self-control. We found that people who reported engaging in heavy amounts of media multitasking reported being more impulsive and performed more poorly on measures of fluid intelligence than did those who did not frequently engage in media multitasking. However, we could find no evidence to support the contention that HMMs are worse in a multitasking situation such as task switching or that they show any deficits in dealing with irrelevant or distracting information, as compared with LMMs.
