| 1. |
- Elbe, Pia, et al.
(författare)
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Predicting attention shifting abilities from self-reported media multitasking
- 2019
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Ingår i: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. - : Springer. - 1069-9384 .- 1531-5320. ; 26:4, s. 1257-1265
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Media multitasking is an increasingly prominent behavior in affluent societies. However, it still needs to be established if simultaneous use of several modes of media content has an influence on higher cognitive functions, such as divided attention. In this study, attention shifting was the primary focus, since switching between tasks is assumed to be necessary for media multitasking. Two tasks, the number–letter and local–global task, were used as measures of switching ability. The cognitive reflections task was included to control for possible effects of intelligence. Results from linear regression analyses showed that higher levels of media multitasking was related to lower switching costs in the two attention-shifting tasks. These findings replicate previous findings suggesting that heavy media multitaskers perform better on select measures of task switching. We suggest two possible explanations for our results: media multitasking may practice skills needed for switching between tasks, or high media multitaskers are choosing this style of technology use due to a dominating personality trait in this group.
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| 2. |
- Eriksson Sörman, Daniel, et al.
(författare)
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Complexity of Primary Lifetime Occupation and Cognitive Processing
- 2019
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 1664-1078. ; 10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Today, there are a lack of studies focusing on the relationship between occupational complexity and executive functioning. This is noteworthy since executive functions are core aspects of cognitive processing. The present study was aimed to investigate if three occupational complexity factors (with data, people, and things) of main lifetime occupation were related to performance in executive tasks (inhibition, switching, updating). We analyzed cross-sectional data that were available for 225 participants aged 50–75 years. Results from structural equation models showed that higher complexity levels of working with data were related to lower error rates in the updating component of cognitive control. In addition, higher rates of complexity working with people was associated with lower error rates in task-switching, which also persisted after adjustment of fluid intelligence. Complexity with things, however, was not related to performance in the executive tasks. Future studies would benefit from a longitudinal design to investigate if the results from this study also hold in the long term and to further investigate the directionality between factors.
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| 3. |
- Eriksson Sörman, Daniel, et al.
(författare)
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Different Features of Bilingualism in Relation to Executive Functioning
- 2019
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 1664-1078. ; 10:269
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The notion that the long-term practice of managing two languages is beneficial for the executive control system is an ongoing debate. Criticism have been raised that studies demonstrating a bilingual advantage often suffer from small sample sizes, and do not control for fluid intelligence as a possible confound. Taking those suggested factors into account, focusing on older bilingual age groups and investigating the potential effects of linguistic distances, this study aimed to improve the interpretations of the bilinguals’ advantages. Measures of inhibition (Flanker, Stroop, Simon task) and switching (Number-letter, Color-Shape, Local-global task) were collected in participants in the ages 50-75 years (n = 193). Despite a large study sample, results did not support any beneficial effects related to improve processing costs in executive functioning. Sub-analyses of the two different language groups (Swedish – Finnish / Swedish – English) intended to investigate the effect of linguistic distances did not change this outcome. Future studies exploring the potential long-term term effects of bilingualism would benefit from identifying tests of cognitive control with greater ecological validity and include other measures of cognitive functioning. Language learning interventions may also be a promising tool for future research.
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| 4. |
- Eriksson Sörman, Daniel, et al.
(författare)
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Reading Habits Among Older Adults in Relation to Level and 15-Year Changes in Verbal Fluency and Episodic Recall
- 2018
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 1664-1078. ; 9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The main objective of this study was to investigate reading habits in older adults in relation to level and 15-year changes in verbal fluency and episodic recall. We examined a sample of 1157 participants (55 years at baseline) up to 15 years after the baseline assessment using latent growth curve modeling of cognitive measures with baseline reading frequency (books, weekly magazines) as a predictor of cognitive level (intercept) and rate of change (slope). Subgroup analyses were performed to investigate the role of an early adult g factor in the association between reading habits and cognitive ability in midlife. Frequent reading of books, but not of magazines, was associated with higher levels of verbal fluency and recall but unrelated to rate of longitudinal decline. Subgroup analyses indicated that the g factor in early adulthood predicted reading and cognitive level in midlife and this factor removed the current association between reading habits and level of cognitive ability (both cognitive factors). The results indicate an enduring relationship between book reading and level of cognitive ability across the adult life span and provide little support of the hypothesis that frequent reading protects against latelife cognitive decline. The extent to which book reading promotes cognitive functioning in childhood/youth remains to be demonstrated. Intervention studies may be useful in this regard.
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| 5. |
- Hjärtström, Hanna, et al.
(författare)
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Distraction and facilitation : The impact of emotional sounds in an emoji oddball task
- 2019
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Ingår i: PsyCh Journal. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2046-0252 .- 2046-0260. ; 8:2, s. 180-186
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Emotional stimuli are argued to capture attention and consume attentional resources differently depending on their emotionalcontent. The present study investigates the impact of the automatic detection of unexpected and to-be-ignored emotional stimuli onhuman behavioral responses, and aims to unravel the differences in distraction between two negative emotional stimuli: sadness and anger.Forty participants (Mage= 25.5 years) performed a visual categorization task where angry and sad emoji faces were presented after eithera standard neutral tone (in 80% of trials) or a deviant emotional sound (tone changing in pitch; sad or angry sound in 10% of trials each)that was to be ignored. Deviant trials were either congruent (e.g., sad sound—sad face) or incongruent (e.g., angry sound—sad face).Although the stimuli presented to the participants were brief and to-be-ignored, results indicate that participants were significantly moredistracted by sad compared to angry stimuli (seen as prolonged response times). Findings are discussed with reference to the nature ofthe two negative emotions.
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| 6. |
- Marsh, John E., et al.
(författare)
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Executive Processes Underpin the Bilingual Advantage on Phonemic Fluency : Evidence From Analyses of Switching and Clustering
- 2019
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media S.A.. - 1664-1078. ; 10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Bilinguals often show a disadvantage in lexical access on verbal fluency tasks wherein the criteria require the production of words from semantic categories. However, the pattern is more heterogeneous for letter (phonemic) fluency wherein the task is to produce words beginning with a given letter. Here, bilinguals often outperform monolinguals. One explanation for this is that phonemic fluency, as compared with semantic fluency, is more greatly underpinned by executive processes and that bilinguals exhibit better performance on phonemic fluency due to better executive functions. In this study, we re-analyzed phonemic fluency data from the Betula study, scoring outputs according to two measures that purportedly reflect executive processes: clustering and switching. Consistent with the notion that bilinguals have superior executive processes and that these can be used to offset a bilingual disadvantage in verbal fluency, bilinguals (35-65 years at baseline) demonstrated greater switching and clustering throughout the 15-year study period.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Marsja, Erik, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Spatial Change In Multisensory Distractors Impact On Spatial and Verbal Short-Term Memory Performance
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Unexpected changes (known as deviant sounds) in a repetitive stream ofstandardsounds are known to prolong responses in visual categorization tasks (Parmentier, 2014) and disrupt short-term memory (Hughes, Vachon, & Jones, 2005; 2007). While this deviation effect,has been studied extensively, unexpected changes in multisensory irrelevant stimuli have yet to be explored. A further issue is whether a spatial change in either tactile, auditory, or in both modalities simultaneously, affects verbal and spatial short-term memorysimilarly. We explored how spatial and verbal memory performance were affected by a spatial change unexpectedly presented in a multisensory stream consisting of task-irrelevant vibrations and sounds.The sounds were presented from headphones and the vibrations from coin-like vibrating motors strapped to the upper arms of the participants. In the majority of trials (approximately 80%) the multisensory stream was presented on one side of the body whereas on deviant trials the irrelevant stimuli changed to the other side of the body. Preliminarily results suggest that a spatial change in a multisensory stream of irrelevant stimuli affects short-term memory performance both the spatial and verbal domains similarly. We conclude by discussing the results in the framework of multisensory views of short-term memory and attention (e.g., Cowan's, 1988; 1995) and the predictive coding framework (e.g., Talsma, 2015)
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