Are trait self-control and self-control resources mediators of relations between executive functions and health behaviors?

This study investigated associations between executive functions (i.e., inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility) and individual differences in self-control and health behaviors. We examined whether executive functions predict physical activity, sedentary activity, and healthy and unhealthy diets, and whether trait self-control and self-control resources mediate these associations. Three hundred and eighty-five participants completed a questionnaire assessing trait self-control and self-control resources, physical activity, sedentary activity, and healthy and unhealthy diets. They also performed three randomly ordered cognitive tasks, a stop-signal task (i.e., inhibition), a letter memory task (i.e., updating), and a number-letter task (i.e., switching). Structural equation modeling revealed that self-control resources predicted positively physical activity (R2 = 0.08), negatively sedentary activity (R2 = 0.03) and positively healthy diet (R2 = 10). Moreover, trait self-control predicted positively healthy diet (R2 = 0.10) and negatively unhealthy diet (R2 = 0.19). Moreover, analyses revealed that switching significantly predicted self-control resources, and highlighted three totally mediated relations between this executive function and physical activity, sedentary activity and healthy diet. However, no evidence was found supporting associations between inhibition and updating, and health behaviors, or relations mediated by self-control for these executive functions. The findings suggest the importance of trait self-control and self-control resources for health behavior adoption and pave the way for studies exploring the role of the executive functions in an affective context. Open materials [https://osf.io/hpsjw/].

Visuo-Tactile Congruence Leads to Stronger Illusion Than Visuo-Proprioceptive Congruence: a Quantitative and Qualitative Approach to Explore the Rubber Hand Illusion.

The Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) arises through multisensory congruence and informative cues from the most relevant sensory channels. Some studies have explored the RHI phenomenon on the fingers, but none of them modulated the congruence of visuo-tactile and visuo-proprioceptive information by changing the posture of the fingers. This study hypothesizes that RHI induction is possible despite a partial visuo-proprioceptive or visuo-tactile incongruence. With quantitative and qualitative measures, we observed that gradual induction of the sense of body ownership depends on the congruence of multisensory information, with an emphasis on visuo-tactile information rather than visuo-proprioceptive signals. Based on the overall measures, the RHI observed went from stronger to weaker with full congruence; visuo-proprioceptive incongruence and visuo-tactile congruence; visuo-proprioceptive congruence and visuo-tactile incongruence; full incongruence. Our results confirm that congruent visual and tactile mapping is important, though not mandatory, to induce a strong sense of ownership. By changing index finger and thumb postures rather than the rotation of the whole hand, our study investigates the contribution of visuo-proprioception and postural congruence in the field of RHI research. The results are in favor of a probabilistic multisensory integration theory and do not resonate with rules and constraints found in internal body models. The RHI could be illustrated as a continuum: the more multisensory information is congruent, the stronger the RHI.