Improving innovative decision-making: Training-induced changes in fronto-parietal networks.

Innovative decision-making entails the balance of exploitative and explorative choices, and has been linked to the efficiency of executive functioning, including working-memory and attentional skills, associated with fronto-parietal networks. Based on the notion that such skills can be improved by cognitive training, we assessed whether a cognitive training enhancing basic executive skills might also improve the ability to manage the exploration-exploitation trade-off and its financial consequences, and whether any improvement in training-related performance would be reflected in neurostructural changes within fronto-parietal networks. Eighteen subjects participated in a baseline assessment, a training period and a follow-up measurement, while a matched group of 18 subjects did not undertake the training program. A subgroup of subjects underwent a multimodal MRI study to explore training-related changes in grey-matter volume and white-matter microstructure. After training, increased efficiency of innovative decision-making, related to the improvement of executive control skills, reflected neurostructural changes involving the right fronto-polar cortex and left superior longitudinal fasciculus. The quality of innovative decision-making can be improved by ad-hoc cognitive training procedures focused on executive skills, promoting neurostructural changes in fronto-parietal networks. The manifold implications involve both managerial and rehabilitative settings concerned with the quality of choices in normal and pathological conditions, respectively.

Individual and context-evoked antecedents of exploration-exploitation performance.

A central issue within the Carnegie approach is the exploration-exploitation tension that lies behind organizational adaptation. After decades of research, there is still little understanding of how the combination of individual and context-evoked differences affects exploration-exploitation performance. To address that issue, we build on recent psychological and neuroscientific studies to develop and test an integrative model. The model considers two individual antecedents (personality and cognitive flexibility) and three context-evoked antecedents that take place along different time horizons (recent stress, present emotional states, and present task motivation). We rely on a lab-in-the-field study of 282 leaders within the Swiss Armed Forces-an organization that exhibits the exploration-exploitation tension in an accentuated form. Using structural equation modeling, we conduct a multiple-mediation path analysis aimed at testing complex interactions between multiple variables. Our findings highlight the need to take an integrative approach; cognitive flexibility mediates the positive effect of the personality trait of emotional stability on exploration-exploitation performance, however, both cognitive flexibility and emotional stability play unique, underlying roles in explaining how organizational leaders interpret the context. Emotional stability decreases the negative effect of recent stress on a leader's cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility, in turn, mediates the effect of the present positive affective signals of task motivation on exploration-exploitation performance. These findings shed new light on our understanding of how adaptive leaders leverage positive and negative context-evoked antecedents that, in turn, affect cognitive flexibility and exploration-exploitation.

Short-term Sahaja Yoga meditation training modulates brain structure and spontaneous activity in the executive control network.

INTRODUCTION: While cross-sectional studies have shown neural changes in long-term meditators, they might be confounded by self-selection and potential baseline differences between meditators and non meditators. Prospective longitudinal studies of the effects of meditation in naïve subjects are more conclusive with respect to causal inferences, but related evidence is so far limited. METHODS: Here, we assessed the effects of a 4-week Sahaja Yoga meditation training on gray matter density and spontaneous resting-state brain activity in a group of 12 meditation-naïve healthy adults. RESULTS: Compared with 30 control subjects, the participants to meditation training showed increased gray matter density and changes in the coherence of intrinsic brain activity in two adjacent regions of the right inferior frontal gyrus encompassing the anterior component of the executive control network. Both these measures correlated with self-reported well-being scores in the meditation group. CONCLUSIONS: The significant impact of a brief meditation training on brain regions associated with attention, self-control, and self-awareness may reflect the engagement of cognitive control skills in searching for a state of mental silence, a distinctive feature of Sahaja Yoga meditation. The manifold implications of these findings involve both managerial and rehabilitative settings concerned with well-being and emotional state in normal and pathological conditions.

Time Perspective and Age: A Review of Age Associated Differences.

We investigate the relationship between age and the five dimensions of time perspective measured by the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) (past negative, past positive, present hedonistic, present fatalistic, and future). Time perspective is related to well-being, decision-making, level of development, and many other psychological issues. Hence, the existence of a systematic relationship between time perspective and age should be considered in all studies for which time is a relevant variable. However, no specific research about this has been conducted. We collected 407 papers that referenced the ZTPI between 2001 and 2015. From those, 72 studies met our inclusion criteria. They included 29,815 participants from 19 countries whose age spans most phases of adulthood (from 13.5 to 75.5 years, mean 28.7). We analyzed these studies adapting meta-analytical techniques. We found that present hedonistic and past negative dimensions are negatively related to aging with partial eta squared effect sizes of roughly 0.15. Our results have implications for the design of studies related to time as our findings highlight the importance of taking into account the differences associated with age.

Frontopolar cortex and decision-making efficiency: comparing brain activity of experts with different professional background during an exploration-exploitation task.

An optimal balance between efficient exploitation of available resources and creative exploration of alternatives is critical for adaptation and survival. Previous studies associated these behavioral drives with, respectively, the dopaminergic mesocorticolimbic system and frontopolar-intraparietal networks. We study the activation of these systems in two age and gender-matched groups of experienced decision-makers differing in prior professional background, with the aim to understand the neural bases of individual differences in decision-making efficiency (performance divided by response time). We compare brain activity of entrepreneurs (who currently manage the organization they founded based on their venture idea) and managers (who are constantly involved in making strategic decisions but have no venture experience) engaged in a gambling-task assessing exploitative vs. explorative decision-making. Compared with managers, entrepreneurs showed higher decision-making efficiency, and a stronger activation in regions of frontopolar cortex (FPC) previously associated with explorative choice. Moreover, activity across a network of regions previously linked to explore/exploit tradeoffs explained individual differences in choice efficiency. These results suggest new avenues for the study of individual differences in the neural antecedents of efficient decision-making.