Tango of control: The interplay between proactive and reactive control.

Cognitive control has been theorized operating through two distinct mechanisms, proactive and reactive control, as posited by the dual mechanism of control model. Despite its potential to explain cognitive control variability, the supporting evidence for this model remains inconclusive. Prior studies frequently employed the Stroop task to assess this model, manipulating the proportion congruency (PC) at the list-wide and/or item-specific levels to target proactive and reactive control, respectively. However, these manipulations have been questioned as they may invoke low-level associative learning instead of control-driven mechanisms. Although solutions have been proposed to address these concerns, they still have limitations and impracticalities. In pursuit of a clearer understanding of this issue, we manipulated proactive and reactive control simultaneously to more directly investigate their separability. We conducted two experiments using a peripheral and a perifoveal spatial Stroop task version, respectively, and we adopted state-of-the-art methodologies, leveraging trial-level multilevel modeling analytical approaches, to effectively estimate the Stroop effect and its control-related modulations while controlling for confounding factors. Notably, we manipulated both list-wide and item-specific PCs at the trial level, allowing for a fine-grained analysis. Our results provide compelling evidence for the existence of a list-wide, PC-dependent proactive control mechanism, influencing Stroop performance independently of reactive control and confounding factors. Additionally, an item-specific PC-dependent reactive control effect was found to influence Stroop performance only in interaction with proactive control. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the interplay between proactive and reactive control mechanisms, shedding light on the intricate nature of cognitive control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A comparison between different variants of the spatial Stroop task: The influence of analytic flexibility on Stroop effect estimates and reliability.

The spatial Stroop task measures the ability to resolve interference between relevant and irrelevant spatial information. We recently proposed a four-choice spatial Stroop task that ensures methodological advantages over the original color-word verbal Stroop task, requiring participants to indicate the direction of an arrow while ignoring its position in one of the screen corners. However, its peripheral spatial arrangement might represent a methodological weakness and could introduce experimental confounds. Thus, aiming at improving our "Peripheral" spatial Stroop, we designed and made available five novel spatial Stroop tasks (Perifoveal, Navon, Figure-Ground, Flanker, and Saliency), wherein the stimuli appeared at the center of the screen. In a within-subjects online study, we compared the six versions to identify which task produced the largest but also the most reliable and robust Stroop effect. Indeed, although internal reliability is frequently overlooked, its estimate is fundamental, also in light of the recently proposed reliability paradox. Data analyses were performed using both the classical general linear model analytical approach and two multilevel modelling approaches (linear mixed models and random coefficient analysis), which specifically served for more accurately estimating the Stroop effect by explaining intra-subject, trial-by-trial variability. We then assessed our results based on their robustness to such analytic flexibility. Overall, our results indicate that the Perifoveal spatial Stroop is the best alternative task for its statistical properties and methodological advantages. Interestingly, our results also indicate that the Peripheral and Perifoveal Stroop effects were not only the largest, but also those with highest and most robust internal reliability.

lmeEEG: Mass linear mixed-effects modeling of EEG data with crossed random effects.

BACKGROUND: Mixed-effects models are the current standard for the analysis of behavioral studies in psycholinguistics and related fields, given their ability to simultaneously model crossed random effects for subjects and items. However, they are hardly applied in neuroimaging and psychophysiology, where the use of mass univariate analyses in combination with permutation testing would be too computationally demanding to be practicable with mixed models. NEW METHOD: Here, we propose and validate an analytical strategy that enables the use of linear mixed models (LMM) with crossed random intercepts in mass univariate analyses of EEG data (lmeEEG). It avoids the unfeasible computational costs that would arise from massive permutation testing with LMM using a simple solution: removing random-effects contributions from EEG data and performing mass univariate linear analysis and permutations on the obtained marginal EEG. RESULTS: lmeEEG showed excellent performance properties in terms of power and false positive rate. COMPARISON WITH EXISTING METHODS: lmeEEG overcomes the computational costs of standard available approaches (our method was indeed more than 300 times faster). CONCLUSIONS: lmeEEG allows researchers to use mixed models with EEG mass univariate analyses. Thanks to the possibility offered by the method described here, we anticipate that LMM will become increasingly important in neuroscience. Data and codes are available at osf.io/kw87a. The codes and a tutorial are also available at github.com/antovis86/lmeEEG.

On the relationship between emotions and cognitive control: Evidence from an observational study on emotional priming Stroop task.

Evidence is discordant regarding how emotional processing and cognitive control interact to shape behavior. This observational study sought to examine this interaction by looking at the distinction between proactive and reactive modes of control and how they relate to emotional processing. Seventy-four healthy participants performed an emotional priming Stroop task. On each trial, target stimuli of a spatial Stroop task were preceded by sad or neutral facial expressions, providing two emotional conditions. To manipulate the requirement of both proactive and reactive control, the proportion of congruent trials (PC) was varied at the list-wide (LWPC) and item-specific (ISPC) levels, respectively. We found that sad priming led to behavioral costs only in trials with low proactive and reactive cognitive control demands. Our findings suggest that emotional processing affects cognitive processes other than cognitive control in the Stroop task. Moreover, both proactive and reactive control modes seem effective in overcoming emotional interference of priming stimuli.

The Stroop legacy: A cautionary tale on methodological issues and a proposed spatial solution.

The Stroop task is a seminal paradigm in experimental psychology, so much that various variants of the classical color-word version have been proposed. Here we offer a methodological review of them to emphasize the importance of designing methodologically rigorous Stroop tasks. This is not an end by itself, but it is fundamental to achieve adequate measurement validity, which is currently hindered by methodological heterogeneity and limitations. Among the several Stroop task variants in the literature, our methodological overview shows that the spatial Stroop task is not only a potentially methodologically adequate variant, which can thus assure measuring the Stroop effect with the required validity, but it might even allow researchers to overcome some of the methodological limitations of the classical paradigm due to its use of verbal stimuli. We thus focused on the spatial Stroop tasks in the literature to verify whether they really exploit such inherent potentiality. However, we show that this was generally not the case because only a few of them (1) are purely spatial, (2) ensure both all the three types of conflicts/facilitations (at the stimulus, response, and task levels) and the dimensional overlaps considered fundamental for yielding a complete Stroop effect according to the multiple loci account and Kornblum's theory, respectively, and (3) controlled for low-level binding and priming effects that could bias the estimated Stroop effect. Based on these methodological considerations, we present some examples of spatial Stroop tasks that, in our view, satisfy such requirements and, thus, ensure producing complete Stroop effects.

Food induced distractibility in restrictive anorexia nervosa: Different motor patterns for different foods as revealed by a mouse tracker evaluation.

An altered automatic processing of food stimuli may contribute to the maintenance of calorie restriction in patients with restrictive Anorexia Nervosa (AN-R). The present study aimed to assess whether task-irrelevant food distractors elicited a different interference effect in the motor actions of patients with AN-R compared to healthy controls (HC). 40 patients with acute AN-R and 40 HC performed an irrelevant distractor task in which they were required to perform a reaching movement from a starting point to a green dot, while an irrelevant distractor (a high-calorie food, low-calorie food, or neutral object) was presented in the middle of the screen. Mouse trajectories and response times (RT) were recorded. The analyses conducted on the kinematic variables revealed that while the trajectories of HC veered similarly toward the three categories of stimuli, AN-R patients showed an increased deviation toward low-calorie foods and a reduced deviation toward high-calorie foods compared to neutral objects. No significant results emerged as regards RT. The pattern of responses observed in patients with AN-R (deviation increased toward low-calorie and reduced toward high-calorie) is consistent with their eating habits and may thus represent an implicit mechanism sustaining calorie restriction in patients with AN-R.

Aging-related effects on the controlled retrieval of semantic information.

The efficient use of knowledge requires semantic control processes to retrieve context-relevant information. So far, it is well-established that semantic knowledge, as measured with vocabulary tests, does not decline with aging. Yet, it is still unclear whether controlled retrieval-the context-driven retrieval of very specific aspects of semantic knowledge-deteriorates in aging, following the same fate as other forms of cognitive control. Here, we tackled this issue by comparing the performance of younger and older native Italian speakers during a semantic feature verification task. To manipulate the control demands, we parametrically varied the semantic salience of the target feature for the cue concept. As compared to their young counterparts, older adults showed worse performance (in terms of reaction times) as the salience of the target feature of the concept decreased. This result suggests that older people have relatively greater difficulties in regulating the activation within semantic representation when conditions pose high demands of controlled retrieval of semantic information. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Depressive symptoms and cognitive control: the role of affective interference.

Depressive symptoms are characterised by reduced cognitive control. However, whether depressive symptoms are linked to difficulty in exerting cognitive control in general or over emotional content specifically remains unclear. To better differentiate between affective interference or general cognitive control difficulties in people with depressive symptoms, we employed a non emotional (cold) and an emotional (hot) version of a task-switching paradigm in a nonclinical sample of young adults (N = 82) with varying levels of depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms were linked to greater difficulties in exerting cognitive control in complex situations (mixed-task blocks) compared to simple and semiautomatic situations (single-task blocks) in both task versions. Moreover, greater depressive symptoms were associated with longer latencies in the emotional version of the task across all trial types. Thus, the emotion-specific effect was not modulated by the degree of cognitive control required to perform the task. In sum, depressive symptoms were characterised by a general difficulty to exert cognitive control in both emotional and non emotional contexts and by greater difficulty in even simple attentional processing of emotional material. This study granted novel insights on the extent of cognitive control difficulties in emotional and non emotional contexts for people with depressive symptoms.

Structural Brain Network Reorganization Following Anterior Callosotomy for Colloid Cysts: Connectometry and Graph Analysis Results.

Introduction: The plasticity of the neural circuits after injuries has been extensively investigated over the last decades. Transcallosal microsurgery for lesions affecting the third ventricle offers an interesting opportunity to investigate the whole-brain white matter reorganization occurring after a selective resection of the genu of the corpus callosum (CC). Method: Diffusion MRI (dMRI) data and neuropsychological testing were collected pre- and postoperatively in six patients with colloid cysts, surgically treated with a transcallosal-transgenual approach. Longitudinal connectometry analysis on dMRI data and graph analysis on structural connectivity matrix were implemented to analyze how white matter pathways and structural network topology reorganize after surgery. Results: Although a significant worsening in cognitive functions (e.g., executive and memory functioning) at early postoperative, a recovery to the preoperative status was observed at 6 months. Connectometry analysis, beyond the decrease of quantitative anisotropy (QA) near the resection cavity, showed an increase of QA in the body and forceps major CC subregions, as well as in the left intra-hemispheric corticocortical associative fibers. Accordingly, a reorganization of structural network topology was observed between centrality increasing in the left hemisphere nodes together with a rise in connectivity strength among mid and posterior CC subregions and cortical nodes. Conclusion: A structural reorganization of intra- and inter-hemispheric connective fibers and structural network topology were observed following the resection of the genu of the CC. Beyond the postoperative transient cognitive impairment, it could be argued anterior CC resection does not preclude neural plasticity and may subserve the long-term postoperative cognitive recovery.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment in Alzheimer's disease: a meta-analysis of its efficacy as a function of protocol characteristics and degree of personalization.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) represents the most common type of neurodegenerative disorder. Although our knowledge on the causes of AD remains limited and no curative treatments are available, several interventions have been proposed in trying to improve patients' symptomatology. Among those, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been shown a promising, safe and noninvasive intervention to improve global cognitive functioning. Nevertheless, we currently lack agreement between research studies on the optimal stimulation protocol yielding the highest efficacy in these patients. To answer this query, we conducted a systematic literature search in PubMed, PsycINFO and Scopus databases and meta-analysis of studies published in the last 10 years (2010-2021) according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Differently from prior published meta-analytic work, we investigated whether protocols that considered participants-specific neuroimaging scans for the selection of individualized stimulation targets held more successful outcomes compared to those relying on a generalized targeting selection criteria. We then compared the effect sizes of subsets of studies based on additional protocol characteristics (frequency, duration of intervention, number of stimulation sites, use of concomitant cognitive training and patients' educational level). Our results confirm TMS efficacy in improving global cognitive functioning in mild-to-moderate AD patients, but also highlight the flaws of current protocols characteristics, including a possible lack of sufficient personalization in stimulation protocols.

Body structural representation in schizotypy.

A deficient sense of self, typically observed in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, is often accompanied by abnormalities in bodily perception and awareness. These abnormalities are seemingly among the most powerful predictive factors for the onset of schizophrenic illnesses. According to the hypothesis of the psychosis continuum, high schizotypal traits in the general population may be characterized by a progressive sense of detachment from one's lived body. Building upon previous research that found an abnormal Body Structural Representation (BSR) in individuals with schizophrenia, this study aims to extend these findings to schizotypy. To investigate this, we utilized the Finger Localization Task (FLT), in which participants must identify the finger touched by the experimenter, and the In Between Task (IBT), in which two fingers are touched and participants must specify the number of fingers in between the two stimulated fingers. We found that individuals with high schizotypy were significantly less accurate than individuals with low schizotypy in determining the spatial configuration of their own fingers relative to each other. Most significantly, performances on both tasks were negatively correlated with the score on the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES). These findings support the hypothesis that the progressive loss of one's sense of self is associated with abnormal bodily experiences and dissociative symptomatology which may represent a potential marker for schizophrenia proneness.

Online search trends and word-related emotional response during COVID-19 lockdown in Italy: a cross-sectional online study.

BACKGROUND: The strong and long lockdown adopted by the Italian government to limit COVID-19 spreading represents the first threat-related mass isolation in history that can be studied in depth by scientists to understand individuals' emotional response to a pandemic. METHODS: We investigated the effects on individuals' mental wellbeing of this long-term isolation by means of an online survey on 71 Italian volunteers. They completed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule and Fear of COVID-19 Scale and judged valence, arousal, and dominance of words either related or unrelated to COVID-19, as identified by Google search trends. RESULTS: Emotional judgments changes from normative data varied depending on word type and individuals' emotional state, revealing early signals of individuals' mental distress to COVID-19 confinement. All individuals judged COVID-19-related words to be less positive and dominant. However, individuals with more negative feelings and COVID-19 fear also judged COVID-19-unrelated words to be less positive and dominant. Moreover, arousal ratings increased for all words among individuals with more negative feelings and COVID-19 fear but decreased among individuals with less negative feelings and COVID-19 fear. DISCUSSION: Our results show a rich picture of emotional reactions of Italians to tight and 2-month long confinement, identifying early signals of mental health distress. They are an alert to the need for intervention strategies and psychological assessment of individuals potentially needing mental health support following the COVID-19 situation.

Depressed mood, brooding rumination and affective interference: The moderating role of heart rate variability.

Facilitated processing of negative information might contribute to the etiopathogenesis and maintenance of depressive symptoms. Cardiac vagal tone, indexed by heart rate variability (HRV), is believed to represent a proxy of the functional integrity of the neural networks implicated in brooding rumination, affective interference and depression. The present study examined whether HRV may moderate the relation between brooding rumination, affective interference and depressive symptoms in a sample of healthy individuals (n = 68) with different degrees of depressed mood. Self-report measures of depression and brooding were collected, whereas the emotional Stroop task was employed to measure affective interference. Three-minute resting-state electrocardiogram was recorded to obtain time- and frequency-domain vagally mediated HRV parameters. Stepwise linear regression analyses revealed that HRV was a significant moderator of the positive association between depression and brooding rumination, but not of the association between depression and affective interference. An integrated model is supported, in which vagally mediated HRV appeared to potentiate the positive link between depressive symptoms and brooding rumination. Considering that HRV and brooding rumination were found to have an interacting role in determining the severity of depressive symptoms, they may represent potential clinical targets in the prevention and treatment of depressive symptoms.

Electroencephalographic correlates of temporal Bayesian belief updating and surprise.

The brain predicts the timing of forthcoming events to optimize responses to them. Temporal predictions have been formalized in terms of the hazard function, which integrates prior beliefs on the likely timing of stimulus occurrence with information conveyed by the passage of time. However, how the human brain updates prior temporal beliefs is still elusive. Here we investigated electroencephalographic (EEG) signatures associated with Bayes-optimal updating of temporal beliefs. Given that updating usually occurs in response to surprising events, we sought to disentangle EEG correlates of updating from those associated with surprise. Twenty-six participants performed a temporal foreperiod task, which comprised a subset of surprising events not eliciting updating. EEG data were analyzed through a regression-based massive approach in the electrode and source space. Distinct late positive, centro-parietally distributed, event-related potentials (ERPs) were associated with surprise and belief updating in the electrode space. While surprise modulated the commonly observed P3b, updating was associated with a later and more sustained P3b-like waveform deflection. Results from source analyses revealed that neural encoding of surprise comprises neural activity in the cingulo-opercular network (CON) and parietal regions. These data provide evidence that temporal predictions are computed in a Bayesian manner, and that this is reflected in P3 modulations, akin to other cognitive domains. Overall, our study revealed that analyzing P3 modulations provides an important window into the Bayesian brain. Data and scripts are shared on OSF: https://osf.io/ckqa5/.

Body-environment integration: Temporal processing of tactile and auditory inputs along the schizophrenia continuum.

According to the dimensional approach to psychosis, there is a continuum from low schizotypy to schizophrenia patients. The temporal aspect of sensory processing seems to be compromised across such continuum, as suggested by different studies separately investigating unisensory or multisensory domains. Most of these studies have so far focused primarily on the temporal processing of visual and auditory stimuli, either in schizotypy or schizophrenia, while leaving the tactile domain and the integration of touch with other senses mostly unexplored. Given the relevance of body-related perceptual abnormalities for psychosis proneness, we aimed at filling this gap in the literature across two studies. We asked participants with increasing levels of schizotypy (study 1) and schizophrenia patients (study 2) to perform three simultaneity judgement tasks: a unimodal tactile task, a unimodal auditory task and a bimodal audio-tactile task. Each task allowed estimating a simultaneity range (SR), as a proxy of the individual tolerance to asynchronies in the tactile, auditory and audio-tactile domains, respectively. Results showed larger SRs as the level of schizotypy increases. Specifically, the linear effect of schizotypy levels on the audio-tactile task was stronger than on the auditory task, which in turn was greater than the effect on the tactile task (study 1). Differently, schizophrenia patients showed larger SRs than controls in all the three tasks (study 2). The current study is the first empirical investigation across the continuum from low schizotypy to schizophrenia of the tolerance to asynchronies in the processing of external (auditory) and body-related (tactile) inputs.

Inferior parietal lobule is sensitive to different semantic similarity relations for concrete and abstract words.

Similarity measures, the extent to which two concepts have similar meanings, are the key to understand how concepts are represented, with different theoretical perspectives relying on very different sources of data from which similarity can be calculated. While there is some commonality in similarity measures, the extent of their correlation is limited. Previous studies also suggested that the relative performance of different similarity measures may also vary depending on concept concreteness and that the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) may be involved in the integration of conceptual features in a multimodal system for the semantic categorization. Here, we tested for the first time whether theory-based similarity measures predict the pattern of brain activity in the IPL differently for abstract and concrete concepts. English speakers performed a semantic decision task, while we recorded their brain activity in IPL through fNIRS. Using representational similarity analysis, results indicated that the neural representational similarity in IPL conformed to the lexical co-occurrence among concrete concepts (regardless of the hemisphere) and to the affective similarity among abstract concepts in the left hemisphere only, implying that semantic representations of abstract and concrete concepts are characterized along different organizational principles in the IPL. We observed null results for the decoding accuracy. Our study suggests that the use of the representational similarity analysis as a complementary analysis to the decoding accuracy is a promising tool to reveal similarity patterns between theoretical models and brain activity recorded through fNIRS.

Natural oscillation frequencies in the two lateral prefrontal cortices induced by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.

Different cortical regions respond with distinct rhythmic patterns of neural oscillations to Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). We investigated natural frequencies induced by TMS in left and right homologous dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (DLPFC) and related hemispheric differences. In 12 healthy young adults, single-pulse TMS was delivered in different blocks close to F3 and F4 channels to target left and right DLPFC. An occipital site near PO3 was stimulated as control. TMS-related spectral perturbation analyses were performed on recorded EEG data. A widespread unspecific increase in theta power was observed for all stimulation sites. However, occipital TMS induced greater alpha activity and a 10.58 Hz natural frequency, while TMS over the left and right DLPFC resulted in similar beta band modulations and a natural frequency of 18.77 and 18.5 Hz, respectively. In particular, TMS-related specific increase in beta activity was stronger for the right than the left DLPFC. The right DLPFC is more specifically tuned to its natural beta frequency when it is directly stimulated by TMS than with TMS over the left counterpart (or a posterior region), while the left DLPFC increases its beta activity more similarly irrespective of whether it is directly stimulated or through right homologous stimulation. These results yield important implications for both basic neuroscience research on inter-hemispheric prefrontal interactions and clinical applications.

Cognitive brakes in interference resolution: A mouse-tracking and EEG co-registration study.

Cognitive control is particularly challenged when it is necessary to resolve interference and correct our behavior on-the-fly. To do this, it is necessary to inhibit the ongoing wrong action and reprogram a new motor plan as appropriate for the current task. This ability requires a complex interaction between cognitive and motor control. Here, we aimed at shedding light on this interplay. To do this, we administered a spatial version of the Stroop task comprising blocks with different Proportion Congruency (PC) manipulations (i.e., manipulating the percentage of congruent trials at 25%, 50% or 75%), to elicit different cognitive control demands. Moreover, we used two techniques with high-temporal resolution, as we simultaneously recorded EEG and mouse trajectories, that can be considered the real-time kinematic correlates of the ongoing cognitive processing. Specifically, we analyzed the Event Related Potentials (ERPs) locked to the peak deceleration time, which marks the suppression of ongoing erroneous trajectories, and we estimated their neural sources. We found three PC-dependent ERP components engaging distinct neural regions, which showed a reduction of the Stroop effect for low-PC blocks. By using a novel co-registration of mouse-trajectories and EEG, we suggest that the observed components may reflect different mechanisms engaged by reactive cognitive control to resolve the interference, including the suppression of an ongoing but no longer appropriate response, the selection of the new motor plan and its actual updating.

Brain oscillatory activity associated with switch and mixing costs during reactive control.

Task-switching paradigms, which involve task repetitions and between-task switches, have long been used as a benchmark of cognitive control processes. When mixed and single-task blocks are presented, two types of costs usually occur: the switch cost, measured by contrasting performance on switch and repeat trials during the mixed-task blocks, and the mixing cost, calculated as the performance difference between the all-repeat trials from the single-task blocks and the repeat trials from the mixed-task blocks. Both costs can be mitigated by informational cues that signal the upcoming task switch beforehand. Recent electroencephalographic studies have started unveiling the brain oscillatory activity underlying the switch cost during the preparatory cue-target interval, thus, targeting proactive control processes. Less attention has instead been paid to the mixing cost and, importantly, to the oscillatory dynamics involved in switch and mixing costs during reactive control. To fill this gap, here, we analyzed the time-frequency data obtained during a task-switching paradigm wherein the simultaneous presentation of task cues and targets increased the need for reactive control. Results showed that while alpha and beta bands were modulated by switch and mixing costs in a similar gradual fashion, with greater suppression going from switch to repeat and all-repeat trials, theta power was sensitive to the switch cost with increased power for switch than repeat trials. Together, our findings join previous studies underlining the importance of theta, alpha and beta oscillations in task-switching and extend them by depicting the oscillations involved in switch and mixing costs during reactive control processes.

Catching the intangible: a role for emotion?

A crucial aspect of Gilead and colleagues' ontology is the dichotomy between tangible and intangible representations, but the latter remains rather ill-defined. We propose a fundamental role for interoceptive experience and the statistical distribution of entities in language, especially for intangible representations, that we believe Gilead and colleagues' ontology needs to incorporate.