Cognitive performance, fatigue, emotional, and physiological strains in simulated long-duration flight missions.

Pilots in long-duration flight missions in single-seat aircraft may be affected by fatigue. This study determined associations between cognitive performance, emotions and physiological activation and deactivation - measured by heart rate variability (HRV) - in a simulated 11-h flight mission in the 39 Gripen aircraft. Twelve participants volunteered for the study. Perceived fatigue was measured by the Samn-Perelli Fatigue Index (SPFI). Cognitive performance was measured by non-executive and executive tasks. Emotions were assessed by the Circumplex Affect Space instrument. HRV was considered in relation to the cognitive tasks in four time points - Hours 3, 5, 7, 9 - and their associations with emotional ratings. Results indicated a decrease in performance in the non-executive task after approximately 7 h. This result was correlated with self-reported measures of fatigue. HRV, assessed by indices of parasympathetic modulation, remained unchanged for both non-executive and executive tasks over time (p > .05 for all). Significant correlations were observed between emotions and HRV; with increased boredom, increased passiveness, decreased stimulation, and decreased activeness, HRV indicators increased (p < .05). This suggests that a low self-regulatory effort for maintaining performance in these conditions was prevalent and that pilots could adapt to some degree to the demands and fatigue of long-duration missions.

Fatigue, Emotion, and Cognitive Performance in Simulated Long-Duration, Single-Piloted Flight Missions.

BACKGROUND: Fatigue of air force pilots has become an increasing concern due to changes in mission characteristics. In the current study we investigated fatigue, emotions, and cognitive performance in a simulated 11-h mission in the 39 Gripen fighter aircraft. METHODS: A total of 12 subjects were evaluated in a high-fidelity dynamic flight simulator for 12 consecutive hours. Perceived fatigue was measured by the Samn-Perelli Fatigue Index (SPFI). Emotions were assessed with the Circumplex Affect Space. Cognitive performance was assessed by five cognitive tasks. RESULTS: Significant increase in self-reported fatigue, general decrease in two positive emotional states, as well increase of one negative emotional state occurred after approximately 7 h into the mission. Self-reported fatigue negatively correlated with enthusiasm and cheerfulness (r 0.75; 0.49, respectively) and positively correlated with boredom and gloominess (r 0.61; r 0.30, respectively). Response time in the low-order task negatively correlated with enthusiasm, cheerfulness and calmness (r 0.44; r 0.41; r 0.37, respectively) and positively correlated with boredom and anxiousness (r 0.37; r 0.28, respectively). Mission duration had an adverse impact on emotions in these environmental conditions, particularly after 7 h. DISCUSSION: These results contribute to the understanding of fatigue development in general and of emotion-cognition relationships. These findings emphasize that both emotional states and the type of cognitive tasks to be performed should be considered for planning long-duration missions in single-piloted fighter aircrafts as to increase the probability of missions success. Rosa E, Gronkvist M, Kolegard R, Dahlstrom N, Knez I, Ljung R, Willander J. Fatigue, emotion, and cognitive performance in simulated long-duration, single-piloted flight missions. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2021; 92(9):710719.

Emotion and cognition in personal and collective work-identity formation: variable- and person-oriented analyses.

The aim of this study was to investigate emotional and cognitive processes involved in the formation of personal and collective work-identity by variable- and person-oriented analyses. A digitized questionnaire was answered by 768 participants. In line with an autobiographical (personal) memory view, we showed that: (1) emotional processes positively predicted cognitive processes (variable-oriented analyses), and (2) emotional profile had an effect on cognitive processes (person-oriented analyses), with regard to personal work-identity formation. Regarding collective work-identity formation, and in line with a social-identity and self-categorization perspective, we showed that: (1) cognitive processes positively predicted emotional processes (variable-oriented analyses), and (2) cognitive profile had an effect on emotional processes (person-oriented analyses). Our results indicate that emotion and cognition play different roles in personal- and collective work-identity formation; additionally, suggesting that the theoretical views of both personal and social psychology as well as analyses at different levels should be involved in order to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of people-work bonding.

Weighting power by preference eliminates gender differences.

Power can be applied in different domains (e.g., politics, work, romantic relationships, family etc.), however, we do not always reflect on which domains we have power in and how important power in these domains is. A dominant idea is that men have more power than women. This notion may be biased because the concept of power is associated with public life. We introduce the concept of preference-weighted power (PWP), a measure of power that includes different domains in life, weighted by the domains' subjective importance. Two studies investigated power from this perspective. In Study 1, participants generated words related to power, which were quantified/categorized by latent semantic analysis to develop a semantic measure of the power construct. In Study 2, we computed a PWP index by weighting the participants' self-rated power in different power domains with the importance of having power in that domain. Together the studies suggest that men have more perceived power in the public domain, however, this domain has a lower preference weighting than the private domain where women have more power than men. Finally, when preferences for power in different domains were considered, no gender differences were observed. These results emphasize gender difference in different domains and may change how we perceive men's and women's power in our society.

Teachers' Personal and Collective Work-Identity Predicts Exhaustion and Work Motivation: Mediating Roles of Psychological Job Demands and Resources.

The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating roles of teachers' psychological job demands and resources regarding personal and collective work-identity, respectively, and exhaustion and self-determined work motivation, respectively. A total of 2,905 members of a Swedish teacher's trade union received an online questionnaire by e-mail; 768 individuals answered the questionnaire and so participated in this study. The data were obtained by self-reported measures (e.g., emotional and cognitive components of work-identity, psychological job demands and resources, exhaustion and work motivation) and analyzed by mediation regression analyses. The results showed that teachers' psychological job demands (prosocial extra-role performance) mediated relationships between cognitive personal work-identity and emotional collective work-identity, respectively, and exhaustion. Teachers' psychological job resources (educational inspiration) mediated relationships between emotional personal work-identity and cognitive collective work-identity, respectively, and self-determined work motivation. Thus, teachers might be disadvantaged by stronger personal work-related thinking and collective work-related feeling when related to exhaustion, to some extent accounted for by psychological job demands, and they might find advantage in stronger personal work-related feeling and collective work-related thinking when related to work motivation, to some extent accounted for by psychological job resources.

The reminiscence bump is blind to blindness: Evidence from sound- and odor-evoked autobiographical memory.

The reminiscence bump is the disproportionally high reporting of autobiographical memories from adolescence and early adulthood and is typically observed when memories are evoked by cues, such as words, pictures, and sounds. However, when odors are used the bump shifts to early childhood. Although these findings indicate that sensory modality affects the bump, the influence of the individual's sensory function on the reminiscence bumps is unknown. We examined the reminiscence bumps of sound- and odor-evoked autobiographical memories of early blind and sighted individuals, since early blindness implies considerable effects on sensory experience. Despite differences in sensory experience between blind and sighted individuals, the groups displayed similar age distributions of both sound- and odor-evoked memories. The auditory bump spanned the first two decades of life, whereas the olfactory bump was once again found in early childhood. These results demonstrate that the reminiscence bumps are robust to fundamental differences in sensory experience.

Do biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs reduce the spinal fracture risk related to ankylosing spondylitis? A longitudinal multiregistry matched cohort study.

OBJECTIVES: Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is associated with an increased spinal fracture risk due to the loss of elasticity in spinal motion segments. With the introduction of biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (bDMARD) treatment for AS, the individual course of the disease has been ameliorated. This study aims to examine the association of bDMARD treatment and risk of spinal fracture. DESIGN: Longitudinal population-based multiregistry observational matched cohort study. SETTING: Swedish Patient Registry 1987-2014 and Swedish Prescribed Drugs Registry 2005-2014. PARTICIPANTS: Included were patients ≥18 years of age receiving treatment at a healthcare facility for the primary diagnosis of AS. About 1352 patients received more than one prescription of bDMARD from 2005 to 2014. An untreated control group was created by propensity score matching for age, sex, comorbidity, antirheumatic prescriptions and years with AS (n=1352). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Spinal fracture-free survival. RESULTS: No bDMARD treatment-related effect on spinal fracture-free survival was observed in the matched cohorts. Male gender (HR=2.54, 95% CI 1.48 to 4.36) and Charlson Comorbidity Index score (HR=3.02, 95% CI 1.59 to 5.75) contributed significantly to spinal fracture risk. CONCLUSION: bDMARD had no medium-term effect on the spinal fracture-free survival in patients with AS. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT02840695; Post-results.

Self-grounding visual, auditory and olfactory autobiographical memories.

Given that autobiographical memory provides a cognitive foundation for the self, we investigated the relative importance of visual, auditory and olfactory autobiographical memories for the self. Thirty subjects, with a mean age of 35.4years, participated in a study involving a three×three within-subject design containing nine different types of autobiographical memory cues: pictures, sounds and odors presented with neutral, positive and negative valences. It was shown that visual compared to auditory and olfactory autobiographical memories involved higher cognitive and emotional constituents for the self. Furthermore, there was a trend showing positive autobiographical memories to increase their proportion to both cognitive and emotional components of the self, from olfactory to auditory to visually cued autobiographical memories; but, yielding a reverse trend for negative autobiographical memories. Finally, and independently of modality, positive affective states were shown to be more involved in autobiographical memory than negative ones.

Multimodal retrieval of autobiographical memories: sensory information contributes differently to the recollection of events.

Previous studies on autobiographical memory have focused on unimodal retrieval cues (i.e., cues pertaining to one modality). However, from an ecological perspective multimodal cues (i.e., cues pertaining to several modalities) are highly important to investigate. In the present study we investigated age distributions and experiential ratings of autobiographical memories retrieved with unimodal and multimodal cues. Sixty-two participants were randomized to one of four cue-conditions: visual, olfactory, auditory, or multimodal. The results showed that the peak of the distributions depends on the modality of the retrieval cue. The results indicated that multimodal retrieval seemed to be driven by visual and auditory information to a larger extent and to a lesser extent by olfactory information. Finally, no differences were observed in the number of retrieved memories or experiential ratings across the four cue-conditions.

Surgical Stabilization Improves Survival of Spinal Fractures Related to Ankylosing Spondylitis.

STUDY DESIGN: National registry cohort study. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of surgical stabilization on survival of spinal fractures related to ankylosing spondylitis (AS). SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Spinal fractures related to AS are associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. Multiple studies suggest a beneficial effect of surgical stabilization in these patients. METHODS: In the Swedish patient registry, all patients treated in an inpatient facility are registered with diagnosis and treatment codes. The Swedish mortality registry collects date and cause of death for all fatalities. Registry extracts of all patients with AS and spinal fractures including date of death and treatment were prepared and analyzed for epidemiological purposes. RESULTS: Seventeen thousand two hundred ninety-seven individual patients with AS were admitted to treatment facilities in Sweden between 1987 and 2011. Nine hundred ninety patients with AS (age 66 ±â€Š14 years) had 1131 spinal fractures, of which 534 affected cervical, 352 thoracic, and 245 lumbar vertebrae. Thirteen percent had multiple levels of injuries during the observed period. Surgically treated patients had a greater survival than those treated nonsurgically [hazard ratio (HR) 0.79, P = 0.029]. Spinal cord injury was the major factor contributing to mortality in this cohort (HR 1.55, P < 0.001). The proportion of surgically treated spinal fractures increased linearly during the last decades (r = 0.92, P < 0.001) and was 64% throughout the observed years. CONCLUSIONS: Spinal cord injury threatened the survival of patients with spinal fractures related to AS. Even though surgical treatment is associated with a considerable complication rate, it improved the survival of spinal fractures related to AS. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 3.

Blood Loss in Surgery for Aggressive Vertebral Haemangioma with and without Embolisation.

Despite their benign nature some symptomatic aggressive vertebral haemangiomas (AVH) require surgery to decompress spinal cord and/or stabilise pathological fractures. Preoperative embolisation may reduce the considerable blood loss during surgical decompression. This systematic review investigated whether preoperative embolisation reduced surgical blood loss during treatment of symptomatic AVH. PubMed Medline, Web of Science, and Ovid Medline were searched for case reports and clinical studies on surgical AVH treatment. Included were cases from all publications on surgical treatment of AVH where the amount of surgical blood loss and the use of preoperative embolisation were documented. 51 cases with surgically treated AVH were retrieved from the included studies. Blood loss in the embolised treatment group (980±683 mL) was lower than the non-embolised control group (1,629±946 mL). This systematic review found that embolisation prior to AVH resection reduced surgical blood loss (level of evidence, very low) and can be recommended (strong recommendation).

Long-term memory for odors: influences of familiarity and identification across 64 days.

Few studies have investigated long-term odor recognition memory, although some early observations suggested that the forgetting rate of olfactory representations is slower than for other sensory modalities. This study investigated recognition memory across 64 days for high and low familiar odors and faces. Memory was assessed in 83 young participants at 4 occasions; immediate, 4, 16, and 64 days after encoding. The results indicated significant forgetting for odors and faces across the 64 days. The forgetting functions for the 2 modalities were not fundamentally different. Moreover, high familiar odors and faces were better remembered than low familiar ones, indicating an important role of semantic knowledge on recognition proficiency for both modalities. Although odor recognition was significantly better than chance at the 64 days testing, memory for the low familiar odors was relatively poor. Also, the results indicated that odor identification consistency across sessions, irrespective of accuracy, was positively related to successful recognition.

Olfactory LOVER: behavioral and neural correlates of autobiographical odor memory.

Autobiographical memories (AMs) are personally experienced events that may be localized in time and space. In the present work we present an overview targeting memories evoked by the sense of smell. Overall, research indicates that autobiographical odor memory is different than memories evoked by our primary sensory systems; sight, and hearing. Here, observed differences from a behavioral and neuroanatomical perspective are presented. The key features of an olfactory evoked AM may be referred to the LOVER acronym-Limbic, Old, Vivid, Emotional, and Rare.

The semantic representation of event information depends on the cue modality: an instance of meaning-based retrieval.

The semantic content, or the meaning, is the essence of autobiographical memories. In comparison to previous research, which has mainly focused on the phenomenological experience and the age distribution of retrieved events, the present study provides a novel view on the retrieval of event information by quantifying the information as semantic representations. We investigated the semantic representation of sensory cued autobiographical events and studied the modality hierarchy within the multimodal retrieval cues. The experiment comprised a cued recall task, where the participants were presented with visual, auditory, olfactory or multimodal retrieval cues and asked to recall autobiographical events. The results indicated that the three different unimodal retrieval cues generate significantly different semantic representations. Further, the auditory and the visual modalities contributed the most to the semantic representation of the multimodally retrieved events. Finally, the semantic representation of the multimodal condition could be described as a combination of the three unimodal conditions. In conclusion, these results suggest that the meaning of the retrieved event information depends on the modality of the retrieval cues.

The functional neuroanatomy of odor evoked autobiographical memories cued by odors and words.

Behavioral evidence indicates that odor evoked autobiographical memories (OEAMs) are older, more emotional, less thought of and induce stronger time traveling characteristics than autobiographical memories (AMs) evoked by other modalities. The main aim of this study was to explore the neural correlates of AMs evoked by odors as a function of retrieval cue. Participants were screened for specific OEAMs and later presented with the odor cue and its verbal referent in an fMRI paradigm. Because the same OEAM was retrieved across both cue formats (odor and word), potential cue dependent brain activations were investigated. The overall results showed that odor and word cued OEAMs activated regions typically associated with recollection of autobiographical information. Although no odors were presented, a verbal cuing of the OEAMs activated areas associated with olfactory perception (e.g., piriform cortex). However, relative to word cuing, an odor cuing of OEAMs resulted in more activity in MTL regions such as the parahippocampus, and areas involved in visual vividness (e.g., occipital gyrus and precuneus). Furthermore, odor cues activated areas related to emotional processing, such as limbic and tempopolar regions significantly more. In contrast, word cues relative to odor cues recruited a more widespread and bilateral prefrontal activity. Hippocampus activity did not vary as function of the remoteness of the memory, but recollection of OEAMs from the 1(st) vs the 2(nd) decade of life showed specific activation in the right OFC, whereas the 2(nd) reflected a higher activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus.

Development of a new Clarity of Auditory Imagery Scale.

In the psychological study of auditory imagery, instruments for measuring vividness or clarity have existed for some time. The present article argues that existing scales are ambiguous, in that clarity and vividness of auditory imagery are addressed simultaneously, and that empirical validations of those scales suffer from inadequate methods. The aim of the present study was to develop a new psychometric scale, the Clarity of Auditory Imagery Scale, measuring individual differences in clarity of auditory imagery. Drawing on previous literature, 16 items were generated, forming an initial item pool that was presented to 212 respondents. The hypothesized single dimensionality inherent in the data was confirmed using Velicer's (1976) minimum average partial test and parallel analysis. Also, data were factor analyzed, extracting a stable one-factor solution including all 16 items. The internal consistency of the final scale was satisfactory (coefficient alpha = .88). Other properties of the questionnaire, such as test-retest reliability, remain to be established.

Autobiographical odor memory.

This overview focuses on autobiographical odor memory and how information evoked by the olfactory sense may differ from memories evoked by visual or verbal information. Three key topics are addressed: (a) age distributions of evoked memories; (b) phenomenological experience; and (c) semantic processing. Current evidence suggests that memories triggered by olfactory information are localized to the first decade of life (< 10 years) rather than to young adulthood (10-30 years) which is the typical finding for memories evoked by verbal and visual information. Further, empirical evidence indicates that odor evoked memories are more emotional, associated with stronger feelings of being brought back in time, and have been thought of less often as compared to memories evoked by other sensory cues. Finally, previous observations of a significant impact of semantic influences on olfactory processing may also be generalized to retrieval of odor evoked autobiographical information. Specifically, both the age distribution and phenomenological qualities are affected by explicit knowledge of the odor cue. Taken together, the overall pattern of findings indicates that personal memories evoked by olfactory information are different from memories evoked by verbal or visual information.

Olfaction and emotion: the case of autobiographical memory.

This study investigated (1) the influence of verbal and conceptual processing on the retrieval and phenomenological evaluation of olfactory evoked memories, and (2) whether the experienced qualities of retrieved information are affected by olfactory exposure per se. Seventy-two older adults were randomized into one of three cue conditions (odor only, name only, or odor name) and asked to relate any autobiographical event for the given cue. The results indicated that semantic knowledge of an odor's name significantly affects the age distribution of memories such that the memory peak in childhood observed for odors only was attenuated. Also, experiential factors such as pleasantness and feelings of being brought back in time were lower when odors were presented with their respective names. Olfactory evoked memories were associated with a higher emotional arousal that could not be accounted for by the perceptual stimulation alone. Taken together, the overall pattern of findings suggests that retrieval of olfactory evoked information is sensitive to semantic and conceptual processing, and that odor-evoked representations are more emotional than memories triggered by verbal information.

Smell your way back to childhood: autobiographical odor memory.

This study addressed age distributions and experiential qualities of autobiographical memories evoked by different sensory cues. Ninety-three older adults were presented with one of three cue types (word, picture, or odor) and were asked to relate any autobiographical event for the given cue. The main aims were to explore whether (1) the age distribution of olfactory-evoked memories differs from memories cued by words and pictures and (2) the experiential qualities of the evoked memories vary over the different cues. The results showed that autobiographical memories triggered by olfactory information were older than memories associated with verbal and visual information. Specifically, most odor-cued memories were located to the first decade of life (<10 years), whereas memories associated with verbal and visual cues peaked in early adulthood (11-20 years). Also, odor-evoked memories were associated with stronger feelings of being brought back in time and had been thought of less often than memories evoked by verbal and visual information. This pattern of findings suggests that odor-evoked memories may be different from other memory experiences.