Common Cognitive Mechanisms Research Articles

Chimpanzees demonstrate a behavioural signature of human joint action

The strength of human society can largely be attributed to the tendency to work together to achieve outcomes that are not possible alone. Effective social coordination benefits from mentally representing a partner's actions. Specifically, humans optimize social coordination by forming internal action models adapted to joint rather than individual task demands. To what extent do humans share the cognitive mechanisms that support optimal human coordination and collaboration with other species? An ecologically inspired joint handover-to-retrieve task was systematically manipulated across several experiments to assess whether joint action planning in chimpanzees reflects similar patterns to humans. Chimpanzees' chosen handover locations shifted towards the location of the experimenter's free or unobstructed hand, suggesting they represent the constraints of the joint task even though their individual half of the task was unobstructed. These findings indicate that chimpanzees and humans may share common cognitive mechanisms or predispositions that support joint action.

Enriched environment attenuates hippocampal theta and gamma rhythms dysfunction in chronic cerebral hypoperfusion via improving imbalanced neural afferent levels.

Chronic cerebral hypoperfusion (CCH) is increasingly recognized as a common cognitive impairment-causing mechanism. However, no clinically effective drugs to treat cognitive impairment due to CCH have been identified. An abnormal distribution of neural oscillations was found in the hippocampus of CCH rats. By releasing various neurotransmitters, distinct afferent fibers in the hippocampus influence neuronal oscillations in the hippocampus. Enriched environments (EE) are known to improve cognitive levels by modulating neurotransmitter homeostasis. Using EE as an intervention, we examined the levels of three classical neurotransmitters and the dynamics of neural oscillations in the hippocampus of the CCH rat model. The results showed that EE significantly improved the balance of three classical neurotransmitters (acetylcholine, glutamate, and GABA) in the hippocampus, enhanced the strength of theta and slow-gamma (SG) rhythms, and dramatically improved neural coupling across frequency bands in CCH rats. Furthermore, the expression of the three neurotransmitter vesicular transporters-vesicular acetylcholine transporters (VAChT) and vesicular GABA transporters (VGAT)-was significantly reduced in CCH rats, whereas the expression of vesicular glutamate transporter 1 (VGLUT1) was abnormally elevated. EE partially restored the expression of the three protein levels to maintain the balance of hippocampal afferent neurotransmitters. More importantly, causal mediation analysis showed EE increased the power of theta rhythm by increasing the level of VAChT and VGAT, which then enhanced the phase amplitude coupling of theta-SG and finally led to an improvement in the cognitive level of CCH. These findings shed light on the role of CCH in the disruption of hippocampal afferent neurotransmitter balance and neural oscillations. This study has implications for our knowledge of disease pathways.

Nonlinear Probability Weighting in Depression and Anxiety: Insights From Healthy Young Adults.

Both depressive and anxiety disorders have been associated with excessive risk avoidant behaviors, which are considered an important contributor to the maintenance and recurrence of these disorders. However, given the high comorbidity between the two disorders, their independent association with risk preference remains unclear. Furthermore, due to the involvement of multiple cognitive computational factors in the decision-making tasks employed so far, the precise underlying mechanisms of risk preference are unknown. In the present study, we set out to investigate the common versus unique cognitive computational mechanisms of risk preference in depression and anxiety using a reward-based decision-making task and computational modeling based on economic theories. Specifically, in model-based analysis, we decomposed risk preference into utility sensitivity (a power function) and probability weighting (the one-parameter Prelec weighting function). Multiple linear regression incorporating depression (BDI-II) and anxiety (STAI state anxiety) simultaneously indicated that only depression was associated with one such risk preference parameter, probability weighting. As the symptoms of depression increased, subjects’ tendency to overweight small probabilities and underweight large probabilities decreased. Neither depression nor anxiety was associated with utility sensitivity. These associations remained even after controlling covariates or excluding anxiety-relevant items from the depression scale. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess risk preference due to a concave utility function and nonlinear probability weighting separately for depression and anxiety using computational modeling. Our results provide a mechanistic account of risk avoidance and may improve our understanding of decision-making deficits in depression and anxiety.

The influence of TMS of the rTPJ on attentional control and mentalizing

Mentalizing is the powerful cognitive ability to understand others. By attributing mental states to others, we become able to explain and predict their behavior. The right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) plays a key role in processing models of mental states. Yet, a different line of research suggests that the rTPJ is crucially involved in attentional control, prompting debates on its cognitive function. In this pre-registered neuro-navigated event-related TMS study, we tested for the rTPJ's specificity in mentalizing and attentional control. We interfered with its activity in a recently developed spatial cueing paradigm in which another's mental states were apparently task-relevant, allowing direct comparison of TMS effects on attention and mentalizing. We contrasted effects with a nearby control TMS site. Our confirmatory analysis showed no evidence for an involvement of the rTPJ in mentalizing or attentional control, presumably due to an observed large inter-individual variability of TMS effects on context and validity. To follow up this finding, we conducted exploratory analyses which revealed that rTPJ TMS had an influence on both attentional control and mentalizing. TMS effects on attention and mentalizing co-varied across participants: participants responding most to rTPJ TMS on mentalizing were also those for whom rTPJ TMS increased the attentional effect the most. This provides further evidence against total absolute segregation between mentalizing and attention within the rTPJ. Rather, our results suggest a common cognitive mechanism in both domains for which the rTPJ is necessary, paving the way for future research to cross-validate and extend these findings.

Shared cognitive mechanisms of hypnotizability with executive functioning and information salience

In recent years, evidence linked hypnotizability to the executive control and information salience networks, brain structures that play a role in cognitive conflict resolution and perseveration (insisting on applying a previously learned logical rule on a new set). Despite the growing body of neuroimaging evidence, the cognitive phenotype of hypnotizability is not well understood. We hypothesized that higher hypnotizability would correspond to lower perseveration and set-shifting. Seventy-two healthy adults were tested for hypnotizability and executive functions (perseveration and set-shifting). Multiple regression analyses were performed to test the relationship between hypnotizability and perseveration and set-shifting. Higher hypnotizability was associated with lower perseveration after accounting for age and education. Hypnotizability significantly predicted perseveration but not set-shifting. Our results indicate an inverse relationship between trait hypnotizability and perseveration, an executive function that utilizes regions of both the executive control and the salience systems. This suggests that hypnotizability may share a common cognitive mechanism with error evaluation and implementation of logical rules.

Inhibitory control and impulsive responses in neurodevelopmental disorders.

The impairment of inhibitory control is often assumed to be the core deficit of several neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by poor impulse control. However, could the same deficit explain different clinical phenotypes? Evidence from behavioural studies is very mixed. This is partly because inhibition is a highly complex executive function. Thus, the different types of tasks that generically tap into inhibitory control are likely to provide different outcomes. Additionally, sample inhomogeneity in terms of age, comorbidity, and medical treatment are confounding factors. Therefore, to make a reliable assessment of the deficit of inhibitory control in a given disorder, the same task and samples with similar characteristics must be employed. This article reviews and discusses studies on five neurodevelopmental disorders with impaired impulse control where these criteria have been used: Tourette syndrome; obsessive-compulsive disorder; attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; primary motor stereotypies; and autism spectrum disorder. Overall, they suggest that the mechanisms underlying the inability to control urges are extremely heterogeneous and cannot be ascribed to a general impairment of inhibition. These findings do not support the hypothesis that inhibitory deficits represent a transdiagnostic feature of neurodevelopmental disorders with poor impulse control. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: The mechanisms underlying the inability to control urges in neurodevelopmental disorders are heterogeneous. Inhibition impairments cannot generally explain all neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by poor urge control.

Overlap in processing advantages for minimal ingroups and the self

Cognitive biases shape our perception of the world and our interactions with other people. Information related to the self and our social ingroups is prioritised for cognitive processing and can therefore form some of these key biases. However, ingroup biases may be elicited not only for established social groups, but also for minimal groups assigned by novel or random social categorisation. Moreover, whether these ‘ingroup biases’ are related to self-processing is unknown. Across three experiments, we utilised a social associative matching paradigm to examine whether the cognitive mechanisms underpinning the effects of minimal groups overlapped with those that prioritise the self, and whether minimal group allocation causes early processing advantages. We found significant advantages in response time and sensitivity (dprime) for stimuli associated with newly-assigned ingroups. Further, self-biases and ingroup-biases were positively correlated across individuals (Experiments 1 and 3). However, when the task was such that ingroup and self associations competed, only the self-advantage was detected (Experiment 2). These results demonstrate that even random group allocation quickly captures attention and enhances processing. Positive correlations between the self- and ingroup-biases suggest a common cognitive mechanism across individuals. These findings have implications for understanding how social biases filter our perception of the world.

Коммуникативная стратегия уклонения в теледискурсе: проблемы анализа

The purpose of the study is to identify the most frequent cognitive mechanisms of obscuring information, which underlie the evasion strategy, using the material of television talk-show interviews. Scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that specifics of realising the communicative evasion strategy in television discourse is for the first time considered from the cognitive-pragmatic perspective. The attained results have shown that one of the most common cognitive mechanisms of the evasion strategy is the mechanism of full change of a reference situation / event / object, which is implemented at the verbal level, among other things, via such lexical and syntactic means as adverbs, parenthetical words and reverse questions.

The mechanics of contentious politics: an agent-based modeling approach

ABSTRACT“Contentious politics” has become the main label to define a wide range of previously separated fields of research encompassing topics such as collective action, radicalization, armed insurgencies, and terrorism. Over the past two decades, scholars have tried to bring these various strands together into a unified field of study. In so doing, they have developed a methodology to isolate and analyze the common social and cognitive mechanisms underlying several diverse historical phenomena such as “insurgencies,” “revolutions,” “radicalization,” or “terrorism.” A multidisciplinary approach was adopted open to contributions from diverse fields such as economics, sociology, and psychology. The aim of this paper is to add to the multidisciplinarity of the field of Contentious Politics (CP) and introduce the instruments of Agent-Based Modeling and network game-theory to the study of some fundamental mechanisms analyzed within this literature. In particular, the model presented in this paper describes the dynamics of one process, here defined as “the radicalization of politics,” and its main underlying mechanisms. Their mechanics are analyzed in diverse social contexts differentiated by the values of four parameters: the extent of repression, inequality, social tolerance, and interconnectivity. The model can be used to explain the basic dynamics underlying different phenomena such as the development of radicalization, populism, and popular rebellions. In the final part, different societies characterized by diverse values of the aforementioned four parameters are tested through Python simulations, thereby offering an overview of the different outcomes that the mechanics of our model can shape according to the contexts in which they operate.

Emotional Context Distorts Both Time and Space in Children

According to a generalized magnitude system, the representation of time, space and number relies on a common cognitive mechanism. However, in the context of negative emotional stimuli, temporal durations undergo a subjective overestimation, while numerosity judgments are underestimated. This finding clearly challenged the existence of a generalized magnitude system. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether angry faces biases both temporal and spatial estimates compared to neutral faces in children aged 5 - 6-year-old and 9 - 10-year-old. Children were to judge as short or long either the temporal interval or the distance separating two visual stimuli in a bisection task. Overall, the study suggests that negative emotion with high arousal (angry faces) leads to a distortion of both duration and distance. Such distortion is reported early in development, even before the maturation of time perception.

Common mechanisms of executive attention underlie executive function and effortful control in children.

Executive Function (EF) and Effortful Control (EC) have traditionally been viewed as distinct constructs related to cognition and temperament during development. More recently, EF and EC have been implicated in top-down self-regulation - the goal-directed control of cognition, emotion, and behavior. We propose that executive attention, a limited-capacity attentional resource subserving goal-directed cognition and behavior, is the common cognitive mechanism underlying the self-regulatory capacities captured by EF and EC. We addressed three related questions: (a) Do behavioral ratings of EF and EC represent the same self-regulation construct? (b) Is this self-regulation construct explained by a common executive attention factor as measured by performance on cognitive tasks? and (c) Does the executive attention factor explain additional variance in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) problems to behavioral ratings of self-regulation? Measures of performance on complex span, general intelligence, and response inhibition tasks were obtained from 136 preadolescent children (M=11years, 10months, SD=8months), along with self- and parent-reported EC, and parent-reported EF, and ADHD problems. Results from structural equation modeling demonstrated that behavioral ratings of EF and EC measured the same self-regulation construct. Cognitive tasks measured a common executive attention factor that significantly explained 30% of the variance in behavioral ratings of self-regulation. Executive attention failed to significantly explain additional variance in ADHD problems beyond that explained by behavioral ratings of self-regulation. These findings raise questions about the utility of task-based cognitive measures in research and clinical assessment of self-regulation and psychopathology in developmental samples.

Loss of control as a violation of expectations: Testing the predictions of a common inconsistency compensation approach in an inclusionary cyberball game.

Personal control relies on the expectation that events are contingent upon one’s own behavior. A common ‘inconsistency compensation approach’ posits that a violation of expectancies in social interaction triggers aversive arousal and compensatory effort. Following this approach, we tested the hypothesis that interventions affecting participants' decisions violate the expected personal control. In a modified version of the established cyberball paradigm, participants were not excluded, but consistently included. However, their decisions regarding the recipient of a ball throw in the virtual game were occasionally overruled (expectancy violation). We hypothesized that this intervention will trigger a P3 response in event-related brain potentials (ERP). Since this component is related to subjective expectancies, its amplitude was assumed to depend on the frequency of interventions (independent factor: loss of control). Further, we manipulated the vertical position of the participants’ avatar on the computer screen (independent factor: verticality). Building on research showing that verticality is related to the self-assigned power and influences the expected level of control, we hypothesized that the ERP effects of intervention should be more pronounced for participants with avatars in superior position. As predicted, both experimental factors interactively affected the expression of the ERP response: In case of low intervention frequency, P3 amplitudes were significantly pronounced if the participants’ avatar was positioned above as compared to below co-players (high > low self-assigned power). The effect of verticality could be traced back to a lack of adaptation of P3 amplitudes to recurring aversive events. By demonstrating that loss of control triggers ERP effects corresponding to those triggered by social exclusion, this study provides further evidence for a common cognitive mechanism in reactions to aversive events based on an inconsistency in expectancy states.

Fluid intelligence and working memory support dissociable aspects of learning by physical but not observational practice

Humans have a remarkable ability to learn by watching others, whether learning to tie an elaborate knot or play the piano. However, the mechanisms that translate visual input into motor skill execution remain unclear. It has been proposed that common cognitive and neural mechanisms underpin learning motor skills by physical and observational practice. Here we provide a novel test of the common mechanism hypothesis by testing the extent to which certain individual differences predict observational as well as physical learning. Participants (N = 92 per group) either physically practiced a five-element key-press sequence or watched videos of similar sequences before physically performing trained and untrained sequences in a test phase. We also measured cognitive abilities across participants that have previously been associated with rates of learning, including working memory and fluid intelligence. Our findings show that individual differences in working memory and fluid intelligence predict improvements in dissociable aspects of motor learning following physical practice, but not observational practice. Working memory predicts general learning gains from pre- to post-test that generalise to untrained sequences, whereas fluid intelligence predicts sequence-specific gains that are tied to trained sequences. However, neither working memory nor fluid intelligence predict training gains following observational learning. Therefore, these results suggest limits to the shared mechanism hypothesis of physical and observational learning. Indeed, models of observational learning need updating to reflect the extent to which such learning is based on shared as well as distinct processes compared to physical learning. We suggest that such differences could reflect the more intentional nature of learning during physical compared to observational practice, which relies to a greater extent on higher-order cognitive resources such as working memory and fluid intelligence.

Особенности коммуникативного поведения в интернет-пространстве подростков с разными типами суицидального поведения

Introduction. Adolescent suicidal behavior is determined by socio-psychological factors. This study aims to analyze suicidal behavior among adolescents depending on their cognitive distortions and represents the first attempt to present standardization data on the cognitive distortions questionnaire. The authors (a) describe four suicidal behaviors on the Internet, (b) analyze group and individual cognitive mechanisms that determine these suicidal behaviors on the Internet.
 Methods. The empirical study involved adolescents with low sociometric statuses in their school groups, who visited the social networking groups containing suicidal content. Theoretical analysis, content analysis, questionnaire survey, and psychodiagnostic tests, including the questionnaires developed by the authors, were employed in the study.
 Results. According to different suicidal behaviors the authors distinguished the following groups among the surveyed adolescents: suiciders, imitators, artists, and spectators. Illusory correlation, distortion in the evaluation of group homogeneity, group polarization, and confirmation bias were the most common group cognitive mechanisms in the whole sample. Dichotomous thinking, catastrophizing, personalization, devaluation of positive events, emotional reasoning, and stigmatization were the most common individual cognitive mechanisms.
 Discussion. The findings of the study suggest that the group of suicidal behaviors determine the differences in adolescents’ choice of group and individual cognitive mechanisms of communication. Because of invalidity of other techniques, the authors propose a program of cognitive correction in each of the distinguished groups.

Dual-task effects on postural sway during sit-to-stand movement in children with Down syndrome.

Cognitive and postural tasks require common cognitive mechanisms, resulting in conflicts when both tasks are simultaneously performed. The presence of neuromotor dysfunctions, such as Down syndrome, may impair coordination processes required to perform dual-tasks. The objective of this study was to investigate the dual-task effects on postural sway during sit-to-stand movements in typical children and children with Down syndrome in a cross-sectional study. Twenty six typical children (10.2±2.4years) and 21 with Down syndrome (10.3±2.3years) performed sit-to-stand in the following conditions: (1) simple task; (2) dual-task bimanual activity (DT-Bim): sit-to-stand while carrying a tray using both hands; (3) dual-task unimanual dominant activity (DT-Uni-Dom): sit-to-stand while holding a plastic cup simulating water using the dominant hand; (4) dual-task unimanual non-dominant activity (DT-Uni-Nondom): sit-to-stand movement while holding a plastic cup simulating water. For data analysis, sit-to-stand was divided into three phases: preparation (phase 1), rising (phase 2), and stabilisation (phase 3). The following variables were calculated for each phase: anterior-posterior and medial-lateral amplitude of centre-of-pressure displacement, anterior-posterior and medial-lateral velocity of centre-of-pressure sway and area of centre-of-pressure sway. Children with Down syndrome showed greater sway than typical children in all sit-to-stand phases. Typical children showed greater anterior-posterior amplitude in phase 2 of sit-to-stand during DT-Uni Nondom compared with DT-Uni Dom. Children with Down syndrome during simple task condition showed greater and faster values sway in phases 2 and 3 of sit-to-stand movement than in DT-Bim activity, DT-Uni Dom activity and DT-Uni Nondom activity. During the condition of DT-Bim activity, these children showed lower anterior-posterior velocity of sway in phase 2 than during DT-Uni Dom activity. Children with Down syndrome showed greater postural sway during sit-to-stand than typical children. The addition of a concurrent motor task to sit-to-stand impacted postural sway in different intensities and in different ways across groups. Dual-tasks increased body sway in typical children in the DT-Uni Nondom condition compared with dominant one. In children with Down syndrome, dual-tasks decreased body sway, apparently resulting in a postural strategy of stiffness.

Combating Information Attacks in the Age of the Internet: New Challenges for Cognitive Engineering.

This article provides an overview of the characteristics of misinformation and information attack and their effects on the perceptions of the public, with the objective of outlining potential solutions and needed research for countering this growing problem. Society is facing a significant challenge from the spread of misinformation through websites and social media that has driven a divergence in people's perceptions and understanding of basic facts associated with many issues relevant to public policy decisions, including the economy, taxation, and the deficit; climate change and the environment; and vaccinations and public health and safety. A number of factors are driving this fracture, including information presentation challenges that lead to poor information understanding, deliberate information attacks, social network propagation, poor assessments of information reliability, and cognitive biases that lead to a rejection of information that conflicts with preexisting beliefs. A framework for understanding information attack is provided, including common sources, features, avenues, cognitive mechanisms, and major challenges in overcoming information attacks. Potential solutions and research needs are presented for improving people's understanding of online information associated with a wide range of issues affecting public policy.

“很”類程度副詞語源義跨語言考察

In this paper, we considered the etymological meaning of the ‘很’ type adverbs of degree, and found the common semantic features of these kinds of vocabularies. Through cross-language research, we found that these similarities are based on the common cognitive mechanism of human beings. And with the cognitive mechanism of metonymy, the ‘很’ type adverbs of degree have completed the grammatical evolution from etymological meaning to degree meaning.

Cross-race correlations in the abilities to match unfamiliar faces

The other-race effect in face identification has been documented widely in memory tasks, but it persists also in identity-matching tasks, in which memory contributions are minimized. Whereas this points to a perceptual locus for this effect, it remains unresolved whether matching performance with same- and other-race faces is driven by shared cognitive mechanisms. To examine this question, this study compared Arab and Caucasian observers' ability to match faces of their own race with their ability to match faces of another race using one-to-one (Experiment 1) and one-to-many (Experiment 2) identification tasks. Across both experiments, Arab and Caucasian observers demonstrated reliable other-race effects at a group level. At an individual level, substantial variation in accuracy was found, but performance with same-race and other-race faces correlated consistently and strongly. This indicates that the abilities to match same- and other-race faces share a common cognitive mechanism.

Transdiagnostic vs. disorder-focused perspective in children and adolescents with eating disorders: Findings from a large multisite exploratory study

BackgroundThe transdiagnostic model of eating disorders (ED) proposes common cognitive mechanisms in patients with ED psychopathology. Little is known about their role in the maintenance of ED in children and adolescents. This study aimed to determine whether the relationships between key factors (low self-esteem, weight and shape control, clinical perfectionism, interpersonal problems, distress and mood instability) and core maintaining mechanisms (binge-eating and restraint) would support a transdiagnostic theory in young patients. MethodsA total of 419 patients (mean age 14.7 ± 2.14 years; age range: 7–18 years; males 13.8%) diagnosed with an ED were assessed in six Italian clinical centers in 2013. Multiple comparisons between ED diagnosis, correlation analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were performed. ResultsOf the entire collective, 51.5% of patients were diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa (AN), 12.3% were diagnosed with Bulimia Nervosa (BN) and 36.2% with Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS). In PCA, the core ED mechanisms, dietary restraint and binge eating, acted as poles of attraction of the other variables. The AN group was particularly linked to restraint and the BN group was particularly related to “Bulimia”. Considering the diagnostic subtypes, there were no significant differences between the anorexic binge-purging group, bulimic purging group and bulimic non-purging group, which constituted a unique cluster related to affective, interpersonal problems and to perfectionism, indicating a very homogeneous subgroup. Restricting anorexic group (AN-R), related to shape concern and anxious-depressed mood, was not linked to the other subtypes. EDNOS appeared to be opposed to the AN-R group; the binge eating disorder group appeared to be independent from others. ConclusionOur results suggest the presence of both specific and transdiagnostic mechanisms in ED subtypes, whose knowledge is of relevance for clinical practice.

Time Is Not Space: Core Computations and Domain-Specific Networks for Mental Travels.

As humans, we can consciously imagine ourselves at a different time (mental time travel) or at a different place (mental space navigation). Are such abilities domain-general, or are the temporal and spatial dimensions of our conscious experience separable? Here, we tested the hypothesis that mental time travel and mental space navigation required the egocentric remapping of events, including the estimation of their distances to the self. We report that, although both remapping and distance computation are foundational for the processing of the temporal and spatial dimensions of our conscious experience, their neuroanatomical implementations were clearly dissociable and engaged distinct parietal and parietofrontal networks for mental space navigation and mental time travel, respectively.