Concurrent Task Research Articles

Cognitive Load and Deception Detection Performance.

The ability to detect deception is one of the most intriguing features of our minds. Cognitive load can surprisingly increase the accuracy of detection when there is a substantial load compared to when the detection is performed without cognitive load. This effect was tested in two experiments. In the first experiment, the participants were asked to watch truth/lie videos while completing a concurrent task (N-back in a 3-back version; intuitive processing), providing verbal reasoning after watching each video (deliberative processing), or watching the videos alone (control group). The cognitive load caused by the concurrent task led to a higher accuracy in deception detection compared to the other conditions. In the second experiment, we examined how this effect worked under various amounts of cognitive load. Participants watching truth/lie videos were assigned to one of three experimental conditions (N-back in three versions: 1, 3, and 5-back) or to a control group. The participants in the 3-back and 5-back conditions exhibited a significantly higher accuracy in deception detection than those in the 1-back and control groups. Thus, the effect of increased accuracy in deception detection is due to cognitive load and is related to the amount of cognitive load present.

Effortfulness of visual working memory: Gauged by physical exertion.

Active maintenance of information in working memory (WM) is an essential but effortful cognitive process. Yet, the effortful nature of WM remains poorly understood. Here, we constructed a model to evaluate how perceived effort of WM is directly compared to that of physical exertion. In Experiment 1, participants freely chose to either remember a certain number of colors in a visual WM task or hold a hand dynamometer to a required percentage of maximal voluntary contraction (%MVC) to obtain a fixed task credit upon successful task completion. We found that participants discounted WM-related effort in the same way as they discounted handgrip-related effort based on a computation of expected choice outcomes (hence utility) associated with different task loads. This rationality in an observer's prospective choice in Experiment 1 was generalized to retrospective choice in Experiment 2 where participants reported which task was more effortful immediately after they had performed both tasks in a randomized order without any reward or feedback. Experiment 3 further probed this shared mechanism using a dual-task paradigm. As predicted by our model, we found that physical exertion could disrupt the performance in the concurrent WM task, proportional to the iso-effort relationship between WM and physical exertion when task loads were high for both tasks. Collectively, our findings converge on a shared computational principle connecting task load, perceived effort, and choice utility across physical and cognitive domains. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Cognitive fatigue weakens the effects of distraction on pain.

Perceived pain can be viewed because of a competition between nociceptive inputs and other competing goals, such as performing a demanding cognitive task. Task performance, however, suffers when cognitively fatigued. We therefore predicted that cognitive fatigue would weaken the pain-reducing effects of performing a concurrent cognitive task, which would indicate a causal link between fatigue and heightened pain sensitivity. In this study, 2 groups of pain-free adults performed cognitive tasks while receiving painful heat stimuli. In 1 group, we induced cognitive fatigue before performing the tasks. We found that fatigue led to more pain and worse performance when the task was demanding, suggesting that fatigue weakens one's ability to distract from pain. These findings show that cognitive fatigue can impair performance on subsequent tasks and that this impairment can lower a person's ability to distract from and reduce their pain.

Cognition Uniquely Influences Dual-Task Tandem Gait Performance Among Athletes With a Concussion History.

After a concussion, there are unique associations between static balance and landing with cognition. Previous research has explored these unique correlations, but the factor of time, dual-task, and different motor tasks leave gaps within the literature. The purpose of this study was to determine the associations between cognition and tandem gait performance. We hypothesized that athletes with a concussion history would display stronger associations compared with athletes without a concussion history between cognition and tandem gait. Cross-sectional. Level 3. A total of 126 athletes without (56.3% female; age, 18.8 ± 1.3 years; height, 176.7 ± 12.3 cm; mass, 74.8 ± 19.0 kg) and 42 athletes with (40.5% female; age, 18.8 ± 1.3 years; height, 179.3 ± 11.9 cm; mass, 81.0 ± 25.1 kg) concussion history participated. Cognitive performance was assessed with CNS Vital Signs. Tandem gait was performed on a 3-meter walkway. Dual-task tandem gait included a concurrent cognitive task of serial subtraction, reciting months backward, or spelling words backward. Athletes with a concussion history exhibited a larger number of significant correlations compared with athletes without a concussion history for cognition and dual-task gait time (4 significant correlations: rho-range, -0.377 to 0.358 vs 2 significant correlations: rho, -0.233 to 0.179) and dual-task cost gait time (4 correlations: rho range, -0.344 to 0.392 vs 1 correlation: rho, -0.315). The time between concussion and testing did significantly moderate any associations (P = 0.11-0.63). Athletes with a concussion history displayed better dual-task cost response rate (P = 0.01). There were no other group differences for any cognitive (P = 0.13-0.97) or tandem gait (P = 0.20-0.92) outcomes. Athletes with a concussion history display unique correlations between tandem gait and cognition. These correlations are unaffected by the time since concussion. These unique correlations may represent shared neural resources between cognition and movement that are only present for athletes with a concussion history. Time does not influence these outcomes, indicating the moderating effect of concussion on the correlations persists long-term after the initial injury.

Working memory for time intervals: Another manifestation of the central tendency effect.

The relationship between working memory and time perception has been typically investigated using dual-task paradigms (e.g., testing timing performance during a concurrent task). To our knowledge, none of these studies used time intervals as the target stimulus to be remembered. The current study investigated the working memory for time intervals by asking participants to reproduce durations they experienced at different orders in a series of experienced intervals (n-back task). One of the experiments was conducted online and the other one in the lab setting. Results showed a central tendency bias and additive elongation of time reproductions with increasing working memory load. Our results also showed that participants assigned different weights to experienced intervals based on their order of presentation (higher weight to the target interval). We conclude that the recall of intervals from working memory under high cognitive load leads to a central tendency effect, which is known to be induced by the temporal context and present particularly in aging and in those with Parkinson's disease.

Impact Analysis of Situation Awareness Based on a Multitasking Difficulty Quantitative Model

Situation awareness (SA) is a key indicator of operator task performance and behavioral safety in Human-Machine Interaction (HMI), and task difficulty is an important influencing factors in establishing and maintaining SA, especially in safety-critical scenarios such as flying and nuclear. However, the complexity and diversity of multitasking make it difficult to quantify task difficulty, which to a certain extent limits the research on cognitive research. To solve this problem, we proposed an approach to quantifying task difficulty in multitasking and analyzed the effect of task difficulty on different levels of SA through experiments in this paper. First, a task difficulty measure for a single meta-task was developed based on Shannon’s information theory, including both discrete and continuous meta-tasks. Next, a three-dimensional attribute model of meta-tasks was proposed to measure the difficulty value added by concurrent tasks based on multiple resource theory. Finally, an experiment was conducted to measure SA at different levels based on SAGAT, and SA under different levels of task difficulty was analyzed. The results showed a strong negative correlation between SA and task difficulty. Specifically, compared to SA at the comprehension and prediction levels, SA at the perceptual level was more easily influenced by task difficulty. This study can provide some reference for the quantify of task difficulty in human factors experiments, the optimization of tasks in HMI, and the selection of operator attention allocation strategies.

Motor learning in developmental coordination disorder: behavioral and neuroimaging study.

Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) is characterized by motor learning deficits that are poorly understood within whole-body activities context. Here we present results of one of the largest non-randomized interventional trials combining brain imaging and motion capture techniques to examine motor skill acquisition and its underpinning mechanisms in adolescents with and without DCD. A total of 86 adolescents with low fitness levels (including 48 with DCD) were trained on a novel stepping task for a duration of 7 weeks. Motor performance during the stepping task was assessed under single and dual-task conditions. Concurrent cortical activation in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Additionally, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was conducted during a similar stepping task at the beginning of the trial. The results indicate that adolescents with DCD performed similarly to their peers with lower levels of fitness in the novel stepping task and demonstrated the ability to learn and improve motor performance. Both groups showed significant improvements in both tasks and under single- and dual-task conditions at post-intervention and follow-up compared to baseline. While both groups initially made more errors in the Stroop task under dual-task conditions, at follow-up, a significant difference between single- and dual-task conditions was observed only in the DCD group. Notably, differences in prefrontal activation patterns between the groups emerged at different time points and task conditions. Adolescents with DCD exhibited distinct prefrontal activation responses during the learning and performance of a motor task, particularly when complexity was increased by concurrent cognitive tasks. Furthermore, a relationship was observed between MRI brain structure and function measures and initial performance in the novel stepping task. Overall, these findings suggest that strategies that address task and environmental complexities, while simultaneously enhancing brain activity through a range of tasks, offer opportunities to increase the participation of adolescents with low fitness in physical activity and sports.

Mutual interplay between cognitive offloading and secondary task performance

Various modern tools, such as smartphones, allow for cognitive offloading (i.e., the externalization of cognitive processes). In this study, we examined the use and consequences of cognitive offloading in demanding situations in which people perform multiple tasks concurrently—mimicking the requirements of daily life. In a preregistered study, we adapted the dual-task paradigm so that one of the tasks allowed for cognitive offloading. As a primary task, our participants (N = 172) performed the pattern copy task—a highly demanding working memory task that allows for offloading at various degrees. In this task, we manipulated the temporal costs of offloading. Concurrently, half of the participants responded to a secondary N-back task. As our main research question, we investigated the impact of offloading behavior on secondary task performance. We observed that more pronounced offloading in the condition without temporal costs was accompanied by a more accurate performance in the N-back task. Furthermore, the necessity to respond to the N-back task increased offloading behavior. These results suggest an interplay between offloading and secondary task performance: in demanding situations, individuals increasingly use cognitive offloading, which releases internal resources that can then be devoted to improving performance in other, concurrent tasks.

Hanging on the telephone: Maintaining visuospatial bootstrapping over time in working memory.

Visuospatial bootstrapping (VSB) refers to the phenomenon in which performance on a verbal working memory task can be enhanced by presenting the verbal material within a familiar visuospatial configuration. This effect is part of a broader literature concerning how working memory is influenced by use of multimodal codes and contributions from long-term memory. The present study aimed to establish whether the VSB effect extends over a brief (5-s) delay period, and to explore the possible mechanisms operating during retention. The VSB effect, as indicated by a verbal recall advantage for digit sequences presented within a familiar visuospatial configuration (modelled on the T-9 keypad) relative to a single-location display, was observed across four experiments. The presence and size of this effect changed with the type of concurrent task activity applied during the delay. Articulatory suppression (Experiment 1) increased the visuospatial display advantage, while spatial tapping (Experiment 2) and a visuospatial judgment task (Experiment 3) both removed it. Finally, manipulation of the attentional demands placed by a verbal task also reduced (but did not abolish) this effect (Experiment 4). This pattern of findings demonstrates how provision of familiar visuospatial information at encoding can continue to support verbal working memory over time, with varying demands on modality-specific and general processing resources.

Mapping attention across multiple media tasks

ABSTRACT Paying attention to media requires continuously selecting and processing relevant information while filtering out numerous competing stimuli. Although the factors that drive attention toward or away from a single media task are relatively well characterized, there is a lack of understanding regarding how attention to media functions in the presence of multiple, concurrent tasks. In this manuscript, we report findings from four experiments investigating this question. Results indicate that, rather than attention being based on a strict hierarchy between “primary” and “secondary” tasks, attentional resources are distributed across concurrent media tasks based on the (relative) rewardingness and effortfulness of each task. More rewarding tasks elicited more attention, and the attention-capturing influence of rewarding “secondary” tasks was magnified when the “primary” task was more cognitively effortful. These results provide support for recent theoretical advancements in media psychology research and point to promising future directions using updated models of motivated attention to predict the allocation of attentional resources across multiple concurrent tasks.

IPhone Accelerometry Provides a Sensitive In-Home Assessment of Age-Related Changes in Standing Balance.

Remote health monitoring has become increasingly important, especially in aging populations. We aimed to identify tasks that are sensitive to age-related changes in balance during fully remote, at-home balance assessment. Participants were 12 healthy young adults (mean age = 26.08years, range: 18-33) and 12 healthy older adults (mean age = 67.33years, range: 60-75). Participants performed standing tasks monitored via video conference while their balance was quantified using a custom iPhone application measuring mediolateral center of mass acceleration. We included three stances (feet together, tandem, and single leg) with eyes open or closed, with or without a concurrent cognitive task. Older adults demonstrated significantly more variable center of mass accelerations in tandem (p = .04, ηp2=.25) and significantly higher (p < .01, ηp2=.45) and more variable (p < .01, ηp2=.44) center of mass accelerations in single leg compared with young adults. We also observed that as task challenge increased, balance dual-task cost diminished for older, but not young, adults.

Identifying high cognitive load activities during simulated pediatric cardiac arrest using functional near-infrared spectroscopy

AimTo identify specific activities associated with high cognitive load during simulated pediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (POHCA) resuscitation using physiological monitoring with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). MethodsWe recruited teams of emergency medical services (EMS) responders from fire departments located throughout the Portland, OR metropolitan area to participate in POHCA simulations. Teams consisted of both paramedics and emergency medical technicians (EMTs), with one paramedic serving as the person in charge (PIC). The PIC was outfitted with the OctaMon to collect fNIRS signals from the prefrontal cortex. Signals reported changes in oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin concentrations, which were used to determine moments of increased cognitive activity. Increased cognitive activity was determined by significant increases in oxygenated hemoglobin and decreases in deoxygenated hemoglobin. Significant changes in fNIRS signals were associated with specific concurrent clinical tasks recorded by two independent researchers using video review. ResultsWe recorded cognitive activity of EMS providers in 18 POHCA simulations. We found that a proportion of PIC’s experienced relatively high cognitive load during medication administration, defibrillation, and rhythm checks compared to other events. ConclusionEMS providers commonly experienced increased cognitive activity during key resuscitation tasks that were related to safely coordinating team members around calculating and administering medications, defibrillation, and rhythm and pulse checks. Understanding more about activities that require high cognitive demand can inform future interventions that reduce cognitive load.

Over-the-Air Federated Multi-Task Learning Over MIMO Multiple Access Channels

With the explosive growth of data and wireless devices, federated learning (FL) over wireless medium has emerged as a promising technology for large-scale distributed intelligent systems. Yet, the urgent demand for ubiquitous intelligence will generate a large number of concurrent FL tasks, which may seriously aggravate the scarcity of communication resources. By exploiting the analog superposition of electromagnetic waves, over-the-air computation (AirComp) is an appealing solution to alleviate the burden of communication required by FL. However, sharing frequency-time resources in over-the-air computation inevitably brings about the problem of inter-task interference, which poses a new challenge that needs to be appropriately addressed. In this paper, we study over-the-air federated multi-task learning (OA-FMTL) over the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) multiple access (MAC) channel. We propose a novel model aggregation method for the alignment of local gradients of different devices, which alleviates the straggler problem in over-the-air computation due to the channel heterogeneity. We establish a communication-learning analysis framework for the proposed OA-FMTL scheme by considering the spatial correlation between devices, and formulate an optimization problem for the design of transceiver beamforming and device selection. To solve this problem, we develop an algorithm by using alternating optimization (AO) and fractional programming (FP), which effectively mitigates the impact of inter-task interference on the FL learning performance. We show that due to the use of the new model aggregation method, device selection is no longer essential, thereby avoiding the heavy computational burden involved in selecting active devices. Numerical results demonstrate the validity of the analysis and the superb performance of the proposed scheme.

Mental fatigue does not affect static balance under both single and dual task conditions in young adults

The ability to control balance and prevent falls while carrying out daily life activities may require a predominantly controlled (cognitive) or automatic processing depending on the balance challenge, age, or other factors. Consequently, this process may be affected by mental fatigue which has been shown to impair cognitive abilities. Controlling static balance in young adults is a relatively easy task that may proceed automatically with minimal cognitive input making it insusceptible to mental fatigue. To investigate this hypothesis, static single and dual task (while concurrently counting backward by seven) balance was assessed in 60 young adults (25.2 ± 2.4 years) before and after 45 min of Stroop task (mental fatigue condition) and watching documentary (control), presented in a randomized counterbalanced order on separate days. Moreover, because mental fatigue can occur due to task underload or overload, participants carried out two different Stroop tasks (i.e., all congruent, and mainly incongruent trials) on separate days in the mental fatigue condition. Results of the study revealed a significantly higher feeling of mental fatigue after the mental fatigue conditions compared to control (p < 0.001). Similarly, the performance on congruent Stroop trials decreases with time indicating objective mental fatigue (p < 0.01). However, there was no difference in balance or concurrent task performance under both single and dual task assessments between the three conditions (p > 0.05) indicating lack of effect of mental fatigue on static balance in this population. Therefore, future studies investigating this phenomenon in occupational or sport settings in similar population should consider using more challenging balance tasks.

Effects of Stroop task duration on subsequent cognitive and physical performance

The strength model of self-control purports to explain why brief cognitive response inhibition tasks impair subsequent isometric handgrip endurance. According to the model, ego depleting tasks requiring self-control resources impair performance on subsequent tasks that also require self-control resources. However, several lines of evidence challenge this model, including evidence of improved exercise performance following longer cognitive tasks. Our study investigated the effects of cognitive task duration on (1) subsequent physical endurance performance, (2) concurrent cognitive task performance, and (3) subsequent novel cognitive task performance. Adopting an experimental design, with Stroop task type (incongruent, congruent) and duration (5, 10, 20 min) as between-participant factors, participants (N = 180) completed a color word Stroop task, an isometric handgrip to exhaustion task, and a novel 5-min incongruent number word Stroop task. In the handgrip task, endurance performance was worse following incongruent word Stroop than congruent word Stroop for 10-min tasks but not 5-min and 20-min tasks. In the word Stroop task, accuracy was lower and speed was slower following incongruent word Stroop than congruent word Stroop. Importantly, reaction times improved with longer task durations. In the novel number Stroop task, accuracy was higher following incongruent word Stroop than congruent word Stroop. In conclusion, the finding that the ego depletion effect was moderated by cognitive task duration is better explained by the expected value of control model than the strength model.

Role of arousal, subjective significance and valence of affect in task-switching effectiveness

AbstractSwitching between two concurrent tasks is an important ability of the mind. In a series of two experiments, we explored the role of activation (arousal and subjective significance) and emotional valence in shaping the effectiveness of switching between two cognitive tasks: gender-marking and emotional categorisations of verbal stimuli. We expected arousal to disrupt and subjective significance to boost the effectiveness of cognitive switching. We employed a paradigm that allowed us to present emotional words and measure the reaction latencies when a task given to the participants was switched; thus, the response was more costly than when continuing to respond to the same task. The first experiment, conducted with neutral words, showed that high subjective significance reduced reaction latencies in comparison with medium subjective significance. The second experiment showed a similar pattern only for neutral stimuli in the emotional categorisation task, but not for negative and positive stimuli. We did not find a clear effect of arousal or valence. The results of our studies suggest that subjective significance is independent of arousal in enhancing the cognitive control resources.

Time estimation during motor activity.

Several studies on time estimation showed that the estimation of temporal intervals is related to the amount of attention devoted to time. This is explained by the scalar timing theory, which assumes that attention alters the number of pulses transferred by our internal clock to an accumulator that keeps track of the elapsed time. In a previous study, it was found that time underestimation during cognitive-demanding tasks was more pronounced while walking than while sitting, whereas no clear motor-induced effects emerged without a concurrent cognitive task. What remains unclear then is the motor interference itself on time estimation. Here we aim to clarify how the estimation of time can be influenced by demanding motor mechanisms and how different motor activities interact with concurrent cognitive tasks during time estimation. To this purpose, we manipulated simultaneously the difficulty of the cognitive task (solving arithmetic operations) and the motor task. We used an automated body movement that should require no motor or mental effort, a more difficult movement that requires some motor control, and a highly demanding movement requiring motor coordination and attention. We compared the effects of these three types of walking on time estimation accuracy and uncertainty, arithmetic performance, and reaction times. Our findings confirm that time estimation is affected by the difficulty of the cognitive task whereas we did not find any evidence that time estimation changes with the complexity of our motor task, nor an interaction between walking and the concurrent cognitive tasks. We can conclude that walking, although highly demanding, does not have the same effects as other mental tasks on time estimation.

Attempts to Influence the Value of Alcohol by Manipulating Social Influence and Context

Background : Recent cognitive neuroscience models of value-based decision-making suggest value-based choices for alcohol are sensitive to various inputs, such as context and social influence. In two online experiments, we tested whether manipulating these inputs influenced proxies for alcohol value. Experiment 1 : 157 social drinkers were presented with 4 hypothetical scenarios (drinking alone, with friends who are also drinking, with friends but trying to “cut-down” for health reasons, with friends who aren’t drinking) in a within-subjects design, and completed the Brief Assessment of Alcohol Demand after each as a measure of value. Value for alcohol (number of drinks purchased) was greatest when drinking with friends who were also drinking compared to drinking alone (d = 0.95), friends not drinking (d = 1.49) and friends drinking/health related (d = 1.59). Value for alcohol was also greater when drinking alone compared to with friends who were not drinking (d = 0.55), and also with friends drinking/health related (d = 0.62). Experiment 2 : 241 participants were randomly allocated to see one of four categories of images in a 2 (context: bar vs house) x 2 (social influence: enjoy vs not enjoy) design, before completing a Concurrent Choice Task for alcohol and Visual Analog Scales. There were no significant effects found on either task, both taken as proxies for value. Conclusion : There was inconclusive evidence that the value for alcohol could be manipulated by social context. This could be explained by greater saliency of the manipulation in asking participants to imagine themselves in a hypothetical situation as opposed to presenting images depicting drinking scenarios.

Concurrent Choice Assessment of Preference and Substitutability of E-cigarettes and Heated Tobacco Products for Combustible Cigarettes Among African American and White Smokers.

Alternative nicotine delivery products, including electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) and heated tobacco products (HTPs), contain fewer toxicants than combustible cigarettes and offer a potential for harm reduction. Research on the substitutability of e-cigarettes and HTPs is crucial for understanding their impact on public health. This study examined subjective and behavioral preferences for an e-cigarette and HTP relative to participants' usual brand combustible cigarette (UBC) in African American and White smokers naïve to alternative products. Twenty-two adult African American (n = 12) and White (n = 10) smokers completed randomized study sessions with their UBC and study provided e-cigarette and HTP. A concurrent choice task allowed participants to earn puffs of the products but placed UBC on a progressive ratio schedule, making puffs harder to earn, and e-cigarette and HTP on a fixed ratio schedule to assess behavioral preference for the products. Behavioral preference was then compared to self-reported subjective preference. Most participants had a subjective preference for UBC (n = 11, 52.4%), followed by an equal preference for e-cigarette (n = 5, 23.8%) and HTP (n = 5, 23.8%). During the concurrent choice task, participants showed a behavioral preference (i.e., more earned puffs) for the e-cigarette (n = 9, 42.9%), followed by HTP (n = 8, 38.1%), and UBC (n = 4, 19.1%). Participants earned significantly more puffs of the alternative products compared to UBC (p = .011) with no difference in earned puffs between e-cigarettes and HTP (p = .806). In a simulated lab setting, African American and White smokers were willing to substitute UBC for an e-cigarette or HTP when the attainment of UBC became more difficult. NCT04646668. Findings suggest that African American and White smokers are willing to substitute their UBC for an alternative nicotine delivery product (e-cigarette or HTP) when the attainment of cigarettes became more difficult in a simulated lab setting. Findings require confirmation among a larger sample under real-world conditions but add to growing evidence suggesting the acceptability of alternative nicotine delivery products among racially diverse smokers. These data are important as policies that limit the availability or appeal of combustible cigarettes are considered or enacted.

Do concurrent task demands impact the benefit of automation transparency?

Automated decision aids typically improve decision-making, but incorrect advice risks automation misuse or disuse. We examined the novel question of whether increased automation transparency improves the accuracy of automation use under conditions with/without concurrent (non-automated assisted) task demands. Participants completed an uninhabited vehicle (UV) management task whereby they assigned the best UV to complete missions. Automation advised the best UV but was not always correct. Concurrent non-automated task demands decreased the accuracy of automation use, and increased decision time and perceived workload. With no concurrent task demands, increased transparency which provided more information on how the automation made decisions, improved the accuracy of automation use. With concurrent task demands, increased transparency led to higher trust ratings, faster decisions, and a bias towards agreeing with automation. These outcomes indicate increased reliance on highly transparent automation under conditions with concurrent task demands and have potential implications for human-automation teaming design.