Different Levels Of Cognitive Demand Research Articles

Visual Demands of Walking Are Reflected in Eye-Blink-Evoked EEG-Activity

Blinking is a natural user-induced response which paces visual information processing. This study investigates whether blinks are viable for segmenting continuous electroencephalography (EEG) activity, for inferring cognitive demands in ecologically valid work environments. We report the blink-related EEG measures of participants who performed auditory tasks either standing, walking on grass, or whilst completing an obstacle course. Blink-related EEG activity discriminated between different levels of cognitive demand during walking. Both behavioral parameters (e.g., blink duration or head motion) and blink-related EEG activity varied with walking conditions. Larger occipital N1 was observed during walking, relative to standing and traversing an obstacle course, which reflects differences in bottom-up visual perception. In contrast, the amplitudes of top-down components (N2, P3) significantly decreased with increasing walking demands, which reflected narrowing attention. This is consistent with blink-related EEG, specifically in Theta and Alpha power that, respectively, increased and decreased with increasing demands of the walking task. This work presents a novel and robust analytical approach to evaluate the cognitive demands experienced in natural work settings, which precludes the use of artificial task manipulations for data segmentation.

Increased visual and cognitive demands emphasize the importance of meeting visual needs at all distances while driving.

Having an optimal quality of vision as well as adequate cognitive capacities is known to be essential for driving safety. However, the interaction between vision and cognitive mechanisms while driving remains unclear. We hypothesized that, in a context of high cognitive load, reduced visual acuity would have a negative impact on driving behavior, even when the acuity corresponds to the legal threshold for obtaining a driving license in Canada, and that the impact observed on driving performance would be greater with the increase in the threshold of degradation of visual acuity. In order to investigate this relationship, we examined driving behavior in a driving simulator under optimal and reduced vision conditions through two scenarios involving different levels of cognitive demand. These were: 1. a simple rural driving scenario with some pre-programmed events and 2. a highway driving scenario accompanied by a concurrent task involving the use of a navigation device. Two groups of visual quality degradation (lower/ higher) were evaluated according to their driving behavior. The results support the hypothesis: A dual task effect was indeed observed provoking less stable driving behavior, but in addition to this, by statistically controlling the impact of cognitive load, the effect of visual load emerged in this dual task context. These results support the idea that visual quality degradation impacts driving behavior when combined with a high mental workload driving environment while specifying that this impact is not present in the context of low cognitive load driving condition.

Induced vergence-accommodation conflict reduces cognitive performance in the Stroop test

Interaction mechanisms between cognition and binocular motor control in reading saccades remain unclear. In this study we examine objectively saccades and fixations parameters during the Stroop test, involving three different levels of cognitive demand (reading, color denomination and interference). In addition, we experimentally induce accommodation and vergence conflicts during the different tasks. Twenty-one visually normal subjects (age 20.9 ± 1.45) performed the Stroop test in three different randomized conditions: a control normal viewing condition, a 16Δ base-out prism condition, and a −2.50D spherical lenses condition. Prisms and spherical lenses induced Vergence-Accommodation conflict. Eye movements were recorded with the Eyeseecam video-oculography device. The results show (1) longer fixation duration in the interference task than in the denomination task, and shorter fixation duration in the reading task; (2) a higher interference effect in the conflict induced conditions compared to the control condition; (3) a lower tolerance to prism induced conflict, with a higher destabilization of the binocular motor control of saccades and fixations. This suggests an interplay between vergence accommodation conflict and cognitive load: tolerance to the conflict seems to be lower in the more cognitively demanding interference Stroop task. The results consolidate the link between cognition and high quality of single binocular vision.

Disrupted modulation of thalamus activation and thalamocortical connectivity during dual task performance in schizophrenia

Despite considerable evidence showing thalamus anatomy and connectivity abnormalities in schizophrenia, how these abnormalities are reflected in thalamus function during cognition is relatively understudied. Modulation of thalamic connectivity with the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is required for higher-order cognitive processes, which are often impaired in schizophrenia. To address this gap, we investigated how thalamus function and thalamus-PFC connectivity under different levels of cognitive demand may be disrupted in schizophrenia. Participants underwent fMRI scanning while performing an event-related two-alternative forced choice task under Single and Dual task conditions. In the Single task condition, participants responded either to a visual cue with a well-learned motor response, or an audio cue with a well-learned vocal response. In the Dual task condition, participants performed both tasks. Thalamic connectivity with task relevant regions of the PFC for each condition was measured using beta-series correlation. Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrated less modulation of both mediodorsal thalamus activation and thalamus-PFC connectivity with increased cognitive demand. In contrast, their ability to modulate PFC function during task performance was maintained. These results suggest that the pathophysiology of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia is associated with thalamus-PFC circuitry and suggests that the thalamus, along with the PFC, should be a focus of investigation.

Supporting students’ conceptual understanding of kinetics using screencasts and simulations outside of the classroom

Simulations have changed chemistry education by allowing students to visualize the motion and interaction of particles underlying important chemical processes. With kinetics, such visualizations can illustrate how particles interact to yield successful reactions and how changes in concentration and temperature impact the number and success of individual collisions. This study examined how a simulation exploring particle collisions, or screencast employing the same simulation, used as an out-of-class introduction helped develop students’ conceptual understanding of kinetics. Students either manipulated the simulation themselves using guided instructions or watched a screencast in which an expert used the same simulation to complete an assignment. An iterative design approach and analysis of pretest and follow up questions suggests that students in both groups at two different institutions were able to achieve a common base level of success. Instructors can then build upon this common experience when instructing students on collision theory and kinetics. Eye-tracking studies indicate that the simulation and screencast groups engage with the curricular materials in different ways, which combined with student self-report data suggests that the screencast and simulation provide different levels of cognitive demand. This increased time on task suggests that the screencast may hold student interest longer than the simulation alone.

Modelling the executive components involved in processing false belief and mechanical/intentional sequences.

To understand the executive demands of the false-belief (FB) task relative to an alternative theory-of-mind (or mechanical causality) task, picture sequencing, the present study used path analyses. One hundred and sixty-six children between 3 and 6years old completed the FB and picture-sequencing tasks, three executive function tasks (updating, inhibition, and shifting), and the receptive language test. The model with the best fit indicated that FB performance had a direct contribution from shifting of attention and inhibitory control, which was independent of the significant contribution made by picture sequencing. This model indicates that FB inference requires more executive processing than picture sequencing, which is used as an alternative task to measure theory of mind. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? The majority of researchers use the false-belief task to assess mentalizing ability in young children. Sources of information used in various different mentalizing tasks require different levels of cognitive demand. Many executive functions (EFs) are involved in children's judgements of false belief. What does this study add? A statistical model was created to compare processing requirements of false-belief and picture-sequencing tasks. The model supported the claim that the false-belief task involves considerably more than just mentalizing. Shifting the focus of attention was an EF that was found to be a key component of performance in the false-belief task.

What do teachers share within Socialized Knowledge Communities: a case of Pinterest

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine early career teachers’ Socialized Knowledge Communities (SKCs) as they relate to the pursuit of mathematics knowledge and teaching. The authors investigate Pinterest, a living data archive, as an opportunity to view teachers’ sense-making and construction of instructional resources. Through this lens, the authors examine how teachers form and share mathematical meaning individually and collectively through professional collaboration.Design/methodology/approachThis work characterizes teachers’ curation of mathematical resources both in the kinds of mathematics teachers are choosing and the quality therein. Finally, the authors examine through epistemic network analysis how teachers are sense-making through a statistical approach to identifying their organization of mathematics curation by typology and cognitive process demand.FindingsResults show that sampled teachers predominantly curate instructional resources that require students to perform standard algorithm and represent mathematics relationships in visualization within Pinterest. Additionally, the authors find the resources curated by teachers have lower cognitive demand. Finally, epistemic networks show teachers make connections among instructional resources with particular types as well as with different levels of cognitive demand as they sense-make their curated curriculum. In particular, difference in teachers’ internal consideration of the quality of tasks is associated with their years of experience.Originality/valueTwenty-first century classrooms and teachers engage frequently in curation of instructional resources online. The work contributes to an emergent understanding of teachers’ professional engagement in virtual spaces by characterizing the instructional resources being accessed, shared, and diffused. Understanding the nature of the content permeating teachers’ SKCs is essential to increase teachers’ professional capital in the digital age.

Reconfiguration of Brain Network Architectures between Resting-State and Complexity-Dependent Cognitive Reasoning.

Our capacity for higher cognitive reasoning has a measurable limit. This limit is thought to arise from the brain's capacity to flexibly reconfigure interactions between spatially distributed networks. Recent work, however, has suggested that reconfigurations of task-related networks are modest when compared with intrinsic "resting-state" network architecture. Here we combined resting-state and task-driven functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine how flexible, task-specific reconfigurations associated with increasing reasoning demands are integrated within a stable intrinsic brain topology. Human participants (21 males and 28 females) underwent an initial resting-state scan, followed by a cognitive reasoning task involving different levels of complexity, followed by a second resting-state scan. The reasoning task required participants to deduce the identity of a missing element in a 4 × 4 matrix, and item difficulty was scaled parametrically as determined by relational complexity theory. Analyses revealed that external task engagement was characterized by a significant change in functional brain modules. Specifically, resting-state and null-task demand conditions were associated with more segregated brain-network topology, whereas increases in reasoning complexity resulted in merging of resting-state modules. Further increments in task complexity did not change the established modular architecture, but affected selective patterns of connectivity between frontoparietal, subcortical, cingulo-opercular, and default-mode networks. Larger increases in network efficiency within the newly established task modules were associated with higher reasoning accuracy. Our results shed light on the network architectures that underlie external task engagement, and highlight selective changes in brain connectivity supporting increases in task complexity.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Humans have clear limits in their ability to solve complex reasoning problems. It is thought that such limitations arise from flexible, moment-to-moment reconfigurations of functional brain networks. It is less clear how such task-driven adaptive changes in connectivity relate to stable, intrinsic networks of the brain and behavioral performance. We found that increased reasoning demands rely on selective patterns of connectivity within cortical networks that emerged in addition to a more general, task-induced modular architecture. This task-driven architecture reverted to a more segregated resting-state architecture both immediately before and after the task. These findings reveal how flexibility in human brain networks is integral to achieving successful reasoning performance across different levels of cognitive demand.

Using Visualization to Generalize on Quadratic Patterning Tasks

Students think about two tasks that appear similar but possess different levels of cognitive demand.

P131 Phase-dependent modulations of brain activity and connectivity are dependent on cognitive state

Question Oscillations in the theta range (4–8 Hz) are a good candidate to coordinate neuronal ensembles during cognitive control. TACS has been shown to modulate cognitive function in a phase dependent manner. In this study we tested the effect of tACS in two paradigms with different levels of cognitive demand: a low-cognitive demand choice-reaction task (CRT); and a high-cognitive demand 2-back task. Simultaneous tACS/fMRI was used to test the hypothesis that the effects of tACS on brain activity and connectivity depend on cognitive state as well as the phase of stimulation. Methods TACS was delivered over F4 and P4 (with a common return in T8), at 6 Hz, 1 mA (Fig. 1 Download : Download high-res image (363KB) Download : Download full-size image ). Experiment 1: 10 subjects performed 3 sessions of each tACS condition “Synchronized” (0°), “Desynchronized” (180°), and sham stimulation. Experiment 2: 24 subjects had concurrent tACS and fMRI (3T, Siemens). Results Experiment 1: TACS delivered in the “synchronized” condition significantly improved reaction times in the high-cognitive demanding task as compared to the sham and “desynchronized” conditions. There was no effect of tACS in the tasks with low-cognitive demands. Experiment 2: 1. Distinct effects of tACS were seen for tasks with different levels of cognitive demand and the effect of tACS on brain activation is phase-dependent (Fig. 2 Download : Download high-res image (507KB) Download : Download full-size image ). In the 2-back task, tACS delivered in the “synchronized” condition elicited an increase in activity in task-related regions. In contrast, the “desynchronized” condition resulted in increased deactivation of the default-mode network. 2. tACS modulates brain connectivity in a task- and phase-dependent manner. PPI analysis showed that 0° stimulation modulated functional connectivity between the stimulated frontoparietal regions and regions involved in cognitive control. 3. Participants that had increased brain activity during the “synchronized” condition showed faster reaction times in the 2-back task (r = −0.4917, p = 0.02). Conclusions We demonstrate that tACS modulates brain activity and functional connectivity in a phase-dependent manner, which is dependent on cognitive task performance. TACS increases task-relevant functional connectivity within regions involved in cognitive control, providing a mechanistic insight how the technique enhances cognitive function.

Effects of cognitive demand on situational interest and running task performances

This study examined the effect of cognitive demand on situational interest and performance using running tasks in physical education. Adolescents (N = 179) participated in a field study involving three different levels of cognitive demand. Running performances and situational interest were measured four times with a testing interval of seven days. Results from multivariate analyses of covariance suggested that cognitive demand had a significant effect on situational interest and running performances. Higher cognitive demand led to higher levels of situational interest. Situational interest was weakly or moderately correlated with running performances (|r| = .17−.40), yet students reported significantly lower performance when the perceived interest was the highest. These findings suggest the importance of designing instructional tasks with moderate cognitive demand to optimally preserve situational interest and performance in physical education. The findings also help further conceptualise the relations among cognitive demand, situational interest and performance.

Exploring social and cognitive presences in communities of inquiry to perform higher cognitive tasks

The purpose of the current study was to explore social and cognitive relationships among students when they are solving complex cognitive tasks in online discussion forums (self-regulated). An online course targeting interventions for risk behaviors was developed in the Virtual Campus of Andalusia, Spain. A total of 9878 units of meaning posted in 96 online discussion forums during three academic years (2010–11, 2011–12 and 2012–13) were analyzed through the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework. The degree to which online tasks at three different levels of cognitive demand (analyze, evaluate and create) triggered cognitive and social processes were examined. The results indicate that there was a specific increasing trend in the frequency of cognitive and social activity according to the requirement of the task. This study also found that the nature of the learning task modulated the different components of social and cognitive presence in these contexts.

Temporal Factors of EEG and Artificial Neural Network Classifiers of Mental Workload

The use of machine learning algorithms to classify Mental Workload (MW) from various neurophysiological measures is a growing trend in Human Factors research. Several teams have demonstrated that artificial neural networks (ANNs) can be employed to differentiate highly-dimensional neurophysiological data from participants performing tasks at different levels of cognitive demand in many experimental paradigms. Yet, in other cases, classifier performance was found not to exceed chance levels. One inescapable aspect of neurophysiological measures is the time course associated with data collection. This study directly examined the effect of time on classifier performance. Relative classifier performance values were compared for ANNs trained with EEG data from participants performing a verbal/spatial n-back task at varying load levels. For the vast majority of participants, classifiers trained with data from one session were ineffective when tested with data from a subsequent session. Similarly, classification performance suffered when training and testing tasks were incongruent. In contrast to the very high aggregate performance when trained and tested with data from the same session and same task (M = .81), cross-classification performance was consistently much worse (M = .49 – .53). The relative magnitude of the cross-session and cross-task “costs” to classification were compared, revealing a greater effect for session than task. The authors argue that the mere passage of time causes tonic changes in MW-related features of EEG that severely confound ANNs.

A Bit of Decline: An Information Processing Approach to Complexity and Performance Loss

Cell phone use while driving has been shown to significantly impair driving performance. A limitation of current work on driver distraction, however, is that none of the research has been able to clearly measure the cognitive demand of the conversation in which a driver engages. Precise measurement of different levels of cognitive demand will improve our understanding of its impact on driving performance. Here we describe a study that uses information theory to quantify information processing in a simple, predictable way, i.e., performance decline as a function of bits of processing. These data could eventually be turned into a regressive model which matches performance loss to specific levels of cognitive demand. The goal of this experiment was to determine the degree to which performance on a tracking task was compromised when participants engaged in varying degrees of information processing. First analyses of the results indicate a significant and predictable impact of increased information processing ...

Can We Predict Task Difficulty in an Oral Proficiency Test? Exploring the Potential of an Information‐Processing Approach to Task Design

This study addresses the following question: Are different task characteristics and performance conditions (involving assumed different levels of cognitive demand) associated with different levels of fluency, complexity, or accuracy in test candidate responses? The materials for the were a series of narrative tasks involving a picture stimulus; the participants were 193 pre‐university students taking English courses. We varied the conditions for tasks in each dimension and measured the impact of these factors on task performance with both familiar detailed discourse measures and specially constructed rating scales, analyzed using Rasch methods. We found that task performance conditions in each dimension failed to influence task difficulty and task performance as expected. We discuss implications for the design of speaking assessments and broader research.