Distinct Cognitive Processes Research Articles

Understanding the human brain: insights from comparative biology.

Human brains are exceptionally large, support distinctive cognitive processes, and evolved by natural selection to mediate adaptive behavior. Comparative biology situates the human brain within an evolutionary context to illuminate how it has been shaped by selection and how its structure relates to evolutionary function, while identifying the developmental and molecular changes that were involved. Recent applications of powerful phylogenetic methods have uncovered new findings, some of which overturn conventional wisdom about how and why brains evolve. Here, we focus on four long-standing claims about brain evolution and discuss how new work has either contradicted these claims or shown the relevant phenomena to be more complicated than previously appreciated. Throughout, we emphasize studies of non-human primates and hominins, our close relatives and recent ancestors.

Categorizing a Face and Facing a Category: The Constructive Impacts of Ambiguity and Uncertainty in Racial Categorization.

The past generation has seen a dramatic rise in multiracial populations and a consequent increase in exposure to individuals who challenge monolithic racial categories. We examine and compare two potential outcomes of the multiracial population growth that may impact people's racial categorization experience: (a) exposure to racially ambiguous faces that visually challenge the existing categories, and (b) a category that conceptually challenges existing categories (including "biracial" as an option in addition to the monolithic "Black" and "White" categories). Across four studies (N = 1,810), we found that multiple exposures to faces that are racially ambiguous directly lower essentialist views of race. Moreover, we found that when people consider a category that blurs the line between racial categories (i.e., "biracial"), they become less certain in their racial categorization, which is associated with less race essentialism, as well. Importantly, we found that these two effects happen independently from one another and represent two distinct cognitive processes.

How Working Memory and Reinforcement Learning Are Intertwined: A Cognitive, Neural, and Computational Perspective.

Reinforcement learning and working memory are two core processes of human cognition and are often considered cognitively, neuroscientifically, and algorithmically distinct. Here, we show that the brain networks that support them actually overlap significantly and that they are less distinct cognitive processes than often assumed. We review literature demonstrating the benefits of considering each process to explain properties of the other and highlight recent work investigating their more complex interactions. We discuss how future research in both computational and cognitive sciences can benefit from one another, suggesting that a key missing piece for artificial agents to learn to behave with more human-like efficiency is taking working memory's role in learning seriously. This review highlights the risks of neglecting the interplay between different processes when studying human behavior (in particular when considering individual differences). We emphasize the importance of investigating these dynamics to build a comprehensive understanding of human cognition.

Examining relations between performance on non-verbal executive function and verbal self-regulation tasks in demographically-diverse populations.

Self-regulation is a widely studied construct, generally assumed to be cognitively supported by executive functions (EFs). There is a lack of clarity and consensus over the roles of specific components of EFs in self-regulation. The current study examines the relations between performance on (a) a self-regulation task (Heads, Toes, Knees Shoulders Task) and (b) two EF tasks (Knox Cube and Beads Tasks) that measure different components of updating: working memory and short-term memory, respectively. We compared 107 8- to 13-year-old children (64 females) across demographically-diverse populations in four low and middle-income countries, including: Tanna, Vanuatu; Keningau, Malaysia; Saltpond, Ghana; and Natal, Brazil. The communities we studied vary in market integration/urbanicity as well as level of access, structure, and quality of schooling. We found that performance on the visuospatial working memory task (Knox Cube) and the visuospatial short-term memory task (Beads) are each independently associated with performance on the self-regulation task, even when controlling for schooling and location effects. These effects were robust across demographically-diverse populations of children in low-and middle-income countries. We conclude that this study found evidence supporting visuospatial working memory and visuospatial short-term memory as distinct cognitive processes which each support the development of self-regulation.

Different Language Modalities Yet Similar Cognitive Processes in Arithmetic Fact Retrieval.

Does experience with signed language impact the neurocognitive processes recruited by adults solving arithmetic problems? We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to identify the components that are modulated by operation type and problem size in Deaf American Sign Language (ASL) native signers and in hearing English-speaking participants. Participants were presented with single-digit subtraction and multiplication problems in a delayed verification task. Problem size was manipulated in small and large problems with an additional extra-large subtraction condition to equate the overall magnitude of large multiplication problems. Results show comparable behavioral results and similar ERP dissociations across groups. First, an early operation type effect is observed around 200 ms post-problem onset, suggesting that both groups have a similar attentional differentiation for processing subtraction and multiplication problems. Second, for the posterior-occipital component between 240 ms and 300 ms, subtraction problems show a similar modulation with problem size in both groups, suggesting that only subtraction problems recruit quantity-related processes. Control analyses exclude possible perceptual and cross-operation magnitude-related effects. These results are the first evidence that the two operation types rely on distinct cognitive processes within the ASL native signing population and that they are equivalent to those observed in the English-speaking population.

How does the length of short rest periods affect implicit probabilistic learning?

Memory consolidation has been mainly investigated for extended periods, from hours to days. Recent studies focused on memory consolidation occurring within shorter periods, from seconds to minutes. Yet, these studies focused on explicit sequence learning with fixed rest periods. Our study aimed at determining whether short rest periods enhance implicit probabilistic sequence learning and whether the length of rest duration influences such offline changes. Participants performed an implicit probabilistic sequence learning task throughout 45 blocks. Between blocks, participants were allowed to rest and then to continue the task at their pace. The results show that probabilistic sequence knowledge decreased from pre-to post-rest periods, and this decrement was not related to the length of rest duration. These results suggest that probabilistic sequence knowledge decays during short rest periods and that such forgetting is not time-dependent. Overall, our findings highlight that ultra-fast consolidation differently affects distinct cognitive processes.

Menzerath-Altmann Law in Consecutive and Simultaneous Interpreting: Insights into Varied Cognitive Processes and Load

ABSTRACT Notwithstanding theoretical simulations of distinctive cognitive processes and load of consecutive (CI) and simultaneous interpreting (SI), quantitative linguistic inquiry into their outputs is needed for solid empirical evidence. As a fundamental law of quantitative linguistics, Menzerath–Altmann Law (MAL) mirrors the economic processing of linguistic information and complex dynamic language system. Given its extensive validation at various linguistic levels and predictive power of its parameters in register, language and authorship differentiation, MAL is worthy of being applied to interpreting studies. We endeavour to investigate whether interpreted languages follow the MAL and reveal varied cognitive load of CI versus SI, as manifested by different MAL fitting models. Results show that (1) both CI and SI outputs follow the MAL; (2) SI processing involves more diversified structural information and shows a greater tendency of shortening the clauses of a sentence with increased sentence length, than CI processing, expressed by significantly higher a and lower b in SI models than that in CI models. Our findings suggest the disparate language representations are shaped by cognitive capacity limitations and interpreting modalities, and reveal how language system dynamically re-regulates and reorganizes the linguistic information to accommodate environmental settings from the perspective of synergetic linguistics.

Deep learning-based EEG analysis: investigating P3 ERP components

The neural processing of incoming stimuli can be analysed from the electroencephalogram (EEG) through event-related potentials (ERPs). The P3 component is largely investigated as it represents an important psychophysiological marker of psychiatric disorders. This is composed by several subcomponents, such as P3a and P3b, reflecting distinct but interrelated sensory and cognitive processes of incoming stimuli. Due to the low EEG signal-to-noise-ratio, ERPs emerge only after an averaging procedure across trials and subjects. Thus, this canonical ERP analysis lacks in the ability to highlight EEG neural signatures at the level of single-subject and single-trial. In this study, a deep learning-based workflow is investigated to enhance EEG neural signatures related to P3 subcomponents already at single-subject and at single-trial level. This was based on the combination of a convolutional neural network (CNN) with an explanation technique (ET). The CNN was trained using two different strategies to produce saliency representations enhancing signatures shared across subjects or more specific for each subject and trial. Cross-subject saliency representations matched the signatures already emerging from ERPs, i.e., P3a and P3b-related activity within 350-400 ms (frontal sites) and 400-650 ms (parietal sites) post-stimulus, validating the CNN+ET respect to canonical ERP analysis. Single-subject and single-trial saliency representations enhanced P3 signatures already at the single-trial scale, while EEG-derived representations at single-subject and single-trial level provided no or only mildly evident signatures. Empowering the analysis of P3 modulations at single-subject and at single-trial level, CNN+ET could be useful to provide insights about neural processes linking sensory stimulation, cognition and behaviour.

Mindfulness-Informed Guided Imagery to Target Physical Activity: A Mixed Method Feasibility and Acceptability Pilot Study.

Physical activity offers substantial mind-body health benefits and reduced mortality, yet many individuals are chronically underactive. Physical activity interventions may benefit from integrative approaches that join components of mindfulness and neurobiological models of behavior. Mindfulness increases one’s awareness of cognitions and physical sensations to potentially facilitate self-regulation, while neurobiological models such as the dual system model of health behavior offer guidance on improving physical activity intervention targets. This 2-phase study includes an initial development process to create brief (∼4 min) mindfulness informed guided imagery audio files that target distinct cognitive and affective processes to promote physical activity. In the second phase, participants completed a 2-week pilot intervention study to gather qualitative and quantitative data on intervention feasibility and acceptability. Participants endorsed the mindfulness informed guided imagery as easy to use, enjoyable and helpful. Over a 2-week intervention period participants reported positive shifts in behavior change, physical activity enjoyment, increased mindfulness during physical activity, and increased physical exercise self-efficacy and satisfaction. Interview data revealed that participants increased their frequency of physical activity and tended to experience positive affect during physical activity, engaged in future oriented thinking and were able to view physical activity in a more positive light. Findings support the feasibility and acceptability of an integrative online mindfulness informed guided imagery intervention to promote physical activity enjoyment and engagement. This study extends health behavior change intervention research and provides supporting evidence for a flexible and tailorable online mindfulness-based intervention.

Causal Pluralism in Philosophy: Empirical Challenges and Alternative Proposals

An increasing number of arguments for causal pluralism invoke empirical psychological data. Different aspects of causal cognition—specifically, causal perception and causal inference—are thought to involve distinct cognitive processes and representations, and they thereby distinctively support transference and dependency theories of causation, respectively. We argue that this dualistic picture of causal concepts arises from methodological differences, rather than from an actual plurality of concepts. Hence, philosophical causal pluralism is not particularly supported by the empirical data. Serious engagement with cognitive science reveals that the connection between psychological concepts of causation and philosophical notions is substantially more complicated than is traditionally presumed.

Worry and rumination predict insomnia in patients with coronary heart disease: a cross-sectional study with long-term follow-up.

Insomnia is highly prevalent and associated with anxiety and depression in patients with coronary heart disease patients. The development of effective psychological interventions is needed. Worry and rumination are potential risk factors for the maintenance of insomnia, anxiety, and depression that may be modified by psychological treatment grounded in the Self-Regulatory Executive Function model. However, the relationships between worry, rumination, anxiety and depression, and insomnia are not known. Therefore, we investigated these relationships both cross-sectionally and longitudinally among patients with coronary heart disease. A cross-sectional study consecutively included 1,082 patients in 2014-2015, and 686 were followed up after mean of 4.7 years. Data were gathered from hospital records and self-report questionnaires comprising assessment of worry (Penn State Worry Questionnaire), rumination (Ruminative Responses Scale), anxiety and depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), and insomnia (Bergen Insomnia Scale). Insomnia correlated moderately with all other psychological variables (R 0.18-0.50, all P values < .001). After adjustments for anxiety and depression, odds ratios for insomnia at baseline were 1.27 (95% confidence interval 1.08-1.50) and 1.60 (95% confidence interval 1.31-1.94) per 10 points increase of worry and rumination, respectively. Corresponding odds ratios for insomnia at follow-up were 1.28 (95% confidence interval 1.05-1.55) and 1.38 (95% confidence interval 1.09-1.75). Depression was no longer significantly associated with insomnia after adjustments for worry and rumination, but anxiety remained significant. Worry and rumination predicted insomnia both cross-sectionally and prospectively, even after controlling for anxiety and depression, although anxiety remained significant. Future studies may test psychological interventions targeting these factors in patients with coronary heart disease and insomnia. Frøjd LA, Papageorgiou C, Munkhaugen J, etal. Worry and rumination predict insomnia in patients with coronary heart disease: a cross-sectional study with long-term follow-up. J Clin Sleep Med. 2022;18(3):779-787.

False memories activate distinct brain regions in females and males

The constructive process of memory is generally successful; however, it can also lead to memory failures such as false memories. Although true memories and false memories rely on some of the same brain regions, these memory types are also mediated by distinct neural substrates. Of relevance, there is a growing body of evidence that there are sex differences in the brain during true memories. However, no studies have investigated whether there are neural sex differences during false memories. In the current fMRI study, across all subjects, false memories produced activity in the precentral sulcus and superior parietal lobule, replicating previous findings. Males produced greater activity than females in the precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, parietooccipital sulcus, and fusiform gyrus. Females produced greater activity than males in the medial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, paracentral lobule, supramarginal gyrus, lateral sulcus, cingulate sulcus, the putamen, and V1. An interaction analysis revealed a significant interaction between sex and region with a higher magnitude of activity in the hippocampus for males than females and a higher magnitude of activity in V1 for females than males. The current results suggest that false memories are supported by distinct brain regions and cognitive processes in females and males.

Processing of semantic and grammatical gender in Spanish speakers with aphasia

ABSTRACT Background: Previous studies have argued that there are two types of linguistic gender: grammatical gender, which is arbitrarily assigned to nouns, and semantic gender, which depends on the gender of the referent. Aim: We explore the hypothesis that these two types of gender entail distinct cognitive processes by investigating the performance of people with aphasia at the level of sentence processing. Methods and Procedure: Nine people with aphasia (seven with fluent aphasia) and a control group of thirteen age-matched healthy participants took part in a constrained completion choice task. The participants had to complete sentences in a way that made the last word gender congruent. The subjects of the sentences had either Semantic gender (enfermera, nurse; indicating the gender of the referent), Grammatical gender (silla, chair), or Opaque-Grammatical gender (tomate, tomato). Results: People with aphasia performed more poorly in all gender conditions than healthy controls. They also were less accurate in both the Grammatical and Opaque-Grammatical conditions than in the Semantic gender condition. Conclusion: We propose that because semantic gender provides more salient information, it is processed faster than grammatical gender.

Resiliency to adversity in military personnel: The role of self-regulation

ABSTRACT Military service can include numerous adverse events. As such, resiliency has been considered as a means of potentially helping active-duty personnel face adversity and be better prepared for the demands of military service. However, research in military contexts has been hindered by use of disparate conceptualizations, definitions, and measures of resiliency. To provide some resolution to these inconsistencies, we use a comprehensive, theoretically based model of resiliency to explore how self-regulation processes contributed to Soldiers’ negative affect and self-perceived effectiveness. We hypothesized that self-regulation (comprising distinct affective, behavioral, and cognitive processes) increments prediction of Soldiers’ outcomes over and above trait-based resiliency protective factors. Using a sample of active-duty military personnel, cognitive self-regulation and affective self-regulation incremented the prediction of negative affect and self-perceived Soldier effectiveness, respectively, over and above trait-based protective factors. These results support the use of a comprehensive model and measure of resiliency, which may enable greater consistency across future research endeavors. As these results validated the links between self-regulation and post-adversity outcomes, this study provides a basis for developing new resiliency training programs. Additional implications for theory and continued research on resiliency in military contexts are discussed.

A description–experience gap in statistical intuitions: Of smart babies, risk-savvy chimps, intuitive statisticians, and stupid grown-ups

Comparison of different lines of research on statistical intuitions and probabilistic reasoning reveals several puzzling contradictions. Whereas babies seem to be intuitive statisticians, surprisingly capable of statistical learning and inference, adults’ statistical inferences have been found to be inconsistent with the rules of probability theory and statistics. Whereas researchers in the 1960s concluded that people’s probability updating is “conservatively” proportional to normative predictions, probability updating research in the 1970s suggested that people are incapable of following Bayes’s rule. And whereas animals appear to be strikingly risk savvy, humans often seem “irrational” when dealing with probabilistic information. Drawing on research on the description–experience gap in risky choice, we integrate and systematize these findings from disparate fields of inquiry that have, to date, operated largely in parallel. Our synthesis shows that a key factor in understanding inconsistencies in statistical intuitions research is whether probabilistic inferences are based on symbolic, abstract descriptions or on the direct experience of statistical information. We delineate this view from other conceptual accounts, consider potential mechanisms by which attributes of first-hand experience can facilitate appropriate statistical inference, and identify conditions under which they improve or impair probabilistic reasoning. To capture the full scope of human statistical intuition, we conclude, research on probabilistic reasoning across the lifespan, across species, and across research traditions must bear in mind that experience and symbolic description of the world may engage systematically distinct cognitive processes.

Dissociable associations of alexithymia and altruistic propensity with distinct cognitive processes underlying moral decision making

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties in identifying feelings and expressing emotion verbally. Recent evidence has shown the influence of alexithymia on moral judgments/decisions, however, the underlying cognitive processes associated with the influence remain largely unknown. Here, we addressed this issue by bridging literatures from personality psychology, experimental economics, and computational modeling. Participants were confronted with real moral conflicts involving a tradeoff between equity and efficiency, with the equity option anchored as the default. Our findings demonstrated that participants’ moral decisions pertaining to resource distribution were subject to both response biases toward the anchor and inequity aversion. These distinct computational components exhibit dissociable relationship with personal attributes, such that anchoring effect scales with alexithymia, whereas inequity aversion increases with altruistic propensity. Together, susceptibility to the anchor accidentally creates a deontological moral image for people high in alexithymia. These findings advance our understanding on the mechanisms navigating moral decisions and gain insights for individual differences in moral behaviors.

Identification of Mild Cognitive Impairment Among Chinese Based on Multiple Spoken Tasks.

Previous studies explored the use of noninvasive biomarkers of speech and language for the detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Yet, most of them employed single task which might not have adequately captured all aspects of their cognitive functions. The present study aimed to achieve the state-of-the-art accuracy in detecting individuals with MCI using multiple spoken tasks and uncover task-specific contributions with a tentative interpretation of features. Fifty patients clinically diagnosed with MCI and 60 healthy controls completed three spoken tasks (picture description, semantic fluency, and sentence repetition), from which multidimensional features were extracted to train machine learning classifiers. With a late-fusion configuration, predictions from multiple tasks were combined and correlated with the participants' cognitive ability assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Statistical analyses on pre-defined features were carried out to explore their association with the diagnosis. The late-fusion configuration could effectively boost the final classification result (SVM: F1 = 0.95; RF: F1 = 0.96; LR: F1 = 0.93), outperforming each individual task classifier. Besides, the probability estimates of MCI were strongly correlated with the MoCA scores (SVM: -0.74; RF: -0.71; LR: -0.72). Each single task tapped more dominantly to distinct cognitive processes and have specific contributions to the prediction of MCI. Specifically, picture description task characterized communications at the discourse level, while semantic fluency task was more specific to the controlled lexical retrieval processes. With greater demands on working memory load, sentence repetition task uncovered memory deficits through modified speech patterns in the reproduced sentences.

Connectome-based evidence for creative thinking as an emergent property of ordinary cognitive operations

Creative thinking is a hallmark of human cognition, which enables us to generate novel and useful ideas. Nevertheless, its emergence within the macro-scale neurocognitive circuitry remains largely unknown. Using resting-state fMRI data from two large population samples (SWU: n = 931; HCP: n = 1001) and a novel “travelling pattern prediction analysis”, here we identified the modularized functional connectivity patterns linked to creative thinking ability, which concurrently explained individual variability across ordinary cognitive abilities such as episodic memory, working memory and relational processing. Further interrogation of this neural pattern with graph theoretical tools revealed both hub-like brain structures and globally-efficient information transfer paths that together may facilitate higher creative thinking ability through the convergence of distinct cognitive operations. Collectively, our results provide reliable evidence for the hypothesized emergence of creative thinking from core cognitive components through neural integration, and thus allude to a significant theoretical advancement in the study of creativity.

A Bayesian brain model of adaptive behavior: an application to the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task.

Adaptive behavior emerges through a dynamic interaction between cognitive agents and changing environmental demands. The investigation of information processing underlying adaptive behavior relies on controlled experimental settings in which individuals are asked to accomplish demanding tasks whereby a hidden regularity or an abstract rule has to be learned dynamically. Although performance in such tasks is considered as a proxy for measuring high-level cognitive processes, the standard approach consists in summarizing observed response patterns by simple heuristic scoring measures. With this work, we propose and validate a new computational Bayesian model accounting for individual performance in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), a renowned clinical tool to measure set-shifting and deficient inhibitory processes on the basis of environmental feedback. We formalize the interaction between the task’s structure, the received feedback, and the agent’s behavior by building a model of the information processing mechanisms used to infer the hidden rules of the task environment. Furthermore, we embed the new model within the mathematical framework of the Bayesian Brain Theory (BBT), according to which beliefs about hidden environmental states are dynamically updated following the logic of Bayesian inference. Our computational model maps distinct cognitive processes into separable, neurobiologically plausible, information-theoretic constructs underlying observed response patterns. We assess model identification and expressiveness in accounting for meaningful human performance through extensive simulation studies. We then validate the model on real behavioral data in order to highlight the utility of the proposed model in recovering cognitive dynamics at an individual level. We highlight the potentials of our model in decomposing adaptive behavior in the WCST into several information-theoretic metrics revealing the trial-by-trial unfolding of information processing by focusing on two exemplary individuals whose behavior is examined in depth. Finally, we focus on the theoretical implications of our computational model by discussing the mapping between BBT constructs and functional neuroanatomical correlates of task performance. We further discuss the empirical benefit of recovering the assumed dynamics of information processing for both clinical and research practices, such as neurological assessment and model-based neuroscience.

Low rank mechanisms underlying flexible visual representations

Neuronal population responses to sensory stimuli are remarkably flexible. The responses of neurons in visual cortex have heterogeneous dependence on stimulus properties (e.g., contrast), processes that affect all stages of visual processing (e.g., adaptation), and cognitive processes (e.g., attention or task switching). Understanding whether these processes affect similar neuronal populations and whether they have similar effects on entire populations can provide insight into whether they utilize analogous mechanisms. In particular, it has recently been demonstrated that attention has low rank effects on the covariability of populations of visual neurons, which impacts perception and strongly constrains mechanistic models. We hypothesized that measuring changes in population covariability associated with other sensory and cognitive processes could clarify whether they utilize similar mechanisms or computations. Our experimental design included measurements in multiple visual areas using four distinct sensory and cognitive processes. We found that contrast, adaptation, attention, and task switching affect the variability of responses of populations of neurons in primate visual cortex in a similarly low rank way. These results suggest that a given circuit may use similar mechanisms to perform many forms of modulation and likely reflects a general principle that applies to a wide range of brain areas and sensory, cognitive, and motor processes.