Effortful Information Processing Research Articles

Automatic and effortful information processing in unipolar major depression.

The present study investigated attentional dysfunction in patients with recurrent unipolar major depression in a visual search paradigm. The attentional aspects of automatic and effortful information processing were examined. The general hypothesis was that patients with unipolar major depression would have more problems with tasks that require effortful information processing than with tasks that require only automatic information processing. A task requiring effortful processing attracts attention, is more demanding, and is instruction-driven. A task that is automatically processed does not invoke attention, is less demanding, and is stimulus-driven. The results showed that the patient group needed significantly longer reaction times on the tasks requiring more effortful information processing than the control group, but there were no significant differences between groups on tasks requiring automatic information processing. Thus it seems as if the depressed patients show an impaired profile as a function of the degree of effort a task requires.

Long-lasting cognitive impairment in unipolar major depression: a 6-month follow-up study

The aim of the study was to investigate cognitive impairment in major depression both acutely and after 6 months. All patients were investigated within a neurocognitive experimental setting at two testing sessions: at inclusion and after 6 months. Automatic and effortful information processing was investigated with a visual search paradigm. Twenty-one patients with recurrent major depression according to DSM-IV and a Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score >18 were included in the study. Healthy subjects, matched for age and gender, were used as a control group. The results showed that the depressed patients performed equal to the control group on trials requiring automatic information processing at both sessions. However, the patients were impaired compared to the control group on trials requiring effortful information processing, also at both sessions. The depressed patients showed no improvement in cognitive performance from test 1 to test 2. The results indicate that the depressed patients had an impaired performance for effortful, but not automatic, visual search performance, and that the impairment remained after 6 months, despite significant improvement in their depression scores.

The interactive effects of processing preference and motivation on information processing: Causal uncertainty and the MBTI in a persuasion context

Causal uncertainty is thought to lead to accuracy motivation, which has been postulated previously to lead to increases in effortful information processing. It was hypothesized that this would depend on the extent to which a person typically prefers to process with conscious effort. Processing preference was assessed using the Judgment/Perception index of the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. People high in causal uncertainty and Judgment (i.e., preference for conscious effort) listed more thoughts after reading a persuasive essay and recalled more of the essay than did other participants. Also, the attitudes of people high in both causal uncertainty and Judgment towards the topic were affected by their assessment of the quality of the arguments.

Memory training improves cognitive ability in patients with dementia

Clinical symptoms of Alzheimer's disease (AD) include a variety of progressive cognitive deficits, particularly memory. Twenty-five patients with mild to moderate AD and their caregivers, who served as controls, participated in a 5 week memory training programme, with a 1 month follow up. Participants were taught strategies that included name–face rehearsal, effortful recall, and a significant event technique. Intervention efficacy was assessed on task specific tests, administered on a weekly basis, and general cognitive measures obtained at the first and last sessions of the intervention. During the memory training programme patients showed improved performance on the recall of names and faces, recognition memory after effortful processing of information, and significant events (p < .05). Controls consistently performed better than the AD group, making few errors. Standardised measures for the AD group improved on the Kendrick Digit Copy and had lower scores on the Geriatric Depression Scale (p < .05). Caregivers also rated patients higher on the Memory Function Questionnaire (MFQ) (p < .05). Thus, a memory training programme can be beneficial for patients with mild to moderate AD to improve some aspects of memory and behaviour. Ultimately, behavioural interventions in conjunction with pharmacological therapies may optimise functional ability and provide a framework to further enhance cognitive function in patients with dementia.

A Social-Psychological Analysis of HIV-Related Stigma

Despite the best efforts of public health agencies, HIV/AIDS continues to carry a significant stigma in the general population. Research indicates that people's negative reactions to persons with AIDS (PWAs) are due to their relatively automatic reactions to a disease that has become associated with death, promiscuity, drugs, and homosexuality. There is also evidence that more controlled or effortful information processing influences how people respond to PWAs. A model of HIV-related stigma is developed that assumes psychological reactions to stigmatized persons are governed by a primarily associative and a rule-based system, and that there is a temporal pattern such that initial reactions are governed by the associative system whereas subsequent reactions are governed by the rule-based system. Because associations to PWAs often are negative, relatively automatic reactions tend to be negative; however, if perceivers have enough time, motivation, and cognitive resources, they may adjust their initial reactions in a more positive direction. This theoretical model has general implications for understanding how any perceived stigma influences social cognition processes.

Proposed Model of the Relationship of Risk Information Seeking and Processing to the Development of Preventive Behaviors

We articulate a model that focuses on characteristics of individuals that might predispose them to seek and process information about health in different ways. Specifically, the model proposes that seven factors—(1) individual characteristics, (2) perceived hazard characteristics, (3) affective response to the risk, (4) felt social pressures to possess relevant information, (5) information sufficiency, (6) one's personal capacity to learn, (7) beliefs about the usefulness of information in various channels—will influence the extent to which a person will seek out this risk information in both routine and nonroutine channels and the extent to which he or she will spend time and effort analyzing the risk information critically. By adapting and synthesizing aspects of Eagly and Chaiken's Heuristic-Systematic Model and Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior, we also expect that people who engage in more effortful information seeking and processing are more likely to develop risk-related cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors that are more stable (i.e., less changeable or volatile) over time. Since most forms of health information campaigns attempt to get people to adopt habitual or lifestyle changes, factors leading to the stability or volatility of those behavioral changes are essential concerns.

Effortful and Automatic Information Processing in Boys with ADHD and Specific Learning Disorders

Effortful and Automatic Information Processing in Boys with ADHD and Specific Learning Disorders

Mood and Behavior Perception: Dysphoria Can Increase and Decrease Effortful Processing of Information

In the affect and cognition literature, some studies demonstrate that dysphoric mood increases effortful processing of social and nonsocial information, but others demonstrate that it decreases such processing. Five studies examined the effect of dysphoric mood on perceivers' subjective unitization of an observed other's ongoing behavior into discrete meaningful actions. Dysphoria generally reduced unitization rate (i.e., number of actions discriminated). Additional evidence indicates that this reduction likely results from failure to initiate a higher (more effortful) unitization rate rather than from inability to achieve such a level of processing. Data also suggest that dysphoric mood can actually increase unitization rate when adopting that mode of processing might relieve the dysphoria. It is concluded that dysphoric mood may lead perceivers to exhibit a more discriminating "cognitive palate" in terms of how much effort they choose to expend on processing available information.

Effortful information processing in a spontaneous spatial situation by rats with medial prefrontal lesions

Previous research has suggested that the rat prefrontal cortex might play a role in spatial information processing and in divided attention. More recent work showed that the effect of prefrontal lesions is more important when the task involves response selection in complex situations. The first aim of the present study was to test the effect of lesions of the prelimbic area of the rat prefrontal cortex in spatial exploration, a situation involving the processing of spatial and non-spatial information, but requiring no response selection. The second aim was to manipulate the degree of cognitive effort required by the task. The latter effect was tested by manipulating the number of items to explore. Rats explored either a simple (3 objects) or a complex (6 objects) situation. We reasoned that acquiring spatial information so as to react adequately to spatial or non spatial changes involved more effortful processing in the complex situation than in the simpler one. The results suggest that the medial prefrontal cortex is not crucially involved in effortful processing when the task requires no response selection.

Depression and the Correspondent Inference Bias: Evidence for more Effortful Cognitive Processing

This research tested the hypothesis that because of mildly and moderately depressed and dysphoric individuals' need to reestablish feelings of control, such individuals will be more likely to effort fully process available social information. Using a cognitive load manipulation up within the correspondence bias paradigm, it was found that depressed subjects were less likely than nondepressed subjects to make correspondent inferences (and more likely to process the available social information), but only under the condition of no cognitive load. The results of the study provide evidence for the motivated effortful processing of social information by moderately depressed individuals.

Schema specificity in subclinical syndrome depression: Distinctions between automatically versus effortfully encoded state and trait depressive information

Previous research examining information processing in subclinical depression has typically not sought to differentiate between depressive information processing structures. To examine this issue, an incidental recall paradigm was used to assess whether subclinically depressed individuals have self-schemas that facilitate the diffuse processing of any depressive information, or whether such structures are specific to state-relevant versus trait-relevant depressive information. In addition to the automatic information processing that is usually assessed in depression, effortful information processing was examined to determine if depressive cognitive dysfunctions were limited to automatic processing mechanisms. Results for subclinically depressed subjects showed a sensitivity to state depressive information processed automatically, and to trait depressive information processed effortfully. These data are consistent with the presence of a relatively specific, state self-referent depressive schema in subclinical depression, and suggest that, when presented with unfavorable information, subclinically depressed individuals will focus more attention on information that is qualitatively more negative.

EFFECTS OF TEMPORAL SPEED INSTRUCTION ON TEMPORAL LENGTH JUDGMENT

Given the flexible use of an inverse rule relating temporal speed and temporal length in some psychological studies, an hypothesized effect of an instruction regarding temporal speed on temporal length judgment was tested. By subjects asked to compare the speeds (rates of passage) and then to estimate the two temporal lengths (durations) of two successive intervals, there was greater use of the inverse rule and increased accuracy in estimating the first of the two intervals. The results have important implications for effortful processing of temporal information.

Effects of temporal speed instruction on temporal length judgment.

Given the flexible use of an inverse rule relating temporal speed and temporal length in some psychological studies, an hypothesized effect of an instruction regarding temporal speed on temporal length judgment was tested. By subjects asked to compare the speeds (rates of passage) and then to estimate the two temporal lengths (durations) of two successive intervals, there was greater use of the inverse rule and increased accuracy in estimating the first of the two intervals. The results have important implications for effortful processing of temporal information.

Effects of haloperidol on recall and information processing in verbal and spatial learning

1. Normal male subjects were tested with either a multi-trial word list learning test or a spatial analogue prior to administration of either 4 mg. or 10 mg. of oral haloperidol. Six hours after drug administration subjects who had previously received the verbal test were administered the spatial test, and vice versa, so for each test there was a no-drug control group, a group tested after receiving 4 mg. of haloperidol, and a group tested after a 10 mg. dose. 2. Both the verbal and spatial learning tests yield multidimensional measures of components of memory and learning, including measures sensitive to effort-demanding and more automatic information processing operations. 3. Results showed no differences for either test among the pre-drug control group and the 4 mg. and 10 mg. groups, with only one minor exception. 4. The lack of significant results cannot be attributed to insensitivity of the test instruments used, since previous studies have documented sensitivity to a number of clinical conditions and to aging. 5. Results have implications regarding clinical effects of haloperidol. A theory that links dopaminergic functioning with effortful information processing underlying memory and learning was not supported.

Automatic and effortful processing in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Twenty-five boys with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and 23 age-matched controls were compared on verbal memory tasks differentiating automatic versus effortful information processing. Automatic processing tasks included the recognition of new or old words in a list and the recognition of frequency of occurrence of words in a list. Effortful tasks included free recall of lists of both related and unrelated words. Hyperactive boys did not differ from controls in automatic processing capabilities but demonstrated significantly poorer effortful processing. Intercorrelations of the variables revealed high correlations between scores on effortful measures and also raise questions about the purity of automaticity in some tasks employed. Stepwise discriminant analysis demonstrated that free recall of related words (an effortful task) best discriminated between groups. Effort-related processing in hyperactive and normal children is discussed in relation to variables of motivation, affect, arousal, and other higher-order cognitive processes.

Serial-position curves in rats: Order memory for episodic spatial events

With the use of a recognition probe procedure, rats were trained to remember serial order of a four- or eight-item list (places on an eight-arm radial maze). The animals displayed a prominent “primacy” and “recency” effect, indicating a serial-position curve. The serial-position curve was more pronounced for the eight-item than for the four-item list. It is suggested that the “primacy” effect of serial-position curves is primarily a function of the utilization of controlled or effortful information processing. In addition, the data suggest a correspondence between animals and humans in the generation of serial-position curves for list learning.

Serial position curves in rats: Automatic versus effortful information processing.

Rats were trained to remember lists of five arms on an Olton eight-arm radial maze. A forced-choice memory recognition test procedure was used which required the animal to choose between an arm previously visited during the study phase of a trial and an arm not visited. To receive additional food reinforcement, 10 animals were required to return to the previously visited arm (win-stay) and 10 animals were required to choose the novel, unvisited arm (win-shift). In this way, a direct comparison was made between the serial position curves (SPCs) generated by win-stay trained and win-shift trained animals. The results indicated that only win-stay trained animals produced the classical U-shaped SPC, which included significant primacy and recency effects. Win-shift subjects showed only recency effects. These findings are discussed in terms of differential processing requirements for the two procedures. It is suggested that the win-stay rule necessitates relatively more effortful, elaborative processing than does the win-shift rule, which is used automatically.

Serial position curves in rats: Automatic versus effortful information processing.

Serial position curves in rats: Automatic versus effortful information processing.