Global-local Task Research Articles

A proposed methodology for measuring the effects of binaural beats in music on concentration, working memory, and calmness following the Garcia-Argibay Protocol

Binaural beats are perceived when two different frequencies are presented dichotically to a listener, causing the perception of a beating sound. They have been associated with beneficial effects on cognitive functions such as learning, concentration, and creativity. Studies however often yield incomparable or inconclusive results, due to inconsistent methodologies. Through a systematic examination, following the Garcia-Argibay Protocol, we aim to provide a more detailed understanding of the effects of binaural beats in music on cognitive functions. Specifically, we will compare auditory stimulation with music containing binaural beats of the alpha and gamma frequencies to a control condition presenting music without binaural beats. We will measure the differential effect of 12 Hz and 40 Hz binaural beats on working memory performance, operationalized through the N-back task, and investigate the impact of these frequencies on concentration levels measured via the global-local task. Lastly, heart rate will be used as a continuous measurement throughout the experiment in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the different frequencies in inducing calmness.

Attentional ERPs in consumers of smoked and insufflated cocaine associated with neuropsychological performance

BackgroundCocaine consumption is associated with reduced attentional event-related potentials (ERPs), namely P3a and P3b, indicating bottom-up and top-down deficits respectively. At cognitive level, these impairments are larger for faster routes of administration (e.g., smoked cocaine [SC]) than slower routes (e.g., insufflated cocaine [IC]). Here we assess these ERPs considering the route of cocaine administration. We hypothesized that SC dependent (SCD) would exhibit reduced amplitude of the P3a, while both SCD and IC dependent (ICD) would show reduced amplitude of the P3b. MethodsWe examined 25 SCD, 22 ICD matched by poly-consumption profiles, and 25 controls matched by demographic variables. We combined EEG data from the Global-Local task with behavioral data from attentional cognitive tasks. ResultsAt the behavioral level, SCD exhibited attentional deficits in both bottom-up and top-down processes, while ICD only showed a tendency for top-down deficits. The amplitude of P3a and P3b was lower in Users groups. We observed subtle route-based differences, with larger differences in the P3a for SCD and in the P3b for ICD. Neurophysiological and behavioral data converged, with the P3a associated to bottom-up performance and P3b to top-down. ConclusionsDifferent routes of administration lead to distinct attentional neurocognitive profiles. Specifically, SCD showed greater attentional impairment, mainly at bottom-up/P3a, while ICD showed a trend of top-down/P3b deficits. These findings emphasize the crucial role of considering the route of administration in both clinical and research settings and support the use of attentional ERPs as valid measures for assessing attentional deficits in substance Dependence.

Type of bilingualism, task domain, and attention demands impact children's cognitive performance.

The present study investigated the relation between continuous measures of two qualitatively different types of bilingual experience and outcome measures that varied in domain (verbal or nonverbal) and processing demands (degree of conflict). Participants were 195 English-speaking children, 7 years old, who were enrolled in French immersion programs. Children were assessed for their degree of "home bilingualism," reflecting language use patterns at home, and "school bilingualism," reflecting progress in learning French. None of the children spoke French at home. Participants completed verbal fluency, n-back, and global-local tasks, with conditions within tasks varying in degree of attentional processing required. Type of bilingual experience affected verbal and nonverbal tasks differently. Home bilingualism was positively associated with performance on attentionally demanding conditions of the n-back and global-local tasks, the two nonverbal tasks, whereas school bilingualism was positively associated with performance on English verbal fluency, the linguistic task. In both cases, results were modulated by the degree of bilingual experience. These results underline the importance of specifying the type and degree of bilingual experience and the details of the outcome tasks to understand the impact of bilingualism on children's development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Individual differences in semantic priming and inhibitory control predict performance in the Remote Associates Test (RAT)

Creative thinking is a complex cognitive ability that requires the combination and integration of information in the memory to produce original ideas. Previous creativity research has suggested that semantic memory, attentional focus or inhibitory control might be engaged when performing creativity tasks. In the present study, we tested whether stronger global attention, larger semantic priming and better ability to inhibit interfering information were related to performance in a creativity task such as the Remote Associate test (RAT). With this aim, 124 participants performed a lexical decision task in which the degree of semantic association (strong and weak) was manipulated. They also performed Navon's global-local task, in which global precedence and global/local interference indexes were calculated, and an adapted selective retrieval procedure from which an inhibition index was obtained. The results indicated that better creative performance was predicted by larger semantic priming between strong associates and by larger inhibitory effects, while attentional style was not associated with performance in the RAT. These findings support the role of semantic activation and inhibition during creativity.

Psychophysical characterization of auditory temporal and frequency streaming capacities for listeners with different levels of musical expertise.

Temporal and frequency auditory streaming capacities were assessed for non-musician (NM), expert musician (EM), and amateur musician (AM) listeners using a local-global task and an interleaved melody recognition task, respectively. Data replicate differences previously observed between NM and EM, and reveal that while AM exhibits a local-over-global processing change comparable to EM, their performance for segregating a melody embedded in a stream remains as poor as NM. The observed group partitioning along the temporal-frequency auditory streaming capacity map suggests a sequential, two-step development model of musical learning, whose contributing factors are discussed.

Zooming in on abnormal local and global processing biases after stroke: Frequency, lateralization, and associations with cognitive functions.

The 'attentional spotlight' can be adjusted depending on the task requirements, resulting in processing information at either the local or global level. Stroke can lead to local or global processing biases, or the inability to simultaneously attend both levels. In this study, we assessed the (1) prevalence of abnormal local and global biases following stroke, (2) differences between left- and right-sided brain damaged patients, and (3) relations between local and global interference, the ability to attend local and global levels simultaneously, and lateralized attention, search organization, search speed, visuo-construction, executive functioning, and verbal (working) memory. Stroke patients admitted for inpatient rehabilitation completed directed (N=192 total; N = 46 left-sided/N = 48 right-sided lesion) and divided (N = 258 total; N = 67 left-sided/N = 66 right-sided lesion) local-global processing tasks, as well as a conventional neuropsychological assessment. Processing biases and interference effects were separately computed for directed and divided tasks. On the local-global tasks, 7.8-10.9% of patients showed an abnormal local bias and 6.3-8.3% an abnormal global bias for directed attention, and 5.4-10.1% an abnormal local bias and 6.6-15.9% an abnormal global bias for divided attention. There was no significant difference between patients with left- and right-sided brain damage. There was a moderate positive relation between local interference and search speed, and a small positive relation between global interference and neglect. Abnormal local and global biases can occur after stroke and might relate to a range of cognitive functions. A specific bias might require a different approach in assessment, psycho-education, and treatment.

Global-Local Processing in ADHD Is Not Limited to the Visuospatial Domain: Novel Evidence From the Auditory Domain

Objective: Global-local visuospatial processing has been widely investigated in both healthy and clinical populations. Recent studies indicated that individuals with ADHD lack a global processing bias. However, the extant literature regarding global-local processing style focuses solely on the visual modality. Methods: ADHD (N = 21) and typically developed (TD) controls (N = 24) underwent an auditory global-local task, in which they had to decide whether the melody is ascending or descending in global or local conditions. Results: TD controls exhibited a classic global processing bias in the auditory task. The ADHD group exhibited no global processing bias, indicating similar processing for global and local dimensions, implying that individuals with ADHD are distracted by incongruent information in global and local conditions similarly, in both visual and auditory tasks. Conclusion: A lack of global processing bias in ADHD is not limited to the visuospatial modality and likely reflects a broader and more general processing style.

Aerobic fitness and fine motor skills are related to switching and updating in typically developing children

Movement is essential for everyday life and closely related to cognitive skills. The aim of the current research was to investigate whether different aspects of physical activity, i.e., aerobic fitness and motor skills, contribute above and beyond each other to the variance in children’s executive functioning. Children aged 8–13 years (N = 129, 58 females, Mage = 10.7 years, SDage = 1.6 years) participated in the current cross-sectional study. Aerobic fitness was assessed by the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run (PACER). Motor skills were assessed using the standardized Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2nd edition (M-ABC-2), including fine motor skills, balance skills, and object control. Components of executive functions (inhibition, switching, updating) were assessed using the following tasks: an animal Stroop task, a local–global task, and a 2n-back task. Hierarchical regressions were conducted to analyze the relative importance of aerobic fitness and motor skills for children’s executive functions. Results indicated that aerobic fitness and fine motor skills were significantly related to switching and updating, whereas relations to inhibition were non-significant. Furthermore, it was found that fine motor skills explained additional variance above aerobic fitness in switching and updating whereas aerobic fitness did not add additional variance above fine motor skills in switching and updating. Balance and object control skills were not related to the three core executive functions. Results support the notion that aerobic fitness and fine motor skills are differently related to executive functions and highlight the importance of considering multiple components of constructs in future research.

Increased motivational intensity leads to preference for distraction over reappraisal during emotion regulation: Mediated by attentional breadth.

Motivation is considered important in the study of emotion regulation. However, it remains unknown whether and how varied motivation may influence people's emotion regulation choice. To address this question, 51 participants first performed a global-local task that measures attentional breadth. Then, they were required to choose emotion regulation strategies, reappraisal, or distraction, to regulate their emotion in emotional contexts that varied in motivational direction and intensity. We found that distraction was chosen more often over reappraisal in high-intensity-motivated emotion, while the reverse pattern was observed in low-intensity motivated emotion. Besides, withdrawal-motivated emotion was associated with more reappraisal choices than approach-motivated emotion, an effect that, however, vanished when valence was controlled. Furthermore, participants made fewer global choices, which is indicative of narrowed attentional breadth, during high- relative to low-intensity motivated emotional contexts, and attentional breadth partially mediated the effect of motivational intensity on emotion regulation choice. These findings suggest that increased motivation promotes one's choice of distraction over reappraisal during emotion regulation, by narrowing attentional breadth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Transfer effects from language processing to visual attention dynamics: The impact of orthographic transparency.

The consistency between letters and sounds varies across languages. These differences have been proposed to be associated with different reading mechanisms (lexical vs. phonological), processing grain sizes (coarse vs. fine) and attentional windows (whole words vs. individual letters). This study aimed to extend this idea to writing to dictation. For that purpose, we evaluated whether the use of different types of processing has a differential impact on local windowing attention: phonological (local) processing in a transparent language (Spanish) and lexical (global) processing of an opaque language (English). Spanish and English monolinguals (Experiment 1) and Spanish-English bilinguals (Experiment 2) performed a writing to dictation task followed by a global-local task. The first key performance showed a critical dissociation between languages: the response times (RTs) from the Spanish writing to dictation task was modulated by word length, whereas the RTs from the English writing to dictation task was modulated by word frequency and age of acquisition, as evidence that language transparency biases processing towards phonological or lexical strategies. In addition, after a Spanish task, participants more efficiently processed local information, which resulted in both the benefit of global congruent information and the reduced cost of incongruent global information. Additionally, the results showed that bilinguals adapt their attentional processing depending on the orthographic transparency.

A-196 The Relationship Between Attention and Order Errors in Serial Order Memory

Abstract Objective: To investigate if attentional control (AC) predicts the amount of order errors made within serial memory tasks. We also investigated the relationship between AC and item memory (IM), and the relationship between IM and order memory (OM). Methods: Data were collected from undergraduate students at the University of South Alabama. Participants completed three attentional conflict tasks (Bivalent shape task, Global local task, and Flanker task) and three serial memory tasks (symmetry span, digit span, and reading span). The final sample of 112 participants completed all memory tasks and at least two conflict tasks. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to form an AC latent variable from response time difference scores (congruent versus incongruent trials), and IM and OM variables were formed from item and order errors in the memory tasks. Structural equation modeling was used to test correlations among latent variables. Results: The latent AC factor failed to converge. We ran three structural equation models using each conflict task as a predictor variable for both IM and OM. The relationship between IM and OM was significant in all three models. The only other significant pathway across all three models was the relationship between the Flanker task and IM (β = .278, SE = .105, p = .001). Conclusions: Overall, performance on the three conflict tasks did not directly predict order errors. Flanker task performance did directly predict item errors, thus indirectly predicting the amount of order errors in those same tasks.

Sex, menstrual cycle, and hormonal contraceptives influences on global–local processing

The effect of sex hormones on global–local tasks has rarely been studied, offering, when done, conflicting results possibly modulated by the congruency between hierarchical stimuli, and by the attentional demands. Here, we examined the global advantage (GA) effect in men (with high testosterone levels), women in the mid-luteal phase (with high levels of estradiol and progesterone), in the ovulatory phase (with high estradiol but low progesterone levels); and in the early follicular phase and with hormonal contraceptive (HC) use (with low sex hormone levels). The level of processing (global–local), the congruency (congruent vs. incongruent), and attentional demands (divided vs. selective) were manipulated. The divided-incongruent condition was sensible to estradiol and progesterone levels and, in this condition, mid-luteal women performed more locally while men performed more globally. The selective-incongruent condition was sensible to the testosterone level and, in this condition, men were faster. The HC group showed a congruency effect in the GA reaction times (RTs) during both, divided and selective conditions. Finally, the GA RTs of the ovulatory group differed from the early follicular and mid-luteal groups only in the congruent-selective condition, but the performance was not related with sex hormone levels. This result is interpreted in relation with the brain effects of estradiol in the absence but not in the presence of progesterone. Thus, sex, menstrual cycle, HC, task difficulty and sex hormones seem to modulate performance in the global–local task. These factors represent an important source of variability in studies focused on the processing of hierarchical stimuli and allow apparently inconsistent data to be explained.

Individual differences in attentional lapses are associated with fiber-specific white matter microstructure in healthy adults.

Attentional lapses interfere with goal-directed behaviors, which may result in harmless (e.g., not hearing instructions) or severe (e.g., fatal car accident) consequences. Task-related functional MRI (fMRI) studies have shown a link between attentional lapses and activity in the frontoparietal network. Activity in this network is likely to be mediated by the organization of the white matter fiber pathways that connect the regions implicated in the network, such as the superior longitudinal fasciculus I (SLF-I). In the present study, we investigate the relationship between susceptibility to attentional lapses and relevant white matter pathways in 36 healthy adults (23 females, Mage =31.56years). Participants underwent a diffusion MRI (dMRI) scan and completed the global-local task to measure attentional lapses, similar to previous fMRI studies. Applying the fixel-based analysis framework for fiber-specific analysis of dMRI data, we investigated the association between attentional lapses and variability in microstructural fiber density (FD) and macrostructural (morphological) fiber-bundle cross section (FC) in the SLF-I. Our results revealed a significant negative association between higher total number of attentional lapses and lower FD in the left SLF-I. This finding indicates that the variation in the microstructure of a key frontoparietal white matter tract is associated with attentional lapses and may provide a trait-like biomarker in the general population. However, SLF-I microstructure alone does not explain propensity for attentional lapses, as other factors such as sleep deprivation or underlying psychological conditions (e.g., sleep disorders) may also lead to higher susceptibility in both healthy people and those with neurological disorders.

Holistic thinkers process divided-attention tasks faster: from the global/local perspective

Does cognitive style have influence functions? In this study, we build on the existing literature (e.g., McKone et al., 2010; Hakim et al., 2016) in providing answers to the question. We anticipated that the type of attitude tendency (i.e., holistic or analytic, Nisbett et al., 2001) is somehow related to the perceptual processing ability applied in the Navon task (Navon, 1977). By pre-screening for holistic and analytic thinkers from 289 participants, we adapted a global-local task. We manipulated the density of local targets to explore a more detailed discrepancy between the local-global perceptual systems of people with different cognitive styles. We found that holistic thinkers responded faster (at the same level of accuracy) on both global and local tasks. These data were interpreted to suggest that holistic thinkers might better handle divided-attention tasks than analytic thinkers.

The missing link: Global-local processing relates to number-magnitude processing in women.

Number processing and visual hierarchical processing (global-local processing) have much in common. However, the shared aspects of number processing and global-local processing have not been investigated so far. Most visual stimuli are hierarchical with global structures made up of local parts. Processing of global and local aspects occurs in parallel and the global advantage effect indicates faster reactions to global than local aspects. Likewise, multidigit numbers can be represented holistically (whole number magnitudes) or in a decomposed fashion (single digit magnitudes). During comparison of 2-digit numbers, the unit-decade compatibility effect indicates slower responses when the larger number contains the smaller unit digit and has been suggested as a measure of how strongly participants rely on decomposed number representations. However, this interpretation of the compatibility effect is still controversial and a link between global-local processing and the individual tendency to rely on decomposed representations of multidigit numbers remains to be established. To that end we assessed whether the compatibility effect during number comparison was related to various measures of global advantage. To answer this question we drew upon existing data from participants who had completed both, the number comparison task and 2 global-local tasks. Results show that the compatibility effect is indeed negatively related to several measures of global advantage in women, with no evidence for such a relationship in men. These results demonstrate that global-local processing transcends into the numerical domain but also suggest that the compatibility effect reflects different mechanisms in men and women. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

“Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Is Associated with Top-Down Visual Attention

The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” test (Eyes Test; Baron-Cohen et al., J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 38, 813–822, (1997), Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 241–251 2001 is one of the most commonly used and extensively validated tests for assessing social cognitive deficits, especially among those related to autism and schizophrenia. Despite its widespread use, the cognitive mechanisms underlying the Eyes Test are still unclear. We propose that top-down visual attention will result in better performance on the Eyes Test. Seventy-four female participants completed the Eyes Test in conjunction with three congruency tasks, including the flanker, number Stroop, and Navon’s global-local tasks. According to the hypothesis, the Eyes Test scores were found to be negatively associated with the response congruency effects—the difference in performance between congruent and incongruent trials. The neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying these associations are further discussed, and the Eyes Test features that may require top-down visual attention will be explored in depth.

The Influence of a Short-Term Mindfulness Meditation Intervention on Emotion and Visual Attention

It has been suggested that mindfulness meditation (MM) improves psychological well-being via the focusing and broadening of attention. Whilst studies show that short-term MM interventions can improve focused attention, there is little evidence to support the broadening of attention. The current study investigated the influence of a short-term MM intervention on emotion and the scope of visual attention. Seventy participants completed a global-local processing task separated into three blocks of trials, with a 10-min break between each one. During the breaks, a MM group engaged in a breath-counting task and a control group engaged in a task of their choosing. Response times to global and local targets and a measure of self-reported emotional affect were recorded for each block. Mindfulness had no impact on attention; however, both positive and negative affect decreased for the MM group across the course of the experiment. The results suggest that MM can reduce the focus on negative (and positive) thoughts, indicating possible changes to focused attention, yet a short-term intervention is not sufficient to broaden attention.

Cardiorespiratory Fitness, Age, and Multiple Aspects of Executive Function Among Preadolescent Children.

Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and age have been positively associated with children’s executive function; however, few studies have simultaneously assessed the associations between both variables and different aspects of executive function among preadolescent children. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to evaluate the simultaneous influence of CRF and age on three aspects of executive function. Preadolescent children’s (n = 338) CRF levels were estimated based on the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run (PACER) test and then grouped into two age groups (Young Group: 9–10 years old and Old Group: 11–12 years old). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted for the 2-back task, the Flanker task, and the Local-Global task to assess the influence of CRF and age on working memory, inhibitory control, and shifting, respectively. Preadolescent children with greater CRF levels were associated with higher response accuracy during the 2-back task and shorter response time across congruent and incongruent conditions of the Flanker task, whereas older children showed generally superior cognitive performance. Notably, only the Old Group’s CRF was positively correlated with the accuracy in the switching condition of the Local-Global task. These findings suggest that CRF or age was generally associated with better performances in working memory and inhibitory control aspects of executive function. Furthermore, the positive influence of CRF on shifting may be modulated by developed cortical maturation.

Sedation Modulates Frontotemporal Predictive Coding Circuits and the Double Surprise Acceleration Effect

Two important theories in cognitive neuroscience are predictive coding (PC) and the global workspace (GW) theory. A key research task is to understand how these two theories relate to one another, and particularly, how the brain transitions from a predictive early state to the eventual engagement of a brain-scale state (the GW). To address this question, we present a source-localization of EEG responses evoked by the local-global task—an experimental paradigm that engages a predictive hierarchy, which encompasses the GW. The results of our source reconstruction suggest three phases of processing. The first phase involves the sensory (here auditory) regions of the superior temporal lobe and predicts sensory regularities over a short timeframe (as per the local effect). The third phase is brain-scale, involving inferior frontal, as well as inferior and superior parietal regions, consistent with a global neuronal workspace (GNW; as per the global effect). Crucially, our analysis suggests that there is an intermediate (second) phase, involving modulatory interactions between inferior frontal and superior temporal regions. Furthermore, sedation with propofol reduces modulatory interactions in the second phase. This selective effect is consistent with a PC explanation of sedation, with propofol acting on descending predictions of the precision of prediction errors; thereby constraining access to the GNW.

The impact of bilingualism on the narrative ability and the executive functions of children with autism spectrum disorders

While there is ample evidence that monolingual children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) face difficulties with narrative story-telling and executive functions (EF), there is considerable uncertainty about how bilingualism impacts these skills in autism. The current study explores the effect of bilingualism on the narrative and EF skills of forty 7-to-12-year-old bilingual and monolingual children with ASD, as well as forty age-matched bilingual and monolingual children of typical development (TD). Narrative production data were elicited using the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument (ENNI; Schneider et al., 2005), which was developed to measure narrative production at a microstructural and macrostructural level. The same children were administered two EF tasks, namely, a global-local visual attention task and a 2-back working memory task. In story-telling, bilingual children with ASD achieved higher scores than monolingual children with ASD on story structure complexity and use of adverbial clauses, and they tended to use significantly fewer ambiguous referential forms than their monolingual peers with ASD. In the global-local task, bilingual children with ASD were faster and more accurate in global trials than monolingual children with ASD, who tended to be more susceptible to interference from locally presented information than the other experimental groups. Higher accuracy and faster response times were also observed for bilingual children with ASD in the 2-back task. Further correlation analyses between the story-telling and EF tasks revealed that bilingual children with ASD drew on a broader range of EF in narrative production than their monolingual peers. The overall findings reveal that bilingual children with ASD outperformed their monolingual peers with ASD in both the microstructure and macrostructure of their narrative production, as well as in their visual attention and working memory skills.