Proactive Mode Research Articles

Switch hands! Mapping proactive and reactive cognitive control across the life span.

We investigated the effects of age on proactive and reactive cognitive control in a large population sample of 809 individuals, ranging in age between 5 and 97 years. For that purpose, we used an anticue paradigm, which required a consistent remapping of cue location and response hand: Left-sided cues required right-hand responses and vice versa. After a random preparation interval of 100-850 ms, these anticues were followed by a target stimulus, which prompted a response with the index or middle finger of 1 of 2 hands. A neutral control condition involved uninformative cues, indicating all 4 possible response locations. The primary outcome measure was the difference between neutral and anticue reaction time (RT). Negative values indicated RT costs of the anticue, relative to the neutral condition, reflecting reactive cognitive control. Positive values indicated RT benefits, reflecting proactive cognitive control. Results were twofold. First, the switch from RT costs to benefits took place at longer preparation intervals in the youngest and oldest age groups than in the intermediate age groups. Second, irrespective of preparation interval, anticue performance followed an inverted U-shaped trajectory as a function of age, with a relatively steep improvement during childhood and adolescence, relative stability between 26 and 60 years, and a slightly accelerating decline into old age. Both patterns of results suggest an age-related transition from a primarily reactive, to a primarily proactive mode of cognitive control in early life and back again from a primarily proactive, to a primarily reactive mode of control in later life. (PsycINFO Database Record

Spatiotemporal brain mapping during preparation, perception, and action

Deciding whether to act or not to act is a fundamental cognitive function. To avoid incorrect responses, both reactive and proactive modes of control have been postulated. Little is known, however, regarding the brain implementation of proactive mechanisms, which are deployed prior to an actual need to inhibit a response. Via a combination of electrophysiological and neuroimaging measures (recorded in 21 and 16 participants, respectively), we describe the brain localization and timing of neural activity that underlies the anticipatory proactive mechanism. From these results, we conclude that proactive control originates in the inferior Frontal gyrus, is established well before stimulus perception, and is released concomitantly with stimulus appearance. Stimulus perception triggers early activity in the anterior insula and intraparietal cortex contralateral to the responding hand; these areas likely mediate the transition from perception to action. The neural activities leading to the decision to act or not to act are described in the framework of a three-stage model that includes perception, action, and anticipatory functions taking place well before stimulus onset.

The Essence of Leadership

Society has, as one of its base survival techniques, the reinforced training and education of its participants, beginning at an early age. In order to manifest value to its citizenry, it acts to foster the necessary social and economic skills to maintain the current status quo. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a reliance on complacency, leading to a more reactive, rather than proactive, culture. In order to break society of this contentment a more proactive mode of operation will require a more individualized approach in developing specialized skills, such as leadership, within its population. Leadership, a basic survival instinct in men and women, has the potential to provide individuals with the proactive capability to solve problems more effectively and to anticipate the future needs of the societies they guide. This paper addresses these issues and provides an example of a practice routine for improving the leadership capabilities of our youth.

The Essence of Leadership

Society has, as one of its base survival techniques, the reinforced training and education of its participants, beginning at an early age. In order to manifest value to its citizenry, it acts to foster the necessary social and economic skills to maintain the current status quo. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a reliance on complacency, leading to a more reactive, rather than proactive, culture. In order to break society of this contentment a more proactive mode of operation will require a more individualized approach in developing specialized skills, such as leadership, within its population. Leadership, a basic survival instinct in men and women, has the potential to provide individuals with the proactive capability to solve problems more effectively and to anticipate the future needs of the societies they guide. This paper addresses these issues and provides an example of a practice routine for improving the leadership capabilities of our youth.

Performance Analysis of Multiple-Relay Cooperative Systems With Signal Space Diversity

In this paper, the idea of signal space diversity is adopted to achieve a full-rate multiple-relay cooperative communication system. The data symbols are rotated at the source, before transmission, by a certain angle to permit signal detection either by the in-phase component or by the quadratic component. The real and imaginary parts of two consecutive symbols are transmitted by the source and $L$ relays. In the first time slot, the real part of the first symbol and the imaginary part of the second symbol are transmitted from the source to the destination and the relay(s) . In the second time slot, the best relay among all decode-and-forward relays forwards the imaginary part of the first symbol and the real part of the second symbol to the destination. The error probability performance of two relaying modes, referred to as reactive and proactive, is analyzed in this paper. In reactive cooperation, the best relay among all relays that decode the source signals correctly participates in forwarding a message to the destination in a preallocated time slot. On the other hand, in the proactive mode, a specific relay is selected, prior to transmission, to participate in the relaying phase. Additionally, asymptotic error probability expressions are derived for both relaying modes. Moreover, power allocation optimization at the source and the relays is carried out using the asymptotic-error-probability-derived formulas. Finally, the outage probability for both relaying modes is investigated, and approximate closed-form expressions are derived.

Vaccine safety monitoring systems in developing countries: an example of the Vietnam model.

Only few health intervention programs have been as successful as vaccination programs with respect to preventing morbidity and mortality in developing countries. However, the success of a vaccination program is threatened by rumors and misunderstanding about the risks of vaccines. It is short-sighted to plan the introduction of vaccines into developing countries unless effective vaccine safety monitoring systems are in place. Such systems that track adverse events following immunization (AEFI) is currently lacking in most developing countries. Therefore, any rumor may affect the entire vaccination program. Public health authorities should implement the safety monitoring system of vaccines, and disseminate safety issues in a proactive mode. Effective safety surveillance systems should allow for the conduct of both traditional and alternative epidemiologic studies through the use of prospective data sets. The vaccine safety data link implemented in Vietnam in mid-2002 indicates that it is feasible to establish a vaccine safety monitoring system for the communication of vaccine safety in developing countries. The data link provided the investigators an opportunity to evaluate AEFI related to measles vaccine. Implementing such vaccine safety monitoring system is useful in all developing countries. The system should be able to make objective and clear communication regarding safety issues of vaccines, and the data should be reported to the public on a regular basis for maintaining their confidence in vaccination programs.

An integrated system for voice command recognition and emergency detection based on audio signals

The recent reports on population ageing in the most advanced countries are driving governments and the scientific community to focus on technologies for providing assistance to people in their own homes. Particular attention has been devoted to solutions based on acoustic signals since they provide a convenient way to monitor people activities and they enable hands-free human–machine interfaces. In this context, this paper presents a complete solution for voice command recognition and emergency detection based on audio signals entirely integrated in a low-consuming embedded platform. The system combines an active operation mode were distress calls are captured and a vocal interface is enabled for controlling the home automation subsystem, and a pro-active mode, were a novelty detection algorithm detects abnormal acoustic events to alert the user of a possible emergency. In the first operation mode, a Voice Activity Detector captures voice segments of the audio signal, and a speech recogniser detects commands and distress calls. In the pro-active mode, an acoustic novelty detector is employed in order to be able to deal with unknown sounds, thus not requiring an explicit modelling of emergency sounds. In addition, the system integrates a VoIP infrastructure so that emergencies can be communicated to relatives or care centres. The monitoring unit is equipped with multiple microphones and it is connected to the home local area network to communicate with the home automation subsystem. The algorithms have been implemented in a low-consuming embedded platform based on a ARM Cortex-A8 CPU. The effectiveness of the adopted algorithms has been tested on two different databases: ITAAL and A3Novelty. The obtained results show that the adopted solutions are suitable for speech and audio event monitoring in a realistic scenario.

Proactive remanufacturing timing determination method based on residual strength

Nowadays, since the resources of remanufacturing are the ‘cores’, the uncertainty in quantity and quality of the ‘cores’ is an obstacle in remanufacturing engineering. To solve this problem, production management and design for remanufacturing have been discussed in the former studies. However, the current remanufacturing mode, which is carried out in the end of life cycle, is reactive. To delimit the uncertainty of ‘cores’, the concept of proactive remanufacturing is presented in this paper. And one issue is to identify the proactive remanufacturing timing. In the beginning, the reactive remanufacturing timing and proactive remanufacturing timing are introduced. Then, to characterise the remanufacturability of components, the concept of residual strength is proposed. To identify the proactive remanufacturing timing, the mathematical model is established based on the residual strength, remanufacturing value and technical feasibility. Based on this model, the timing determination method in proactive remanufacturing is presented and expanded. Finally, to validate this method, the proactive remanufacturing timing of engines is determined by analysing the crankshaft. As a consequence, in the proactive remanufacturing mode, the remanufacturing rate of product might be increased. Thus, the proactive remanufacturing could provide a new perspective in future remanufacturing engineering.

Does verbal labeling influence age differences in proactive and reactive cognitive control?

The main goal of this study was to examine whether different types of verbal labeling can influence age-related changes in the dynamic control of behavior by inducing either a proactive or reactive mode of control. Proactive control is characterized by a strong engagement in maintaining task-relevant information to be optimally prepared while reactive control is characterized by a reactivation of task-related information during responding. To investigate dynamic shifts between these control modes, we applied the AX-Continuous-Performance-Task in 2 experiments that differed in the complexity of stimuli and types of labeling in children (range = 7-10 years), younger (range = 19-33 years), and older adults (range = 69-83 years). We expected that labeling the cue information would promote a shift from a reactive to a proactive control mode primarily in children and older adults, while labeling the probe information would result in a shift from a proactive to a reactive control mode primarily in younger adults. Results of both experiments indicated that children, younger, and older adults were equally engaged in cue processing and performed the task in a proactive manner. While cue labeling did not further promote performing the task proactively, probe labeling induced a shift to a reactive control mode, especially in children. In the first experiment, including younger children than in the second experiment, children had more problems than adults to reactivate cue information to overcome a strong response tendency. These findings support the view that verbal labeling can influence the regulation of behavior by selectively attracting attention to relevant information in a given task.

Fast neural dynamics of a 'multiple demand'� frontoparietal network for cognitive control

Event Abstract Back to Event Fast neural dynamics of a 'multiple demand' frontoparietal network for cognitive control Francisco Barcelo1, Álvaro Darriba1*, Javier Villacampa1, Rosa Martorell1, Marcelina Chamielec1 and Alejandro Gálvez1 1 University of the Balearic Islands, Spain Cognitive flexibility is critical for adaptive human behavior in complex societies with ever growing multitasking demands. Yet the fast neural dynamics of task-specific and domain-general mechanisms subserving mental flexibility are still ill defined. In this study, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from 36 participants while they were intermittently cued to switch or repeat their perceptual categorization of Gabor gratings varying in color and thickness (Switch task), or else they performed two visually identical control tasks (NoGo and Oddball). Our task cueing paradigm was designed to examine proactive and reactive control modes during both cue-locked rule preparation and target-locked rule implementation stages. Unlike past studies, we addressed trial-by-trial dynamics of sensorimotor, contextual and episodic control operations ensuing task transition points. Both switch-specific (indexed by cue-locked P600 and a sustained target-locked positivity following task transitions) and domain-general mechanisms (indexed by cue- and target-locked P2 and P3 components) revealed fast recurrent modulations of neural activity within a common frontoparietal network. Topographic analyses of normalized brain responses revealed distinct split-second swings of activation across posterior and frontal scalp regions as a function of increasing cognitive demands and proactive vs. reactive control modes. Modulations of domain-general brain potentials paralleled predictions from information theoretic models (Koechlin & Summerfield, 2007) that envisage cognitive control as a series of temporarily ordered processing stages at various levels within a hierarchy of representations (e.g., sensory, contextual, episodic) in the brain. Our results also suggested distinct functional roles for the fast and recursive activations observed within the frontoparietal "multiple demand" system (Duncan, 2013) during the preparation and implementation stages of task switching. Acknowledgements: Study supported by grants from Fundació La Marató de TV3 (112710) (FB); and Fellowship financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Govern de les Illes Balears (Conselleria d’Educació, Cultura i Universitats) (MC). Keywords: executive control, P300, Context updating, Task-set inertia, Task-set reconfiguration Conference: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Cognition and Executive Processes Citation: Barcelo F, Darriba Á, Villacampa J, Martorell R, Chamielec M and Gálvez A (2015). Fast neural dynamics of a 'multiple demand' frontoparietal network for cognitive control. Conference Abstract: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00043 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Feb 2015; Published Online: 24 Apr 2015. * Correspondence: Dr. Álvaro Darriba, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, alvaro.da.riba@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Francisco Barcelo Álvaro Darriba Javier Villacampa Rosa Martorell Marcelina Chamielec Alejandro Gálvez Google Francisco Barcelo Álvaro Darriba Javier Villacampa Rosa Martorell Marcelina Chamielec Alejandro Gálvez Google Scholar Francisco Barcelo Álvaro Darriba Javier Villacampa Rosa Martorell Marcelina Chamielec Alejandro Gálvez PubMed Francisco Barcelo Álvaro Darriba Javier Villacampa Rosa Martorell Marcelina Chamielec Alejandro Gálvez Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Ad-hoc and context-dependent adjustments of selective attention in conflict control: An ERP study with visual probes

Cognitive conflict control in flanker tasks has often been described using the zoom-lens metaphor of selective attention. However, whether and how selective attention – in terms of suppression and enhancement – operates in this context has remained unclear. To examine the dynamic interplay of selective attention and cognitive control we used electrophysiological measures and presented task-irrelevant visual probe stimuli at foveal, parafoveal, and peripheral display positions. Target–flanker congruency varied either randomly from trial to trial (mixed-block) or block-wise (fixed-block) in order to induce reactive versus proactive control modes, respectively. Three EEG measures were used to capture ad-hoc adjustments within trials as well as effects of context-based predictions: the N1 component of the visual evoked potential (VEP) to probes, the VEP to targets, and the conflict-related midfrontal N2 component.Results from probe-VEPs indicate that enhanced processing of the foveal target rather than suppression of the peripheral flankers supports interference control. In incongruent mixed-block trials VEPs were larger to probes near the targets. In the fixed-blocks probe-VEPs were not modulated, but contrary to the mixed-block the preceding target-related VEP was affected by congruency. Results of the control-related N2 reveal largest amplitudes in the unpredictable context, which did not differentiate for stimulus and response incongruency. In contrast, in the predictable context, N2 amplitudes were reduced overall and differentiated between stimulus and response incongruency.Taken together these results imply that predictability alters interference control by a reconfiguration of stimulus processing. During unpredictable sequences participants adjust their attentional focus dynamically on a trial-by-trial basis as reflected in congruency-dependent probe-VEP-modulation. This reactive control mode also elicits larger N2 amplitudes. In contrast, when task demands are predictable, participants focus selective attention earlier as reflected in the target-related VEPs. This proactive control mode leads to smaller N2 amplitudes and absent probe effects.

Common and unique neural networks for proactive and reactive response inhibition revealed by independent component analysis of functional MRI data

Response inhibition involves proactive and reactive modes. Proactive inhibition is goal-directed, triggered by warning cues, and serves to restrain actions. Reactive inhibition is stimulus-driven, triggered by salient stop-signals, and used to stop actions completely. Functional MRI studies have identified brain regions that activate during proactive and reactive inhibition. It remains unclear how these brain regions operate in functional networks, and whether proactive and reactive inhibition depend on common networks, unique networks, or a combination. To address this we analyzed a large fMRI dataset (N=65) of a stop-signal task designed to measure proactive and reactive inhibition, using independent component analysis (ICA). We found 1) three frontal networks that were associated with both proactive and reactive inhibition, 2) one network in the superior parietal lobe, which also included dorsal premotor cortex and left putamen, that was specifically associated with proactive inhibition, and 3) two right-lateralized frontal and fronto-parietal networks, including the right inferior frontal gyrus and temporoparietal junction as well as a bilateral fronto-temporal network that were uniquely associated with reactive inhibition. Overlap between networks was observed in dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal cortices. Taken together, we offer a new perspective on the neural underpinnings of inhibitory control, by showing that proactive inhibition and reactive inhibition are supported by a group of common and unique networks that appear to integrate and interact in frontoparietal areas.

Age Differences in the Processing of Context Information

The dual mechanisms of control theory (DMC; Braver & Barch, 2002 ) assumes that age-related changes in the temporal structure of context processing underlie age differences in numerous cognitive control tasks. Younger adults usually exhibit a proactive control mode, characterized by cue-related context updating, while older adults show a reactive control mode, updating information when interference is detected. This study aimed at determining whether age differences in electrophysiological correlates of context updating in a pro-and reactive manner are independent of individual differences in task performance. To this end, younger and older adults were split into four groups according to their updating efficiency in behavioral data. Nineteen younger and 18 older adults completed a modified AX-Continuous-Performance Task ( Lenartowicz, Escobedo-Quiroz, & Cohen, 2010 ) in which correct responses to probes were either dependent (c-dep) or independent (c-indep) on a preceding contextual cue. Analysis of the behavioral data showed no differences in context updating when performance was matched, that is, between low performing younger and high performing older adults. However, low performing younger adults showed larger cue-locked parietal P3b amplitudes on c-dep than c-indep trials, indicating c-dep trials to require context updating to a larger extent, while high performing older adults exhibited a specific control strategy and continuously updated context information, as reflected in comparable P3b amplitudes on c-dep and c-indep trials. The persistent age effect in the P3b when controlling for performance differences suggests context updating to be fundamental to cognitive aging. High performing in contrast to low performing older adults also showed a larger negative N450 to ambiguous probes on c-dep trials associated with conflict detection. According to the DMC, this finding suggests late conflict detection at the time interference is detected, indicative of a reactive control style particular in high performing elderly.

Learning to generate proactive and reactive behavior using a dynamic neural network model with time-varying variance prediction mechanism

This paper discusses a possible neurodynamic mechanism that enables self-organization of two basic behavioral modes, namely a ‘proactive mode’ and a ‘reactive mode,’ and of autonomous switching between these modes depending on the situation. In the proactive mode, actions are generated based on an internal prediction, whereas in the reactive mode actions are generated in response to sensory inputs in unpredictable situations. In order to investigate how these two behavioral modes can be self-organized and how autonomous switching between the two modes can be achieved, we conducted neurorobotics experiments by using our recently developed dynamic neural network model that has a capability to learn to predict time-varying variance of the observable variables. In a set of robot experiments under various conditions, the robot was required to imitate other’s movements consisting of alternating predictable and unpredictable patterns. The experimental results showed that the robot controlled by the neural network model was able to proactively imitate predictable patterns and reactively follow unpredictable patterns by autonomously switching its behavioral modes. Our analysis revealed that variance prediction mechanism can lead to self-organization of these abilities with sufficient robustness and generalization capabilities.

Technology Focus: Intelligent Fields Technology (May 2014)

Technology Focus What is taking so long? Well, more than a decade into the intelligent-fields initiative, this is a question that remains prominent. That a clear business case supports investments in the area was settled years ago for most; but, within the variety of tactics an operator takes and even greater diversity in the particular products and services providers develop within this space, we have seen a mixture of results. Furthermore, leveraging success from a demonstration project into sustained value delivery and across multiple assets or divisions can be elusive. So, it is understandable and healthy when managers challenge a sustained expense that fails to provide the value that was promised. What then are the markers of an initiative that should be started or sustained? Are you solving the right problem? Choose a problem that allows your company to learn while delivering incremental value over multiple applications. In my company, we were able to deliver a great return by deploying a relatively simple analytics solution globally to most of our oil production over 5+ years, delivering incremental value while working through the organizational changes. Is it a good fit for your people? Is your organization able to learn and change to make it work, and do you have the right people who can stay with it until the business owns the change? When key people move after an early declaration of success, fragile changes often falter. Can you commit to making it work? You can drive value from, and even turn around, a struggling initiative (even one employing a suboptimal solution) when you give the right people the space to learn and deliver against the right problem. There will be bumps, so count the costs up front and ensure that the organization is ready for the challenges. JPT Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. SPE 167821 A Smart Flow for Smart Wells: Reactive and Proactive Modes by G.A. Carvajal, Halliburton, et al. SPE 164348 Smart Well With Autonomous Inflow-Control-Valve Technology by Haavard Aakre, InflowControl/Telemark University, et al. SPE 166507 Prototype Test of an All- Electric Intelligent-Completion System for Extreme-Reservoir-Contact Wells by Brett Bouldin, Saudi Aramco, et al.

Selective greedy routing: exploring the path diversity in backbone mesh networks

This paper proposes a new routing protocol for IEEE 802.11s wireless mesh network to overcome the problems associated with the conventional proactive and reactive routing approaches. The proposed `Selective Greedy' (SelG) routing protocol operates in two phases. In the first phase it exploits the proactive mode of Hybrid Wireless Mesh Protocol, the standard routing protocol for IEEE 802.11s mesh, and constructs a set of potential forwarders for every mesh point, that can act as the next-hop relay. In the second phase, during the actual data communication, a candidate is selected from the set of potential forwarders based on a local optimization. The optimization procedure considers the statistical effect of local link quality fluctuation and interference over the global routing path selection. This way the SelG protocol reduces the control packet flooding in the network (a major drawback for reactive protocols). At the same time, the optimization procedure captures the network dynamics, and thus avoids the possibility of routing based on stale information (a drawback for proactive protocols). The routing properties and the correctness of the SelG protocol is established theoretically, and the performance of the protocol is analyzed through simulation results. The proposed protocol is implemented in an indoor wireless mesh testbed, and the performance is evaluated and compared with other traditional approaches.

Dissociable influences of reward motivation and positive emotion on cognitive control.

It is becoming increasingly appreciated that affective and/or motivational influences contribute strongly to goal-oriented cognition and behavior. An unresolved question is whether emotional manipulations (i.e., direct induction of affectively valenced subjective experience) and motivational manipulations (e.g., delivery of performance-contingent rewards and punishments) have similar or distinct effects on cognitive control. Prior work has suggested that reward motivation can reliably enhance a proactive mode of cognitive control, whereas other evidence is suggestive that positive emotion improves cognitive flexibility, but reduces proactive control. However, a limitation of the prior research is that reward motivation and positive emotion have largely been studied independently. Here, we directly compared the effects of positive emotion and reward motivation on cognitive control with a tightly matched, within-subjects design, using the AX-continuous performance task paradigm, which allows for relative measurement of proactive versus reactive cognitive control. High-resolution pupillometry was employed as a secondary measure of cognitive dynamics during task performance. Robust increases in behavioral and pupillometric indices of proactive control were observed with reward motivation. The effects of positive emotion were much weaker, but if anything, also reflected enhancement of proactive control, a pattern that diverges from some prior findings. These results indicate that reward motivation has robust influences on cognitive control, while also highlighting the complexity and heterogeneity of positive-emotion effects. The findings are discussed in terms of potential neurobiological mechanisms.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.3758/s13415-014-0280-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Age-related changes in neural recruitment for cognitive control

The dual mechanisms of control (DMC; Braver, Gray, & Burgess, 2007) framework postulates a distinction between proactive and reactive modes of cognitive control. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to examine age differences in the neural correlates of proactive and reactive control for task-switching. Whereas proactive control is associated with brain activity for anticipatory task preparation, reactive control is accompanied by reduced preparatory activity, but increased activation during task execution. Switching between tasks was based on feedback-based transition cueing which places particularly high demands on mechanisms for cognitive control. Older adults maintained good performance accuracy at the expense of slower response times. No age-related increase in behavioral switching costs was observed. The cue-locked ERP (P3a) data revealed an age-related decrease in neural activity related to the processing of switch cues. In the target-locked ERPs, there was an increased frontal focus of the P3b in older adults. These ERP data indicate an age-related neural under-recruitment for proactive cognitive control and an age-related neural over-recruitment for reactive cognitive control. They are consistent with the idea that older adults may not fully implement task settings before target onset, after which they need to catch up on the omitted preparatory task settings.

Exploring Mindset Agency Theory

This paper develops a socio-cognitive theory of the normative personality of a plural agency like for instance an organisation or a political system. The personality is represented through formative cognitive traits that arise from the Sagiv-Schwartz cultural values study. To establish the traits the principles of Maruyama’s meta-theory of mindscapes are examined and related to Mindset Agency Theory. A Maruyama “mindscape” can be understood as a construct from which coherent sets of behavioural mind-sets can emerge. A specific set of goals, demands and behaviours would be typical for a social-cognitive system that is ruled by a single mindscape. However, pure mindscapes are extremes, and will likely be rarely observed to rule a single agency. In any self-referential, self-regulating, self-organising and pro-active social system different modes of thought (or paradigms) are prevalent and can be related to different mindscapes. As highlighted by Bandura, such interaction between prevalent forces can be modelled with cybernetic approaches, which can explain the internal dynamics of a system. This research creates a generic model that has the potential to distinguish between different types of personalities within the same framework and can illustrate the sources of the internal cultural dynamics of a system.

Sarah Winter The Pleasures of Memory: Learning to Read with Charles DickensThe Pleasures of Memory: Learning to Read with Charles Dickens. Sarah Winter. New York: Fordham University Press, 2011. Pp. xiii+455.

<i>Sarah Winter</i> The Pleasures of Memory: Learning to Read with Charles Dickens<i>The Pleasures of Memory: Learning to Read with Charles Dickens</i>. Sarah Winter. New York: Fordham University Press, 2011. Pp. xiii+455.