Selective Information Processing Research Articles

Two sides of the same coin? How are neural mechanisms of cognitive control, attentional difficulties and creativity related?

Creativity has been associated with increased distractibility, but at the same time - and seemingly paradoxically- also with increased focused attention. Therefore, this study focused on the attentional processes involved in creativity and attentional difficulties. Healthy primary school children (N = 62) between 9 and 13 years old performed a selective attention paradigm while electrophysiological measures were recorded that measured the neural mechanisms of cognitive control (P300), conflict monitoring (N200), and subconscious attentional shifts (Mismatch Negativity). Attentional difficulties were measured with a parental questionnaire and creativity was measured with a divergent mathematical creativity task and a creative drawing task. We found that more creativity was related to decreased neural mechanisms of cognitive control and conflict monitoring (i.e. less negative N200 and smaller P300 amplitudes), however without affecting task performance. In addition, attentional difficulties were related to less negative N200 amplitudes on the attended and non-attended standard trials of the selective attention paradigm, as well as reduced task performance. Tentatively, the current findings suggest that original responses are associated with decreased cognitive control, possibly by promoting remote associations. Furthermore, our data shows that attentional difficulties are associated with a lack of selective attention and impaired information processing. Hence, although less cognitive control is often referred to in a negative way, it might facilitate certain aspects of creative thinking without affecting task performance.

Associations between the resting EEG aperiodic slope and broad domains of cognitive ability.

Recent studies suggest that the EEG aperiodic exponent (often represented as a slope in log-log space) is sensitive to individual differences in momentary cognitive skills such as selective attention and information processing speed. However, findings are mixed, and most of the studies have focused on just a narrow range of cognitive domains. This study used an archival dataset to help clarify associations between resting aperiodic features and broad domains of cognitive ability, which vary in their demands on momentary processing. Undergraduates (N = 166) of age 18-52 years completed a resting EEG session as well as a standardized, individually administered assessment of cognitive ability that included measures of processing speed, working memory, and higher-order visuospatial and verbal skills. A subsample (n = 110) also completed a computerized reaction time task with three difficulty levels. Data reduction analyses revealed strong correlations between the aperiodic offset and slope across electrodes, and a single component accounted for ~60% of variance in slopes across the scalp, in both eyes-closed and eyes-open conditions. Structural equation models did not support relations between the slope and specific domains tapping momentary processes. However, secondary analyses indicated that the eyes-open slope was related to higher overall performance, as represented by a single general ability factor. A latent reaction time variable was significantly inversely related to both eyes-closed and eyes-open resting exponents, such that faster reaction times were associated with steeper slopes. These findings support and help clarify the relation of the resting EEG exponent to individual differences in cognitive skills.

Navigating the Double-Edged Sword: Executive hubris and its impact on customer acquisition and retention

This research employs upper echelons theory to examine whether executive hubris augments a firm's customer acquisition while concurrently impairing its customer retention. Drawing on an information processing perspective, we suggest that the influence of executive hubris on customer acquisition and retention is shaped by executives' selective attention to information. This influence is observed to amplify in the presence of market uncertainty and recede with an increase in firm product market experience. We validate these predictions through a mixed-method research design. Study 1 includes an original survey that gathers multi-informant responses, coupled with the subsequent year's ROA data, to assess the role of hubris and the moderating effects of market uncertainty and firm product market experience. Study 2 consists of two experimental studies that manipulate executive hubris to test its causal influence on customer acquisition and retention. Moreover, we utilize an eye-tracking method to examine whether the proposed influence is driven by executives' selective information processing. Our findings enhance the existing literature on upper echelons and marketing strategy, providing practical insights to align executive traits with firms' marketing objectives.

Spatial and Non-Spatial Attention Deficits in Neurodegenerative Diseases

The prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases is on the rise due to the aging global population, leading to a significant increase in cognitive impairments characterized by progressive neuronal degeneration. Within these impairments, both spatial and non-spatial attention deficits have emerged as critical features that profoundly impact the quality of life. Spatial attention, crucial for the selective processing of sensory information, involves intricate neural networks, including the parietal and frontal lobes. This review, based on a narrative literature review, synthesizes current research on the neuropathological foundations of spatial and non-spatial attention deficits in various neurodegenerative diseases.

The Influence of Consumer Purchases on Purchase-Related Happiness: A Serial Mediation of Commitment and Selective Information Processing

In the literature on material and experiential purchases, it has consistently been demonstrated that the relationship between the consumer's purchase type and purchase-related happiness favors experiential purchases. This research aims to extend the literature by examining how experiential purchases lead to greater purchase-related happiness due to the individual's processing of external information, especially in the online review context. An experiment was conducted to show that experiential purchases lead to greater commitment to decisions and a higher relative reliance on positive reviews (as opposed to negative reviews) than material purchases. The results of a serial mediation test indicate that such differences lead to greater purchase-related happiness. Based on these findings, we can deepen our understanding of the relationship between purchase type and purchase-related happiness from the perspective of information processing.

The Role of Organizational Structure in Senior Managers' Selective Information Processing

AbstractCEOs' perceptions of the environment and the information processing shortcuts (or heuristics) they use to develop these perceptions are important to organizations. We study whether organizational structure, an important channel and filter for the flow of information in organizations, affects CEOs' perception gaps pertaining to the competitive environment. Perception gaps are defined as systematic deviations of subjective perceptions of the competitive environment from conceptions based on objective data. Studying 281 CEOs based in 216 firms, we find that functional structures are associated with wider environmental perception gaps, whereas divisional structures are associated with narrower gaps. To address endogeneity concerns, we control for firms' exposure to varied environments and only sample newly appointed CEOs, who, by definition, inherit predefined organizational structures exogenous to their own choices. Our study advances understanding of senior managers' information processing shortcuts by clarifying how organizational‐level influences (i.e., organizational structure) affect CEOs' (mis)perceptions of the competitive environment.

Spatial and temporal (non)binding of audiovisual rhythms in sensorimotor synchronisation

Human movement synchronisation with moving objects strongly relies on visual input. However, auditory information also plays an important role, since real environments are intrinsically multimodal. We used electroencephalography (EEG) frequency tagging to investigate the selective neural processing and integration of visual and auditory information during motor tracking and tested the effects of spatial and temporal congruency between audiovisual modalities. EEG was recorded while participants tracked with their index finger a red flickering (rate fV = 15 Hz) dot oscillating horizontally on a screen. The simultaneous auditory stimulus was modulated in pitch (rate fA = 32 Hz) and lateralised between left and right audio channels to induce perception of a periodic displacement of the sound source. Audiovisual congruency was manipulated in terms of space in Experiment 1 (no motion, same direction or opposite direction), and timing in Experiment 2 (no delay, medium delay or large delay). For both experiments, significant EEG responses were elicited at fV and fA tagging frequencies. It was also hypothesised that intermodulation products corresponding to the nonlinear integration of visual and auditory stimuli at frequencies fV ± fA would be elicited, due to audiovisual integration, especially in Congruent conditions. However, these components were not observed. Moreover, synchronisation and EEG results were not influenced by congruency manipulations, which invites further exploration of the conditions which may modulate audiovisual processing and the motor tracking of moving objects.

Ensuring the Innovativeness of Vocational Education: Neuropedagogical Aspect

The significance of the outlined direction research is determined by the fact that in modern conditions of postmodern society development, the issues of improving higher education and ensuring the quality of the educational process become relevant. The need for innovative renewal of the educational process of the higher school is determined by the emergence of a number of psychological and pedagogical problems, taking into account the conditions of postmodernity(mismatch between the needs of employers, the existing state of future professionals training and scientific and pedagogical staff’s qualifications, lack of mechanisms for selective processing of information, insufficient provision of information and psychological security of the individual, the need to develop an inclusive educational environment in higher education, etc.). The main conceptual principles of the innovative development of the educational environment in postmodern conditions are highlighted (humanization of the educational process, providing developmental learning and personality-oriented approach). The article analyzes the foreign and domestic experience of using innovative educational technologies (individualized, personality-oriented learning, as well as gamification of the future training professionals’ process), identifies their advantages and disadvantages. Peculiarities of their introduction into the practice of higher education in postmodern conditions are outlined. Prospects for further research are the development of practical recommendations for the introduction of innovative educational technologies in the future professionals training in higher education.

The reduced fidelity of selective sensory information processing in the elderly with mild cognitive impairment

The reduced fidelity of selective sensory information processing in the elderly with mild cognitive impairment

The effects of prosocial lyrics music on attentional bias

Music is one of the most common social media in people’s lives, and music with prosocial lyrics can promote an individual’s prosocial behaviors. The social information processing model points out that an individual’s behavior is affected by the selective processing of attentional information. This study used a spatial cue paradigm to compare the differences in attentional bias for prosocial cues between music with prosocial and neutral lyrics. The results show that music with prosocial lyrics can induce attentional engagement toward prosocial words, but not difficulty in attentional disengagement. This study revealed that individuals are more likely to pay attention to prosocial information after listening to music with prosocial lyrics, and that attention may play an important role in the impact of music on individuals’ behaviors.

Possible Event-Related Potential Correlates of Voluntary Attention and Reflexive Attention in the Emei Music Frog.

Simple SummaryWe investigated auditory event-related potentials (ERP) related to auditory attention in music frogs. Our objective was to explore whether ERP components related to voluntary attention and reflexive attention exist in frogs. We found that the amplitudes of stimulus preceding negativity (SPN, related to voluntary attention and under up-down control) evoked by silence replacement in the telencephalon were the largest when the sequence of acoustic stimuli could be predicted, while the N1 amplitudes (related to reflexive attention and under bottom-up control) evoked in the mesencephalon were the largest when the sequence of acoustic stimuli could not be predicted. This suggests that human-like ERP components related to voluntary attention and reflexive attention exist in the lower vertebrates also.Attention, referring to selective processing of task-related information, is central to cognition. It has been proposed that voluntary attention (driven by current goals or tasks and under top-down control) and reflexive attention (driven by stimulus salience and under bottom-up control) struggle to control the focus of attention with interaction in a push–pull fashion for everyday perception in higher vertebrates. However, how auditory attention engages in auditory perception in lower vertebrates remains unclear. In this study, each component of auditory event-related potentials (ERP) related to attention was measured for the telencephalon, diencephalon and mesencephalon in the Emei music frog (Nidirana daunchina), during the broadcasting of acoustic stimuli invoking voluntary attention (using binary playback paradigm with silence replacement) and reflexive attention (using equiprobably random playback paradigm), respectively. Results showed that (1) when the sequence of acoustic stimuli could be predicted, the amplitudes of stimulus preceding negativity (SPN) evoked by silence replacement in the forebrain were significantly greater than that in the mesencephalon, suggesting voluntary attention may engage in auditory perception in this species because of the correlation between the SPN component and top-down control such as expectation and/or prediction; (2) alternately, when the sequence of acoustic stimuli could not be predicted, the N1 amplitudes evoked in the mesencephalon were significantly greater than those in other brain areas, implying that reflexive attention may be involved in auditory signal processing because the N1 components relate to selective attention; and (3) both SPN and N1 components could be evoked by the predicted stimuli, suggesting auditory perception of the music frogs might invoke the two kind of attention resources simultaneously. The present results show that human-like ERP components related to voluntary attention and reflexive attention exist in the lower vertebrates also.

The role of eye-specific attention in ocular dominance plasticity.

It is well known how selective attention biases information processing in real time, but few work investigates the aftereffects of prolonged attention, letalone the underlying neural mechanisms. To examine perceptual aftereffect after prolonged attention to a monocular pathway, movie images played normally were presented to normal adult's one eye (attended eye), while movie images of the same episode but played backwards were presented to the opposite eye (unattended eye). One hour of watching this dichoptic movie caused a shift of perceptual ocular dominance towards the unattended eye. Interestingly, the aftereffect positively correlated with the advantage of neural activity for the attended-eye over unattended-eye signals at the frontal electrodes measured with steady-state visual evoked potentials. Moreover, the aftereffect disappeared when interocular competition was minimized during adaptation. These results suggest that top-down eye-specific attention can induce ocular dominance plasticity through binocular rivalry mechanisms. The present study opens the route to explain at least part of short-term ocular dominance plasticity with the ocular-opponency-neuron model, which may be an interesting complement to the homeostatic compensation theory.

Motivating immersive BIM uptake through user attitude: analysis of initial solution using design science approach

PurposeBeyond a mandated use, rationales behind executive choice to accept or reject building information modelling (BIM) are ambiguous. BIM acceptance is complex for organisations, and existing decision-making models are impractical to make realistic choices. A practical solution must assist a holistic reflection of internal and external BIM success factors. Nevertheless, extant literature is largely focused on software use and awareness. Thus, this paper aims to suggest a novel framework for assessing firm readiness, aimed at facilitating BIM uptake.Design/methodology/approachExtant explanatory studies are inadequate in assessing the soft nature of BIM uptake. Thus, a design science research was employed as an alternative methodology. A means-end analysis was utilised for solution incubation, and cross-disciplinary reasoning, the strategy to establish valid solutions on firm readiness. Previous studies were reviewed on BIM, technology acceptance (generally) and complexity.Findings“Technology attitude” is presented as involving more holistic variables than a simplistic reliance on software use to mirror BIM acceptance. Technology acceptance model (TAM) is appropriate to explain BIM attitude attributes, but its current use is sub-optimal. Selective information processing and unconscious thought theory were integrated into TAM to explain attitude formation from multiple perspectives, resulting in a novel BIM attitude scale (BIMAS). Upon verification, the proposed framework will facilitate an objective authentication of biases that associate with BIM acceptance.Originality/valueWhilst BIM readiness is assessed largely with a primary focus on theory building, practical relevance must be at the forefront of BIM development. This study articulates that design science research can enhance the practical relevance of BIM adoption models. BIM acceptance attitude must be assessed through a verified scale contrary to the assessment of self-biases of executives in literature. BIMAS suggests a testable solution for this. Theory building research must be the future focus to enhance the relevance of this initial solution.

The Brain Selectively Tunes to Unfamiliar Voices during Sleep

The brain continues to respond selectively to environmental stimuli during sleep. However, the functional role of such responses, and whether they reflect information processing or rather sensory inhibition, is not fully understood. Here, we present 17 human sleepers (14 females) with their own name and two unfamiliar first names, spoken by either a familiar voice (FV) or an unfamiliar voice (UFV), while recording polysomnography during a full night of sleep. We detect K-complexes, sleep spindles, and microarousals, and assess event-related and frequency responses as well as intertrial phase synchronization to the different stimuli presented during nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. We show that UFVs evoke more K-complexes and microarousals than FVs. When both stimuli evoke a K-complex, we observe larger evoked potentials, more precise time-locking of brain responses in the delta band (1–4 Hz), and stronger activity in the high frequency (>16 Hz) range, in response to UFVs relative to FVs. Crucially, these differences in brain responses disappear completely when no K-complexes are evoked by the auditory stimuli. Our findings highlight discrepancies in brain responses to auditory stimuli based on their relevance to the sleeper and propose a key role for K-complexes in the modulation of sensory processing during sleep. We argue that such content-specific, dynamic reactivity to external sensory information enables the brain to enter a sentinel processing mode in which it engages in the important internal processes that are ongoing during sleep while still maintaining the ability to process vital external sensory information.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Previous research has shown that sensory processing continues during sleep. Here, we studied the capacity of the sleeping brain to extract and process relevant sensory information. We presented sleepers with their own names and unfamiliar names spoken by either an FV or a UFV. During NREM sleep, UFVs elicited more K-complexes and microarousals than FVs. By contrasting stimuli that evoked K-complexes, we demonstrate that UFVs evoked larger, more synchronized brain responses as well as stronger power at high frequencies (>16 Hz) relative to FVs. These differences in brain responses disappeared when no K-complexes were evoked. Our results suggest a pivotal role for K-complexes in the selective processing of relevant information during NREM sleep.

НЕЙРОПСИХОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ ПРОФИЛЬ У ПАЦИЕНТОВ С ГИПЕРТОНИЧЕСКОЙ ЭНЦЕФАЛОПАТИЕЙ НА ФОНЕ РЕЗИСТЕНТНОЙ АРТЕРИАЛЬНОЙ ГИПЕРТОНИИ

Objective: To assess the severity of CI in relation to the level of RDR to antihypertensive therapy in patients with primary arterial hypertension (AH) and the features of CI on the background of RAH. Methods: A complex of modern clinical, hemodynamic and neuropsychological methods was used to assess RDR to treatment and the severity of CI in groups of patients with high and very high RDR to treatment: the group I – with controlled arterial hypertension (CAH; n=40), the group II – with RAH (n=35). Results: When screening for CI on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scale, a decrease in the average number of various domains of cognitive function in patients with CAH was found against the background of increased RDR to treatment compared with RAH. The results of the neurodynamic analysis of cognitive function in the Trail Making Test (TMT) indicate the relative sustain of selective attention and information processing speed. However, the established increase in the difference between the part B and part A performance in patients with AH demonstrated a decline in flexible thinking, cognitive control, and programming. The results of the study of regulatory functions showed that frontal dysfunction was observed more often in patients of group II, although the difference was statistically insignificant (p>0.05). Based on the results of speech studies, along with the results of memory impairment testing in the Clock Drawing (CDT) and Free and Cued Selective Reminding – Immediate Recall (FCSRT-IR) tests, a more pronounced decline of semantic memory was found in patients with RAH, indicating the possibility of memory impairment not only due to secondary neurodynamic changes but also due to the neurodegenerative processes. Conclusion: A significant decrease in semantic memory in patients with RAH suggests the possibility of the transformation of cerebral vascular lesions into neurodegenerative ones or their combination. Keywords: Neuropsychological profile, cognitive impairment, hypertensive encephalopathy, risk of developing resistance to treatment, resistant arterial hypertension.

Motivation-based selective encoding and retrieval.

Rememberers are often motivated to remember certain pieces of information more than they are motivated to remember other pieces. The literature suggests that this motivation results in selective remembering of valuable information and that it yields selective processing of this valuable information during encoding. However, the question of whether or not motivation to remember also elicits selective processing during retrieval is relatively underexplored. To fill this gap, two experiments examined the effect of incentive-based motivation to remember target information on selective encoding and retrieval processes using a paradigm that allowed participants to self-regulate their learning and cued-recall testing under relatively naturalistic settings. The results revealed that motivation yielded selective remembering of the target information and selective processing during encoding (i.e., selective allocation of study time, selective restudy, and selective control over study order), consistent with prior findings. Importantly, the results also revealed that motivation yielded selective processing during retrieval, as rememberers allocated more time to test queries about target information that they were motivated to remember and tended to start the test with these queries. These findings suggest that motivation affects how rememberers answer a cued-recall memory test. More generally, the current research demonstrates that by manipulating motivation and investigating self-regulated learning and remembering, research can advance our understanding of the intricate relationship between motivation, memory, and metacognition.

Age-Related Intrinsic Functional Connectivity Changes of Locus Coeruleus from Childhood to Older Adults.

The locus coeruleus is critical for selective information processing by modulating the brain’s connectivity configuration. Increasingly, studies have suggested that LC controls sensory inputs at the sensory gating stage. Furthermore, accumulating evidence has shown that young children and older adults are more prone to distraction and filter out irrelevant information less efficiently, possibly due to the unoptimized LC connectivity. However, the LC connectivity pattern across the life span is not fully examined yet, hampering our ability to understand the relationship between LC development and the distractibility. In this study, we examined the intrinsic network connectivity of the LC using a public fMRI dataset with wide-range age samples. Based on LC-seed functional connectivity maps, we examined the age-related variation in the LC connectivity with a quadratic model. The analyses revealed two connectivity patterns explicitly. The sensory-related brain regions showed a positive quadratic age effect (u-shape), and the frontal regions for the cognitive control showed a negative quadratic age effect (inverted u-shape). Our results imply that such age-related distractibility is possibly due to the impaired sensory gating by the LC and the insufficient top-down controls by the frontal regions. We discuss the underlying neural mechanisms and limitations of our study.

Tracking transient changes in the intrinsic neural frequency architecture: Oxytocin facilitates non-harmonic relationships between alpha and theta rhythms in the resting brain

Shifts in the peak frequencies of oscillatory neural rhythms have been put forward as a principal mechanism by which cross-frequency coupling and decoupling is implemented in the brain. This notion is based on the mathematical reality that neural oscillations can only fully synchronize when their peak frequencies form harmonic 2:1 relationships (e.g., f2=f1/2). Non-harmonic cross-frequency relationships, on the other hand (based on the irrational golden mean 1.618.:1), provide the highest physiologically possible desynchronized state (reducing the occurrence of spurious, noisy, background coupling), and are therefore anticipated to characterize the resting state of the brain, in which no selective information processing takes place. The present study sought to assess whether the transient occurrence of 1.6:1 non-harmonic and 2:1 harmonic relationships between peak frequencies in the alpha (8–14 Hz) and theta (4–8 Hz) bands – respectively facilitating states of decoupling or coupling between oscillatory rhythms – are impacted by the intranasal administration of a single-dose of oxytocin (OT) or placebo. To do so, continuous resting-state electroencephalography (5 min eyes open, 19 electrodes) was obtained from 96 healthy adult men before and after nasal spray administration. The transient formation of non-harmonic cross-frequency configurations between alpha and theta peak frequencies was significantly increased after OT nasal spray administration, indicating an effect of OT on reducing the intrinsic occurrence of spurious (noisy) background phase synchronizations during resting-state. As a group, the OT group also showed a significant parallel increase in high-frequency and decrease in low-frequency heart rate variability, confirming a homeostatic role of OT in balancing parasympathetic drive. Overall, non-harmonic cross-frequency configurations have been put forward to lay the ground for a healthy neural network allowing the opportunity for an efficient transition from resting state to activity. The observed effects of OT on cross-frequency dynamics are therefore interpreted to reflect a homeostatic role of OT in increasing the signal-to-noise properties of the intrinsic EEG neural frequency architecture, i.e., by precluding the occurrence of ‘noisy’, unwanted, spurious couplings among neural rhythms in the resting brain.

Acute Effects of a Perturbation-Based Balance Training on Cognitive Performance in Healthy Older Adults: A Pilot Study.

Aging is accompanied by an alteration in the capacity to ambulate, react to external balance perturbations, and resolve cognitive tasks. Perturbation-based balance training has been used to induce adaptations of gait stability and reduce fall risk. The compensatory reactions generated in response to external perturbations depend on the activation of specific neural structures. This suggests that training balance recovery reactions should show acute cognitive training effects. This study aims to investigate whether exposure to repeated balance perturbations while walking can produce acute aftereffects that improve proactive and reactive strategies to control gait stability and cognitive performance in healthy older adults. It is expected that an adaptation of the recovery reactions would be associated with increased selective attention and information processing speed. Twenty-eight healthy older adults were assigned to either an Experimental (EG) or a Control Group (CG). The protocol was divided in 2 days. During the first visit, all participants completed the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) and the Trail Making Test (TMT). During the second visit, a cable-driven robot was used to apply waist-pull perturbations while walking on a treadmill. The EG was trained with multidirectional perturbations of increasing intensity. The CG walked for a comparable amount of time with cables on, but without experiencing perturbations. Before and after the training, all participants were exposed to diagonal waist-pull perturbations. Changes in gait stability were evaluated by comparing the distance between the heel of the leading leg and the extrapolated Center of Mass (Heel-XCoM Distance—HXD) at perturbation onset (PON) and first compensatory heel strike (CHS). Finally, the cables were removed, and participants completed the SDMT and the TMT again. Results showed that only the EG adapted the gait stability (p < 0.001) in reaction to diagonal perturbations and showed improved performance in the SDMT (p < 0.001). This study provides the first evidence that a single session of perturbation-based balance training produce acute aftereffects in terms of increased cognitive performance and gait stability in healthy older adults. Future studies will include measures of functional activation of the cerebral cortex and examine whether a multi-session training will demonstrate chronic effects.

Selective Information Processing in Supplier Switching Decision-making: A Regulatory Focus Perspective

Selective Information Processing in Supplier Switching Decision-making: A Regulatory Focus Perspective