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Patrick Bissett
Senior Research Scientist
Psychology
All Publications
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Cognitive tasks, anatomical MRI, and functional MRI data evaluating the construct of self-regulation.
Scientific data
2024; 11 (1): 809
Abstract
We describe the following shared data from N = 103 healthy adults who completed a broad set of cognitive tasks, surveys, and neuroimaging measurements to examine the construct of self-regulation. The neuroimaging acquisition involved task-based fMRI, resting state fMRI, and structural MRI. Each subject completed the following ten tasks in the scanner across two 90-minute scanning sessions: attention network test (ANT), cued task switching, Columbia card task, dot pattern expectancy (DPX), delay discounting, simple and motor selective stop signal, Stroop, a towers task, and a set of survey questions. The dataset is shared openly through the OpenNeuro project, and the dataset is formatted according to the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) standard.
View details for DOI 10.1038/s41597-024-03636-y
View details for PubMedID 39033226
View details for PubMedCentralID 3041102
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The response time paradox in functional magnetic resonance imaging analyses.
Nature human behaviour
2023
Abstract
Response times (RTs) are often the main signal of interest in cognitive psychology but are often ignored in functional MRI (fMRI) analyses. In fMRI analysis the intensity of the signal serves as a proxy for the intensity of local neuronal activity, but changes in either the intensity or the duration of neuronal activity can yield identical fMRI signals. Therefore, if RTs are ignored and pair with neuronal durations, fMRI results claiming intensity differences may be confounded by RTs. We show how ignoring RTs goes beyond this confound, where longer RTs are paired with larger activation estimates, to lesser-known issues where RTs become confounds in group-level analyses and, surprisingly, how the RT confound can induce other artificial group-level associations with variables that are not related to the condition contrast or RTs. We propose a new time-series model to address these issues and encourage increasing focus on what the widespread RT-based signal represents.
View details for DOI 10.1038/s41562-023-01760-0
View details for PubMedID 37996498
View details for PubMedCentralID 2622763
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Cognitive tasks, anatomical MRI, and functional MRI data evaluating the construct of self-regulation.
bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology
2023
Abstract
We describe the following shared data from N=103 healthy adults who completed a broad set cognitive tasks, surveys, and neuroimaging measurements to examine the construct of self-regulation. The neuroimaging acquisition involved task-based fMRI, resting fMRI, and structural MRI. Each subject completed the following ten tasks in the scanner across two 90-minute scanning sessions: attention network test (ANT), cued task switching, Columbia card task, dot pattern expectancy (DPX), delay discounting, simple and motor selective stop signal, Stroop, a towers task, and a set of survey questions. Subjects also completed resting state scans. The dataset is shared openly through the OpenNeuro project, and the dataset is formatted according to the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) standard.
View details for DOI 10.1101/2023.09.27.559869
View details for PubMedID 37808748
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC10557703
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Modelling human behaviour in cognitive tasks with latent dynamical systems.
Nature human behaviour
2023
Abstract
Response time data collected from cognitive tasks are a cornerstone of psychology and neuroscience research, yet existing models of these data either make strong assumptions about the data-generating process or are limited to modelling single trials. We introduce task-DyVA, a deep learning framework in which expressive dynamical systems are trained to reproduce sequences of response times observed in data from individual human subjects. Models fitted to a large task-switching dataset captured subject-specific behavioural differences with high temporal precision, including task-switching costs. Through perturbation experiments and analyses of the models' latent dynamics, we find support for a rational account of switch costs in terms of a stability-flexibility trade-off. Thus, our framework can be used to discover interpretable cognitive theories that explain how the brain dynamically gives rise to behaviour.
View details for DOI 10.1038/s41562-022-01510-8
View details for PubMedID 36658212
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A dual-task approach to inform the taxonomy of inhibition-related processes.
Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance
2022
Abstract
Response inhibition is key to controlled behavior and is commonly investigated with the stop-signal paradigm. The authors investigated how response inhibition is situated within a taxonomy of control processes by combining multiple forms of control within dual tasks. Response inhibition, as measured by stop-signal reaction time (SSRT), was impaired when combined with shape matching, but not the flanker task, and when combined with cued task switching, but not predictable task switching, suggesting that response inhibition may be weakly or variably impaired when combined with selective attention and set shifting demands, respectively. Response inhibition was also consistently impaired when combined with the N-back or directed forgetting tasks, putative measures of working memory. Impairments of response inhibition by other control demands appeared to be primarily driven by task context, as SSRT slowing was similar for trials where control demands were either high (e.g., task switch) or low (e.g., task stay). These results demonstrate that response inhibition processes are often impaired in the context of other control demands, even on trials where direct engagement of those other control processes is not required. This suggests a taxonomy of control in which response inhibition overlaps with related control processes, especially working memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
View details for DOI 10.1037/xhp0001073
View details for PubMedID 36548061
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Precision Functional Mapping in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Using Dense Sampling Scanning
SPRINGERNATURE. 2022: 303-304
View details for Web of Science ID 000929613800576
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Precision Functional Mapping in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Using Dense Sampling Scanning
SPRINGERNATURE. 2022: 303-304
View details for Web of Science ID 000897934700576
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Estimating the Time to Do Nothing: Toward Next-Generation Models of Response Inhibition
CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
2022
View details for DOI 10.1177/09637214221121753
View details for Web of Science ID 000885686000001
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Predicting brain activation maps for arbitrary tasks with cognitive encoding models.
NeuroImage
2022: 119610
Abstract
A deep understanding of the neural architecture of mental function should enable the accurate prediction of a specific pattern of brain activity for any psychological task, based only on the cognitive functions known to be engaged by that task. Encoding models (EMs), which predict neural responses from known features (e.g., stimulus properties), have succeeded in circumscribed domains (e.g., visual neuroscience), but implementing domain-general EMs that predict brain-wide activity for arbitrary tasks has been limited mainly by availability of datasets that 1) sufficiently span a large space of psychological functions, and 2) are sufficiently annotated with such functions to allow robust EM specification. We examine the use of EMs based on a formal specification of psychological function, to predict cortical activation patterns across a broad range of tasks. We utilized the Multi-Domain Task Battery, a dataset in which 24 subjects completed 32 ten-minute fMRI scans, switching tasks every 35 seconds and engaging in 44 total conditions of diverse psychological manipulations. Conditions were annotated by a group of experts using the Cognitive Atlas ontology to identify putatively engaged functions, and region-wise cognitive EMs (CEMs) were fit, for individual subjects, on neocortical responses. We found that CEMs predicted cortical activation maps of held-out tasks with high accuracy, outperforming a permutation-based null model while approaching the noise ceiling of the data, without being driven solely by either cognitive or perceptual-motor features. Hierarchical clustering on the similarity structure of CEM generalization errors revealed relationships amongst psychological functions. Spatial distributions of feature importances systematically overlapped with large-scale resting-state functional networks (RSNs), supporting the hypothesis of functional specialization within RSNs while grounding their function in an interpretable data-driven manner. Our implementation and validation of CEMs provides a proof of principle for the utility of formal ontologies in cognitive neuroscience and motivates the use of CEMs in the further testing of cognitive theories.
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119610
View details for PubMedID 36064138
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Relating psychiatric symptoms and self-regulation during the COVID-19 crisis.
Translational psychiatry
2022; 12 (1): 271
Abstract
Disruptions of self-regulation are a hallmark of numerous psychiatric disorders. Here, we examine the relationship between transdiagnostic dimensions of psychopathology and changes in self-regulation in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. We used a data-driven approach on a large number of cognitive tasks and self-reported surveys in training datasets. Then, we derived measures of self-regulation and psychiatric functioning in an independent population sample (N=102) tested both before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the restrictions in place represented a threat to mental health and forced people to flexibly adjust to modifications of daily routines. We found independent relationships between transdiagnostic dimensions of psychopathology and longitudinal alterations in specific domains of self-regulation defined using a diffusion decision model. Compared to the period preceding the onset of the pandemic, a symptom dimension related to anxiety and depression was characterized by a more cautious behavior, indexed by the need to accumulate more evidence before making a decision. Instead, social withdrawal related to faster non-decision processes. Self-reported measures of self-regulation predicted variance in psychiatric symptoms both concurrently and prospectively, revealing the psychological dimensions relevant for separate transdiagnostic dimensions of psychiatry, but tasks did not. Taken together, our results are suggestive of potential cognitive vulnerabilities in the domain of self-regulation in people with underlying psychiatric difficulties in face of real-life stressors. More generally, they also suggest that the study of cognition needs to take into account the dynamic nature of real-world events as well as within-subject variability over time.
View details for DOI 10.1038/s41398-022-02030-9
View details for PubMedID 35820995
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Momentary Influences on Self-Regulation in Two Populations With Health Risk Behaviors: Adults Who Smoke and Adults Who Are Overweight and Have Binge-Eating Disorder.
Frontiers in digital health
2022; 4: 798895
Abstract
Introduction: Self-regulation has been implicated in health risk behaviors and is a target of many health behavior interventions. Despite most prior research focusing on self-regulation as an individual-level trait, we hypothesize that self-regulation is a time-varying mechanism of health and risk behavior that may be influenced by momentary contexts to a substantial degree. Because most health behaviors (e.g., eating, drinking, smoking) occur in the context of everyday activities, digital technologies may help us better understand and influence these behaviors in real time. Using a momentary self-regulation measure, the current study (which was part of a larger multi-year research project on the science of behavior change) used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to assess if self-regulation can be engaged and manipulated on a momentary basis in naturalistic, non-laboratory settings.Methods: This one-arm, open-label exploratory study prospectively collected momentary data for 14 days from 104 participants who smoked regularly and 81 participants who were overweight and had binge-eating disorder. Four times per day, participants were queried about momentary self-regulation, emotional state, and social and environmental context; recent smoking and exposure to smoking cues (smoking sample only); and recent eating, binge eating, and exposure to binge-eating cues (binge-eating sample only). This study used a novel, momentary self-regulation measure comprised of four subscales: momentary perseverance, momentary sensation seeking, momentary self-judgment, and momentary mindfulness. Participants were also instructed to engage with Laddr, a mobile application that provides evidence-based health behavior change tools via an integrated platform. The association between momentary context and momentary self-regulation was explored via mixed-effects models. Exploratory assessments of whether recent Laddr use (defined as use within 12 h of momentary responses) modified the association between momentary context and momentary self-regulation were performed via mixed-effects models.Results: Participants (mean age 35.2; 78% female) in the smoking and binge-eating samples contributed a total of 3,233 and 3,481 momentary questionnaires, respectively. Momentary self-regulation subscales were associated with several momentary contexts, in the combined as well as smoking and binge-eating samples. For example, in the combined sample momentary perseverance was associated with location, positively associated with positive affect, and negatively associated with negative affect, stress, and tiredness. In the smoking sample, momentary perseverance was positively associated with momentary difficulty in accessing cigarettes, caffeine intake, and momentary restraint in smoking, and negatively associated with temptation and urge to smoke. In the binge-eating sample, momentary perseverance was positively associated with difficulty in accessing food and restraint in eating, and negatively associated with urge to binge eat. While recent Laddr use was not associated directly with momentary self-regulation subscales, it did modify several of the contextual associations, including challenging contexts.Conclusions: Overall, this study provides preliminary evidence that momentary self-regulation may vary in response to differing momentary contexts in samples from two exemplar populations with risk behaviors. In addition, the Laddr application may modify some of these relationships. These findings demonstrate the possibility of measuring momentary self-regulation in a trans-diagnostic way and assessing the effects of momentary, mobile interventions in context. Health behavior change interventions may consider measuring and targeting momentary self-regulation in addition to trait-level self-regulation to better understand and improve health risk behaviors. This work will be used to inform a later stage of research focused on assessing the transdiagnostic mediating effect of momentary self-regulation on medical regimen adherence and health outcomes.Clinical Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, Identifier: NCT03352713.
View details for DOI 10.3389/fdgth.2022.798895
View details for PubMedID 35373179
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The cognitive and perceptual correlates of ideological attitudes: a data-driven approach.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
2021; 376 (1822): 20200424
Abstract
Although human existence is enveloped by ideologies, remarkably little is understood about the relationships between ideological attitudes and psychological traits. Even less is known about how cognitive dispositions-individual differences in how information is perceived and processed- sculpt individuals' ideological worldviews, proclivities for extremist beliefs and resistance (or receptivity) to evidence. Using an unprecedented number of cognitive tasks (n = 37) and personality surveys (n = 22), along with data-driven analyses including drift-diffusion and Bayesian modelling, we uncovered the specific psychological signatures of political, nationalistic, religious and dogmatic beliefs. Cognitive and personality assessments consistently outperformed demographic predictors in accounting for individual differences in ideological preferences by 4 to 15-fold. Furthermore, data-driven analyses revealed that individuals' ideological attitudes mirrored their cognitive decision-making strategies. Conservatism and nationalism were related to greater caution in perceptual decision-making tasks and to reduced strategic information processing, while dogmatism was associated with slower evidence accumulation and impulsive tendencies. Religiosity was implicated in heightened agreeableness and risk perception. Extreme pro-group attitudes, including violence endorsement against outgroups, were linked to poorer working memory, slower perceptual strategies, and tendencies towards impulsivity and sensation-seeking-reflecting overlaps with the psychological profiles of conservatism and dogmatism. Cognitive and personality signatures were also generated for ideologies such as authoritarianism, system justification, social dominance orientation, patriotism and receptivity to evidence or alternative viewpoints; elucidating their underpinnings and highlighting avenues for future research. Together these findings suggest that ideological worldviews may be reflective of low-level perceptual and cognitive functions. This article is part of the theme issue 'The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms'.
View details for DOI 10.1098/rstb.2020.0424
View details for PubMedID 33611995
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Severe violations of independence in response inhibition tasks.
Science advances
2021; 7 (12)
Abstract
The stop-signal paradigm, a primary experimental paradigm for understanding cognitive control and response inhibition, rests upon the theoretical foundation of race models, which assume that a go process races independently against a stop process that occurs after a stop-signal delay (SSD). We show that severe violations of this independence assumption at short SSDs occur systematically across a wide range of conditions, including fast and slow reaction times, auditory and visual stop signals, manual and saccadic responses, and especially in selective stopping. We also reanalyze existing data and show that conclusions can change when short SSDs are excluded. Last, we suggest experimental and analysis techniques to address this violation, and propose adjustments to extant models to accommodate this finding.
View details for DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abf4355
View details for PubMedID 33731357
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Design issues and solutions for stop-signal data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development [ABCD] study.
eLife
2021; 10
Abstract
The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study is an unprecedented longitudinal neuroimaging sample that tracks the brain development of over 10,000 9-10 year olds through adolescence. At the core of this study are the three tasks that are completed repeatedly within the MRI scanner, one of which is the stop-signal task. In analyzing the available stopping experimental code and data, we identified a set of design issues that we believe significantly compromise its value. These issues include but are not limited to: variable stimulus durations that violate basic assumptions of dominant stopping models, trials in which stimuli are incorrectly not presented, and faulty stop-signal delays. We present eight issues, show their effect on the existing ABCD data, suggest prospective solutions including task changes for future data collection and preliminary computational models, and suggest retrospective solutions for data users who wish to make the most of the existing data.
View details for DOI 10.7554/eLife.60185
View details for PubMedID 33661097
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Dataset decay and the problem of sequential analyses on open datasets.
eLife
2020; 9
Abstract
Open data allows researchers to explore pre-existing datasets in new ways. However, if many researchers reuse the same dataset, multiple statistical testing may increase false positives. Here we demonstrate that sequential hypothesis testing on the same dataset by multiple researchers can inflate error rates. We go on to discuss a number of correction procedures that can reduce the number of false positives, and the challenges associated with these correction procedures.
View details for DOI 10.7554/eLife.53498
View details for PubMedID 32425159
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Correlation Database of 60 Cross-Disciplinary Surveys and Cognitive Tasks Assessing Self-Regulation.
Journal of personality assessment
2020: 1–8
Abstract
Self-regulation is studied across various disciplines, including personality, social, cognitive, health, developmental, and clinical psychology; psychiatry; neuroscience; medicine; pharmacology; and economics. Widespread interest in self-regulation has led to confusion regarding both the constructs within the nomological network of self-regulation and the measures used to assess these constructs. To facilitate the integration of cross-disciplinary measures of self-regulation, we estimated product-moment and distance correlations among 60 cross-disciplinary measures of self-regulation (23 self-report surveys, 37 cognitive tasks) and measures of health and substance use based on 522 participants. The correlations showed substantial variability, though the surveys demonstrated greater convergent validity than did the cognitive tasks. Variables derived from the surveys only weakly correlated with variables derived from the cognitive tasks (M = .049, range = .000 to .271 for the absolute value of the product-moment correlation; M = .085, range = .028 to .241 for the distance correlation), thus challenging the notion that these surveys and cognitive tasks measure the same construct. We conclude by outlining several potential uses for this publicly available database of correlations.
View details for DOI 10.1080/00223891.2020.1732994
View details for PubMedID 32148088
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Point of View: Open Exploration.
eLife
2020; 9
Abstract
Arguments in support of open science tend to focus on confirmatory research practices. Here we argue that exploratory research should also be encouraged within the framework of open science. We lay out the benefits of 'open exploration' and propose two complementary ways to implement this with little infrastructural change.
View details for DOI 10.7554/eLife.52157
View details for PubMedID 31916934
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Reply to Friedman and Banich: Right measures for the research question.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
2019
View details for DOI 10.1073/pnas.1917123116
View details for PubMedID 31719202
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Uncovering the structure of self-regulation through data-driven ontology discovery.
Nature communications
2019; 10 (1): 2319
Abstract
Psychological sciences have identified a wealth of cognitive processes and behavioral phenomena, yet struggle to produce cumulative knowledge. Progress is hamstrung by siloed scientific traditions and a focus on explanation over prediction, two issues that are particularly damaging for the study of multifaceted constructs like self-regulation. Here, we derive a psychological ontology from a study of individual differences across a broad range of behavioral tasks, self-report surveys, and self-reported real-world outcomes associated with self-regulation. Though both tasks and surveys putatively measure self-regulation, they show little empirical relationship. Within tasks and surveys, however, the ontology identifies reliable individual traits and reveals opportunities for theoretic synthesis. We then evaluate predictive power of the psychological measurements and find that while surveys modestly and heterogeneously predict real-world outcomes, tasks largely do not. We conclude that self-regulation lacks coherence as a construct, and that data-driven ontologies lay the groundwork for a cumulative psychological science.
View details for DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-10301-1
View details for PubMedID 31127115
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A consensus guide to capturing the ability to inhibit actions and impulsive behaviors in the stop-signal task
ELIFE
2019; 8
View details for DOI 10.7554/eLife.46323
View details for Web of Science ID 000468863600001
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Large-scale analysis of test-retest reliabilities of self-regulation measures.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
2019
Abstract
The ability to regulate behavior in service of long-term goals is a widely studied psychological construct known as self-regulation. This wide interest is in part due to the putative relations between self-regulation and a range of real-world behaviors. Self-regulation is generally viewed as a trait, and individual differences are quantified using a diverse set of measures, including self-report surveys and behavioral tasks. Accurate characterization of individual differences requires measurement reliability, a property frequently characterized in self-report surveys, but rarely assessed in behavioral tasks. We remedy this gap by (i) providing a comprehensive literature review on an extensive set of self-regulation measures and (ii) empirically evaluating test-retest reliability of this battery in a new sample. We find that dependent variables (DVs) from self-report surveys of self-regulation have high test-retest reliability, while DVs derived from behavioral tasks do not. This holds both in the literature and in our sample, although the test-retest reliability estimates in the literature are highly variable. We confirm that this is due to differences in between-subject variability. We also compare different types of task DVs (e.g., model parameters vs. raw response times) in their suitability as individual difference DVs, finding that certain model parameters are as stable as raw DVs. Our results provide greater psychometric footing for the study of self-regulation and provide guidance for future studies of individual differences in this domain.
View details for PubMedID 30842284
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A consensus guide to capturing the ability to inhibit actions and impulsive behaviors in the stop-signal task.
eLife
2019; 8
Abstract
Response inhibition is essential for navigating everyday life. Its derailment is considered integral to numerous neurological and psychiatric disorders, and more generally, to a wide range of behavioral and health problems. Response-inhibition efficiency furthermore correlates with treatment outcome in some of these conditions. The stop-signal task is an essential tool to determine how quickly response inhibition is implemented. Despite its apparent simplicity, there are many features (ranging from task design to data analysis) that vary across studies in ways that can easily compromise the validity of the obtained results. Our goal is to facilitate a more accurate use of the stop-signal task. To this end, we provide twelve easy-to-implement consensus recommendations and point out the problems that can arise when these are not followed. Furthermore we provide user-friendly open-source resources intended to inform statistical-power considerations, facilitate the correct implementation of the task, and assist in proper data analysis.
View details for PubMedID 31033438
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Applying novel technologies and methods to inform the ontology of self-regulation.
Behaviour research and therapy
2018; 101: 46-57
Abstract
Self-regulation is a broad construct representing the general ability to recruit cognitive, motivational and emotional resources to achieve long-term goals. This construct has been implicated in a host of health-risk behaviors, and is a promising target for fostering beneficial behavior change. Despite its clear importance, the behavioral, psychological and neural components of self-regulation remain poorly understood, which contributes to theoretical inconsistencies and hinders maximally effective intervention development. We outline a research program that seeks to define a neuropsychological ontology of self-regulation, articulating the cognitive components that compose self-regulation, their relationships, and their associated measurements. The ontology will be informed by two large-scale approaches to assessing individual differences: first purely behaviorally using data collected via Amazon's Mechanical Turk, then coupled with neuroimaging data collected from a separate population. To validate the ontology and demonstrate its utility, we will then use it to contextualize health risk behaviors in two exemplar behavioral groups: overweight/obese adults who binge eat and smokers. After identifying ontological targets that precipitate maladaptive behavior, we will craft interventions that engage these targets. If successful, this work will provide a structured, holistic account of self-regulation in the form of an explicit ontology, which will better clarify the pattern of deficits related to maladaptive health behavior, and provide direction for more effective behavior change interventions.
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.brat.2017.09.014
View details for PubMedID 29066077
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC5801197
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Dopaminergic medication shifts the balance between going and stopping in Parkinson's disease
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA
2018; 109: 262–69
Abstract
The present behavioral study delineates the impact of Parkinson's disease (PD) and of dopaminergic medication on action control over voluntary behavior. Previous studies reported either prolonged responding or stopping latencies in PD compared to healthy controls (HC). Few studies investigated the effects of dopaminergic medication on these processes concurrently. We administered a stop-change task, an extended version of the stop task, that required (i) speeded responding to a go signal (i.e., going), (ii) inhibiting ongoing motor responses (i.e., stopping), and (iii) changing to an alternative response. PD performance (n = 33) was collected once during regular dopaminergic medication conditions (On state) and once after a medication washout period (Off state). A group of age-matched HC (n = 21) performed the stop-change task once. Response latencies to go signals were comparable between HC and PD Off, indicative of unimpaired going. Compared to HC, PD Off showed prolonged stopping latencies. Within the clinical group, stopping latencies significantly improved after taking dopaminergic medication. Interestingly, the shorter stopping latencies observed in the On state were paralleled by longer response latencies to go signals. The degree of the inhibition improvement observed in the medication state was correlated with the degree of response slowing. Change RT did not vary between groups or between medication states. These patterns of results are discussed in terms of a tradeoff between going versus stopping of motor responses in PD patients. Shifts of this tradeoff seem to be driven by dopaminergic medication, which has potential clinical implications.
View details for PubMedID 29269306
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Resisting distraction and response inhibition trigger similar enhancements of future performance.
Acta psychologica
2017; 180: 40-51
Abstract
Resisting distraction and response inhibition are crucial aspects of cognitive control. Interestingly, each of these abilities transiently improves just after it is utilized. Competing views differ, however, as to whether utilizing either of these abilities (e.g., resisting distraction) enhances future performance involving the other ability (e.g., response inhibition). To distinguish between these views, we combined a Stroop-like task that requires resisting distraction with a restraint variant of the stop-signal task that requires response inhibition. We observed similar sequential-trial effects (i.e., performance enhancements) following trials in which participants (a) resisted distraction (i.e., incongruent go trials) and (b) inhibited a response (i.e., congruent stop trials). First, the congruency effect in go trials, which indexes overall distractibility, was smaller after both incongruent go trials and congruent stop trials than it was after congruent go trials. Second, stop failures were less frequent after both incongruent go trials and congruent stop trials than after congruent go trials. A control experiment ruled out the possibility that perceptual conflict or surprise engendered by occasional stop signals triggers sequential-trial effects independent of stopping. Thus, our findings support a novel, integrated view in which resisting distraction and response inhibition trigger similar sequential enhancements of future performance.
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.08.009
View details for PubMedID 28843207
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Identifying Stimuli That Cue Multiple Responses Triggers the Congruency Sequence Effect Independent of Response Conflict
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-HUMAN PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE
2017; 43 (4): 677-689
Abstract
According to most accounts of executive control, resisting distraction requires enhancing task-relevant processing, reducing task-irrelevant processing, or both. Consistent with this view, the congruency effect in Stroop-like tasks-a putative measure of distraction-is often smaller after highly distracting incongruent trials than after less distracting congruent trials. Competing accounts of executive control, however, differ on which aspect of an incongruent trial triggers this congruency sequence effect (CSE). The activation-suppression account posits the activation of an incorrect response. In contrast, the response cueing account posits identifying stimuli that cue multiple responses. To distinguish between these accounts, we conducted 2 experiments involving a modified prime-probe task wherein participants respond to the distracter in occasional catch trials. We found that the CSE is triggered by identifying stimuli that cue multiple responses, rather than by the activation of an incorrect response. Further, we observed this effect while ruling out an alternative "response conflict" trigger. These findings are more consistent with the response cueing account than with the activation-suppression account. (PsycINFO Database Record
View details for DOI 10.1037/xhp0000350
View details for Web of Science ID 000398914000005
View details for PubMedID 28095005
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Applying novel technologies and methods to inform the ontology of self-regulation
Behaviour Research and Therapy
2017: 46–57
Abstract
Self-regulation is a broad construct representing the general ability to recruit cognitive, motivational and emotional resources to achieve long-term goals. This construct has been implicated in a host of health-risk behaviors, and is a promising target for fostering beneficial behavior change. Despite its clear importance, the behavioral, psychological and neural components of self-regulation remain poorly understood, which contributes to theoretical inconsistencies and hinders maximally effective intervention development. We outline a research program that seeks to define a neuropsychological ontology of self-regulation, articulating the cognitive components that compose self-regulation, their relationships, and their associated measurements. The ontology will be informed by two large-scale approaches to assessing individual differences: first purely behaviorally using data collected via Amazon's Mechanical Turk, then coupled with neuroimaging data collected from a separate population. To validate the ontology and demonstrate its utility, we will then use it to contextualize health risk behaviors in two exemplar behavioral groups: overweight/obese adults who binge eat and smokers. After identifying ontological targets that precipitate maladaptive behavior, we will craft interventions that engage these targets. If successful, this work will provide a structured, holistic account of self-regulation in the form of an explicit ontology, which will better clarify the pattern of deficits related to maladaptive health behavior, and provide direction for more effective behavior change interventions.
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.brat.2017.09.014
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC5801197
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Investigating motor initiation and inhibition deficits in patients with Parkinson's disease and freezing of gait using a virtual reality paradigm.
Neuroscience
2016; 337: 153-162
Abstract
Freezing of gait (FOG) is a common, disabling symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD) that is associated with deficits in motor initiation and inhibition. Understanding of underlying neurobiological mechanisms has been limited by difficulties in eliciting and objectively characterizing such gait phenomena in the clinical setting. However, recent work suggests that virtual reality (VR) techniques might offer the potential to study motor control. This study utilized a VR paradigm to explore deficits in motor initiation and stopping performance, including stop failure in PD patients with (Freezers, 31) and without (Non-Freezers, 23) FOG, and healthy age-matched Controls (15). The VR task required subjects to respond to a series of start and stop cues while navigating a corridor using ankle flexion/extension movements on foot pedals. We found that Freezers experienced slower motor output initiation and more frequent start hesitations (SHs) (initiations greater than twice a subject's usual initiation latency) compared to Non-Freezers and Controls. Freezers also showed more marked inhibitory impairments, taking significantly longer to execute motor inhibition, and experiencing an increased frequency of failed stopping in response to stop cues compared to Non-Freezers and Controls. Stopping impairments were exacerbated by stop cues requiring additional cognitive processing. These results suggest that PD patients with FOG have marked impairments in motor initiation and inhibition that are not prominent in patients without FOG, nor healthy controls. Future work combining such VR paradigms with neuroimaging techniques and intra-operative deep brain recordings may increase our understanding of these phenomena, promoting the development of novel technologies and therapeutic approaches.
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2016.09.019
View details for PubMedID 27651150
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The Dynamics of Functional Brain Networks: Integrated Network States during Cognitive Task Performance.
Neuron
2016; 92 (2): 544-554
Abstract
Higher brain function relies upon the ability to flexibly integrate information across specialized communities of brain regions; however, it is unclear how this mechanism manifests over time. In this study, we used time-resolved network analysis of fMRI data to demonstrate that the human brain traverses between functional states that maximize either segregation into tight-knit communities or integration across otherwise disparate neural regions. Integrated states enable faster and more accurate performance on a cognitive task, and are associated with dilations in pupil diameter, suggesting that ascending neuromodulatory systems may govern the transition between these alternative modes of brain function. Together, our results confirm a direct link between cognitive performance and the dynamic reorganization of the network structure of the brain.
View details for DOI 10.1016/j.neuron.2016.09.018
View details for PubMedID 27693256
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC5073034
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The Experiment Factory: Standardizing Behavioral Experiments
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
2016; 7
Abstract
The administration of behavioral and experimental paradigms for psychology research is hindered by lack of a coordinated effort to develop and deploy standardized paradigms. While several frameworks (Mason and Suri, 2011; McDonnell et al., 2012; de Leeuw, 2015; Lange et al., 2015) have provided infrastructure and methods for individual research groups to develop paradigms, missing is a coordinated effort to develop paradigms linked with a system to easily deploy them. This disorganization leads to redundancy in development, divergent implementations of conceptually identical tasks, disorganized and error-prone code lacking documentation, and difficulty in replication. The ongoing reproducibility crisis in psychology and neuroscience research (Baker, 2015; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) highlights the urgency of this challenge: reproducible research in behavioral psychology is conditional on deployment of equivalent experiments. A large, accessible repository of experiments for researchers to develop collaboratively is most efficiently accomplished through an open source framework. Here we present the Experiment Factory, an open source framework for the development and deployment of web-based experiments. The modular infrastructure includes experiments, virtual machines for local or cloud deployment, and an application to drive these components and provide developers with functions and tools for further extension. We release this infrastructure with a deployment (http://www.expfactory.org) that researchers are currently using to run a set of over 80 standardized web-based experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk. By providing open source tools for both deployment and development, this novel infrastructure holds promise to bring reproducibility to the administration of experiments, and accelerate scientific progress by providing a shared community resource of psychological paradigms.
View details for DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00610
View details for Web of Science ID 000374735800001
View details for PubMedID 27199843
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC4844768
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Generalized motor inhibitory deficit in Parkinson's disease patients who freeze
JOURNAL OF NEURAL TRANSMISSION
2015; 122 (12): 1693-1701
View details for DOI 10.1007/s00702-015-1454-9
View details for PubMedID 26354102
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Selective Stopping? Maybe Not
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-GENERAL
2014; 143 (1): 455–72
Abstract
Selective stopping paradigms address selectivity in controlled behavior, as subjects stop certain responses or responses to certain stimuli. The literature has discussed 2 strategies for selective stopping. First, selective stopping may prolong the stop process by adding a discrimination stage (Independent Discriminate then Stop). Second, selective stopping may involve stopping nonselectively and then restarting the response if the signal is an ignore signal (Stop then Discriminate). We discovered a variant of the first strategy that occurred often in our experiments and previously published experiments: The requirement to discriminate stop and ignore signals may interact with the go process, invalidating the independent race model (Dependent Discriminate then Stop). Our experiments focused on stimulus selective stopping, in which subjects stop to one signal and ignore another. When stop and ignore signals were equally likely, some subjects used the Stop then Discriminate strategy and others used the Dependent Discriminate then Stop strategy. When stop signals were more frequent than ignore signals, most subjects used the Stop then Discriminate strategy; when ignore signals were more frequent than stop signals, most subjects used the Dependent Discriminate then Stop strategy. The commonly accepted Independent Discriminate then Stop strategy was seldom implemented. Selective stopping was either not selective (Stop then Discriminate), or interacted with going (Dependent Discriminate then Stop). Implications for the cognitive science, lifespan development, clinical science, and neuroscience of selective stopping are discussed.
View details for DOI 10.1037/a0032122
View details for Web of Science ID 000331298600039
View details for PubMedID 23477668
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC3728275
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Stop Before You Leap: Changing Eye and Hand Movements Requires Stopping
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-HUMAN PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE
2013; 39 (4): 941–46
Abstract
The search-step paradigm addresses the processes involved in changing movement plans, usually saccadic eye-movements. Subjects move their eyes to a target (T1) among distractors, but when the target steps to a new location (T2), subjects are instructed to move their eyes directly from fixation to the new location. We ask whether moving to T2 requires a separate stop process that inhibits the movement to T1. It need not. The movement plan for the second response may inhibit the first response. To distinguish these hypotheses, we decoupled the offset of T1 from the onset of T2. If the second movement is sufficient to inhibit the first, then the probability of responding to T1 should depend only on T2 onset. If a separate stop process is required, then the probability of responding to T1 should depend only on T1 offset, which acts as a stop signal. We tested these hypotheses in manual and saccadic search-step tasks and found that the probability of responding to T1 depended most strongly on T1 offset, supporting the hypothesis that changing from one movement plan to another involves a separate stop process that inhibits the first plan.
View details for DOI 10.1037/a0033049
View details for Web of Science ID 000322359500005
View details for PubMedID 23668253
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC3757091
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The Countermanding Task Revisited: Mimicry of Race Models
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
2013; 33 (30): 12150-+
View details for DOI 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2091-13.2013
View details for Web of Science ID 000322168600002
View details for PubMedID 23884923
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC6618666
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Post-Stop-Signal Adjustments: Inhibition Improves Subsequent Inhibition
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-LEARNING MEMORY AND COGNITION
2012; 38 (4): 955–66
Abstract
Performance in the stop-signal paradigm involves a balance between going and stopping, and one way that this balance is struck is through shifting priority away from the go task, slowing responses after a stop signal, and improving the probability of inhibition. In 6 experiments, the authors tested whether there is a corresponding shift in priority toward the stop task, speeding reaction time to the stop signal. Consistent with this hypothesis, stop-signal reaction time (SSRT) decreased on the trial immediately following a stop signal in each experiment. Experiments 2-4 used 2 very different stop signals within a modality, and stopping improved when the stop stimulus repeated and alternated. Experiments 5 and 6 presented stop signals in different modalities and showed that SSRT improved only when the stop stimulus repeated within a modality. These results demonstrate within-modality post-stop-signal speeding of response inhibition.
View details for DOI 10.1037/a0026778
View details for Web of Science ID 000305717100009
View details for PubMedID 22268912
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Post-Stop-Signal Slowing: Strategies Dominate Reflexes and Implicit Learning
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-HUMAN PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE
2012; 38 (3): 746–57
Abstract
Control adjustments are necessary to balance competing cognitive demands. One task that is well-suited to explore control adjustments is the stop-signal paradigm, in which subjects must balance initiation and inhibition. One common adjustment in the stop-signal paradigm is post-stop-signal slowing. Existing models of sequential adjustments in the stop-signal paradigm suggest that post-stop-signal slowing may be based solely on the events of the previous trial, suggesting that post-stop-signal slowing is a reflexive byproduct of a stop signal. Alternatively, post-stop-signal slowing could be the result of implicit learning or strategic adjustment. The authors report three experiments that manipulated the probability of stop trial repetition and found that these contingencies eliminate, reverse, or greatly increase post-stop-signal slowing. When the contingency was not instructed or cued, modest adjustments of post-stop-signal slowing occurred, suggesting implicit learning. When the contingency was cued, performance adjustments occurred on the next trial, suggesting that strategies dominated post-stop-signal slowing. These results show that post-stop-signal slowing is not a reflexive byproduct of the stop signal. The large changes in strategy accompany large changes in task factors, suggesting that the modest post-stop-signal slowing usually observed may be a result of the relatively static task environment that does not encourage large strategic changes.
View details for DOI 10.1037/a0025429
View details for Web of Science ID 000305098600021
View details for PubMedID 21895385
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Stopping While Going! Response Inhibition Does Not Suffer Dual-Task Interference
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-HUMAN PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE
2012; 38 (1): 123–34
Abstract
Although dual-task interference is ubiquitous in a variety of task domains, stop-signal studies suggest that response inhibition is not subject to such interference. Nevertheless, no study has directly examined stop-signal performance in a dual-task setting. In two experiments, stop-signal performance was examined in a psychological refractory period task, in which subjects inhibited one response while still executing the other. The results showed little evidence for the refractory effect in stop-signal reaction time, and stop-signal reaction time was similar in dual-task and single-task conditions, despite the fact that overt reaction times were significantly affected by dual-task interference. Therefore, the present study supports the claim that response inhibition does not suffer dual-task interference.
View details for DOI 10.1037/a0023918
View details for Web of Science ID 000300117500013
View details for PubMedID 21574740
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Balancing Cognitive Demands: Control Adjustments in the Stop-Signal Paradigm
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-LEARNING MEMORY AND COGNITION
2011; 37 (2): 392–404
Abstract
Cognitive control enables flexible interaction with a dynamic environment. In 2 experiments, the authors investigated control adjustments in the stop-signal paradigm, a procedure that requires balancing speed (going) and caution (stopping) in a dual-task environment. Focusing on the slowing of go reaction times after stop signals, the authors tested 5 competing hypotheses for post-stop-signal adjustments: goal priority, error detection, conflict monitoring, surprise, and memory. Reaction times increased after both successful and failed inhibition, consistent with the goal priority hypothesis and inconsistent with the error detection and conflict hypotheses. Post-stop-signal slowing was greater if the go task stimulus repeated on consecutive trials, suggesting a contribution of memory. We also found evidence for slowing based on more than the immediately preceding stop signal. Post-stop-signal slowing was greater when stop signals occurred more frequently (Experiment 1), inconsistent with the surprise hypothesis, and when inhibition failed more frequently (Experiment 2). This suggests that more global manipulations encompassing many trials affect post-stop-signal adjustments.
View details for DOI 10.1037/a0021800
View details for Web of Science ID 000287830800009
View details for PubMedID 21171806
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC3064521
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Dissociating Interference-Control Processes Between Memory and Response
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC. 2009: 1306–16
Abstract
The ability to mitigate interference is of central importance to cognition. Previous research has provided conflicting accounts about whether operations that resolve interference are singular in character or form a family of functions. Here, the authors examined the relationship between interference-resolution processes acting on working memory representations versus responses. The authors combined multiple forms of interference into a single paradigm by merging a directed-forgetting task, which induces proactive interference, with a stop-signal task, which taps response inhibition processes. The results demonstrated that proactive interference and response inhibition produced distinct behavioral signatures that did not interact. By contrast, combining two different measures of response inhibition by merging a go/no-go task variant and a stop signal produced overadditive behavioral interference, demonstrating that different forms of response inhibition tap the same processes. However, not all forms of response conflict interacted, suggesting that inhibition-related functions acting on response selection are dissociable from those acting on response inhibition. These results suggest that inhibition-related functions for memory and responses are dissociable.
View details for DOI 10.1037/a0016537
View details for Web of Science ID 000269138400016
View details for PubMedID 19686023
View details for PubMedCentralID PMC2848816
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Nocodazole does not synchronize cells: implications for cell-cycle control and whole-culture synchronization
CELL AND TISSUE RESEARCH
2006; 324 (2): 237–42
Abstract
It has been predicted that nocodazole-inhibited cells are not synchronized because nocodazole-arrested cells with a G2-phase amount of DNA would not have a narrow cell-size range reflecting the cell size of some specific, presumably G2-phase, cell-cycle age. Size measurements of nocodazole-inhibited cells now fully confirm this prediction. Further, release from nocodazole inhibition does not produce cells that move through the cell cycle mimicking the passage of normal unperturbed cells through the cell cycle. Nocodazole, an archetypal whole-culture synchronization method, can inhibit growth to produce cells with a G2-phase amount of DNA, but such cells are not synchronized. Cells produced by a selective (i.e., non-whole-culture) method not only have a specific DNA content, but also have a narrow size distribution. The current view of cell-cycle control that is based on methods that are not suitable for cell-cycle analysis must therefore be reconsidered when results are based on whole-culture synchronization.
View details for DOI 10.1007/s00441-005-0118-8
View details for Web of Science ID 000236778800006
View details for PubMedID 16432713