Showing papers in "The Open Behavioral Science Journal in 2013"
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of anxiety on attentional control theory were explored in Parametric Go/No-Go and n-back tasks, as well as the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the results indicated that anxiety leads to decay in processing efficiency, but not in performance effectiveness, across all three Central Executive functions (inhibition, set-shifting and updating).
Abstract: The Attentional Control Theory (ACT) proposes that high-anxious individuals maintain performance effectiveness (accuracy) at the expense of processing efficiency (response time), in particular, the two central executive functions of inhibition and shifting. In contrast, research has generally failed to consider the third executive function which relates to the function of updating. In the current study, seventy-five participants completed the Parametric Go/No-Go and n-back tasks, as well as the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory in order to explore the effects of anxiety on attention. Results indicated that anxiety lead to decay in processing efficiency, but not in performance effectiveness, across all three Central Executive functions (inhibition, set-shifting and updating). Interestingly, participants with high levels of trait anxiety also exhibited impaired performance effectiveness on the n-back task designed to measure the updating function. Findings are discussed in relation to developing a new model of ACT that also includes the role of preattentive processes and dual-task coordination when exploring the effects of anxiety on task performance.
23 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigated the attentional demands while performing a blind navigation task in young and elderly subjects, and found that older adults responded to auditory signals by saying "top" as quickly as possible without altering their gait.
Abstract: This study sought to investigate the attentional demands while performing a blind navigation task in young and elderly subjects. Fourteen subjects of age 20 to 32 years and 10 subjects of age 62 to 80 years participated in the experience. Blinded navigation task consisted of visually identifying and then walking blindly towards a target 8 meters ahead. To measure attentional demands during navigating, participants were asked to respond to auditory signals by saying "top" as quickly as possible without altering their gait. Reaction times were longer in the older adults and approaching the target for the two groups. Navigation measures (traveled distance, angular deviation and body rotation) were significantly larger in older than young adults. Interestingly, the dual-task leads both groups to walk significantly further which brought the young subjects closer to the target and elderly subjects further from the target.
8 citations
TL;DR: Differential social motivation may contribute to distinctive residential patterns in rodents by measuring social motivation in a gregarious social species of vole, the prairie voles, and in a solitary species, the meadow vole.
Abstract: The residential style of rodents varies across and within species from colonial to solitary and territorial (1). A mechanism that supports this behavioral distinction might be differential levels of social motivation rather than explicit species-typical social behavior. Accordingly, socially motivated animals learn seeking behavior that leads to a colonial residential pattern and socially unmotivated animals do not learn this behavior and remain solitary. The present experi- ments test this hypothesis by measuring social motivation in a gregarious social species of vole, the prairie vole, and in a solitary species, the meadow vole. Although their explicit social behavior was similar, Prairie voles readily learned to per- form an instrumental response for access to a target vole while meadow voles did not. Neither the estrus status nor the sex of the target affected instrumental responding in either species. In sum, differential social motivation may contribute to distinctive residential patterns in rodents.
7 citations