Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Norwegian Centre for Mental Disorders Research (NORMENT), KG Jebsen Centre for Psychosis Research, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2018 Oct;18(5):1049-1063. doi: 10.3758/s13415-018-0621-5.
During the execution of a cognitive task, the brain maintains contextual information to guide behavior and achieve desired goals. The AX-Continuous Performance Task is used to study proactive versus reactive cognitive control. Young adults tend to behave proactively in standard testing conditions. However, it remains unclear how interindividual variability (e.g., in cognitive and motivational factors) may drive people into more reactive or proactive control under the same task demands. We investigated the use of control strategies in a large population of healthy young adults. We computed the proactive behavioral index and consequently divided participants into proactive, reactive, and intermediate groups. We found that reactive participants were generally slower, presented lower context sensitivity, and larger response variability. Pupillary changes and blink rate index cognitive effort allocation. We measured, concomitantly to the task, the pupil size and frequency of blinks associated with the cue maintenance and response intervals. During the cue period, nonfrequent, nontarget cues led to increased pupil dilation and number of blinks in all participants. During the response interval, we found more errors and increased pupil dilation to the probe when all participants had to overcome a response bias generated by the frequent cue. Only reactive participants showed larger response-related pupil when they had to overcome a response bias related to the frequent probe. Contrary to expectations, groups did not differ in ocular measures in the cue period. In conclusion, interindividual differences in cognitive control between healthy adults can be mapped onto different patterns of effort allocation indexed by the pupil.
在执行认知任务时，大脑会保留上下文信息来指导行为并实现预期目标。AX 连续性能任务用于研究主动与被动认知控制。在标准测试条件下，年轻人往往表现出主动行为。然而，在相同的任务要求下，个体间的差异（例如认知和动机因素）如何导致人们采取更主动或更被动的控制方式仍不清楚。我们研究了在大量健康年轻成年人中控制策略的使用。我们计算了主动行为指数，随后将参与者分为主动、被动和中间组。我们发现，被动参与者通常较慢，上下文敏感度较低，反应变异性较大。瞳孔变化和眨眼率指数反映认知努力分配。我们在任务进行的同时测量了与线索保持和反应间隔相关的瞳孔大小和眨眼频率。在线索期间，非频繁、非目标线索会导致所有参与者的瞳孔扩张和眨眼次数增加。在反应间隔期间，当所有参与者都必须克服由频繁线索产生的反应偏差时，我们发现更多的错误和对探针的瞳孔扩张增加。只有被动参与者在必须克服与频繁探针相关的反应偏差时，才会表现出更大的与反应相关的瞳孔。与预期相反，各组在线索期间的眼部测量值没有差异。总之，健康成年人之间的认知控制个体差异可以映射到由瞳孔索引的不同努力分配模式上。
