Cusp catastrophe models for cognitive workload and fatigue: a comparison of seven task types.

The study introduces a nonlinear paradigm that addresses several unresolved problems concerning cognitive workload and fatigue: (a) how to separate the effects of workload versus fatigue, (b) whether the upper boundaries of cognitive channel capacity are fixed or variable, and how multitasking produces a bottleneck phenomenon, (c) that prolonged time on task can produce performance decrements but also produce improvements in task performance associated with practice and automaticity, and that (d) task switching can alleviate fatigue but could be mentally costly. This study describes two cusp catastrophe models that have become useful for separating the workload and fatigue performance phenomena and explores the role of task switching and multitasking in both performance phenomena. In the experiment, 105 undergraduates completed seven computer-based tasks seven times under one of four experimental conditions: tasks fully alternated, tasks aggregated with the multitask module performed first, aggregated with the multitask module performed last, and where the participants chose the task order themselves.

Cusp catastrophe models for cognitive workload and fatigue in a verbally cued pictorial memory task.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate two cusp catastrophe models for cognitive workload and fatigue. They share similar cubic polynomial structures but derive from different underlying processes and contain variables that contribute to flexibility with respect to load and the ability to compensate for fatigue.

Background: Cognitive workload and fatigue both have a negative impact on performance and have been difficult to separate.

Long-range prediction of epileptic seizures with nonlinear dynamics.

Patients with uncontrolled epilepsy have some significant problems with planning life routines, and thus one goal of the present study was to explore the viability of predicting seizures in time intervals of one week. The second goal was to utilize the principle of dynamic diseases and to assess the viability of a cusp catastrophe model for seizure onset that was proposed by Cerf (2006). A seizure history of 124 weeks from one adult male patient fit both the cusp and fold catastrophe models (R2 = .

Stress enhancement of fear learning in mice is dependent upon stressor type: Effects of sex and ovarian hormones.

In three experiments, chronic stress enhancement of subsequent fear learning was investigated in C57Bl/6 mice. The first experiment focused on the influence of stressor type on subsequent Pavlovian fear learning. Male mice were subjected to 7d of either repeated restraint stress or chronic variable stress before undergoing a fear conditioning procedure with three tone-shock trials.