Combining Neural and Behavioral Measures Enhances Adaptive Training.

Adaptive training adjusts a training task with the goal of improving learning outcomes. Adaptive training has been shown to improve human performance in attention, working memory capacity, and motor control tasks. Additionally, correlations have been observed between neural EEG spectral features (4-13 Hz) and the performance of some cognitive tasks.

Need for Cognition Is Positively Related to Promotion Focus and Negatively Related to Prevention Focus.

Need for cognition (NFC) and regulatory focus (RF) are important variables with individual differences relevant to motivation and goal pursuit. These constructs are widely used in the literature, often separately; no work has simultaneously examined the need for cognition scale (NCS) and Lockwood's general regulatory focus measure (GRFM). Here, we explore shared theoretical underpinnings of the two constructs and assess whether they may be driven by common underlying factors.

Correct response negativity may reflect subjective value of reaction time under regulatory fit in a speed-rewarded task.

Error-related negativity (ERN), an electroencephalogram (EEG) component following an erroneous response, has been associated with the subjective motivational relevance of error commission. A smaller EEG event, the correct response negativity (CRN), occurs after a correct response. It is unclear why correct behavior evokes a neural response similar to error commission.

Prevention Focus Relates to Performance on a Loss-Framed Inhibitory Control Task.

Information framing can be critical to the impact of information and can affect individuals differently. One contributing factor is a person's regulatory focus, which describes their focus on achieving gains vs. avoiding losses.

Emotion Regulation in the Prisoner's Dilemma: Effects of Reappraisal on Behavioral Measures and Cardiovascular Measures of Challenge and Threat.

The current study examines cooperation and cardiovascular responses in individuals that were defected on by their opponent in the first round of an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. In this scenario, participants were either primed with the emotion regulation strategy of reappraisal or no emotion regulation strategy, and their opponent either expressed an amused smile or a polite smile after the results were presented. We found that cooperation behavior decreased in the no emotion regulation group when the opponent expressed an amused smile compared to a polite smile.

Virtual Human Role Players for Studying Social Factors in Organizational Decision Making.

The cyber domain of military operations presents many challenges. A unique element is the social dynamic between cyber operators and their leadership because of the novel subject matter expertise involved in conducting technical cyber tasks, so there will be situations where senior leaders might have much less domain knowledge or no experience at all relative to the warfighters who report to them. Nonetheless, it will be important for junior cyber operators to convey convincing information relevant to a mission in order to persuade or influence a leader to make informed decisions.

Individual differences in mental rotation: piecemeal versus holistic processing.

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that imagery ability and figural complexity interact to affect the choice of mental rotation strategies. Participants performed the Shepard and Metzler (1971) mental rotation task. On half of the trials, the 3-D figures were manipulated to create "fragmented" figures, with some cubes missing.

Spatial reasoning with external visualizations: what matters is what you see, not whether you interact.

Three experiments examined the effects of interactive visualizations and spatial abilities on a task requiring participants to infer and draw cross sections of a three-dimensional (3D) object. The experiments manipulated whether participants could interactively control a virtual 3D visualization of the object while performing the task, and compared participants who were allowed interactive control of the visualization to those who were not allowed control. In Experiment 1, interactivity produced better performance than passive viewing, but the advantage of interactivity disappeared in Experiment 2 when visual input for the two conditions in a yoked design was equalized.