The rise and fall of durable color-induced attentional bias.

Target and distractor templates play a pivotal role in guiding attentional control during visual search, with the former template facilitating target search and the latter template leading distractor suppression. We first investigated whether task-irrelevant colors could earn their value through color-target contingency in the training phase and bias attention when they became a distractor in search for a singleton shape during the test phase. Colors provided useful information for target selection, with high- and low-informational values, respectively, in Experiments 1 and 2.

Temporal profiles of cortical oscillations in novice performers for goal-directed aiming in a shooting task.

Goal-directed aiming relies on the ability to control attention and visuomotor movements while preparing for motor execution. Research in precision sports has investigated cortical oscillations for supporting expert performance. However, the results may be influenced by adaptive and strategic behaviors after intensive training.

Dissociation of posture remapping and cognitive load in level-2 perspective-taking.

Visuospatial perspective-taking is the foundation for inferring the mental state of another person during social interaction. Although research has shown that dual processes are involved in self-judgment when an avatar is present on screen, it is unknown whether dual independent processes also underlie perspective-taking. During the three experiments in the present study, the participants made laterality judgments according to the perspective of a seated or standing avatar.

Spatially Specific Attention Mechanisms Are Sensitive to Competition during Visual Search.

Extensive studies have focused on selection mechanisms during visual search. One important influence on these mechanisms is the perceptual characteristics of the stimuli. We investigated the impact of perceptual similarity between targets and nontargets (T-N similarity) in a visual search task using EEG.

Let's Play Cards: Multi-Component Cognitive Training With Social Engagement Enhances Executive Control in Older Adults.

Cognitive training and social engagement are two of the routes that potentially improve cognitive functions in older adults. The former targets specific functions so that an intervention can trigger the plasticity and efficiency of the underpinning neural systems, and the latter also provides an environment supportive of social and emotional needs. We investigated whether an integration of the two routes could enhance cognitive functions related to executive control, because no prior research has adopted a theory-driven approach to design a group-based cognitive training program for executive control.

Functional interplay of top-down attention with affective codes during visual short-term memory maintenance.

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) allows individuals to briefly maintain information over time for guiding behaviours. Because the contents of VSTM can be neutral or emotional, top-down influence in VSTM may vary with the affective codes of maintained representations. Here we investigated the neural mechanisms underlying the functional interplay of top-down attention with affective codes in VSTM using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Top-down modulation of alpha power and pattern similarity for threatening representations in visual short-term memory.

Recent studies have shown that top-down attention biases task-relevant representations in visual short-term memory (VSTM). Accumulating evidence has also revealed the modulatory effects of emotional arousal on attentional processing. However, it remains unclear how top-down attention interacts with emotional memoranda in VSTM.

In your shoes or mine? Shifting from other to self perspective is vital for emotional empathy.

Emotional empathy-feeling another person's affective states-entails simulating how one would feel in the same circumstance. Prior research has implicated the role of executive controls and shown a link between visuospatial perspective taking and personal disposition of empathy. No study has investigated how executive control processes involved in perspective shifting relate to emotional empathy.

Dissociative disorders in acute psychiatric inpatients in Taiwan.

Dissociative disorders have been documented to be common psychiatric disorders which can be detected reliably with standardized diagnostic instruments in North American and European psychiatric inpatients and outpatients (20.6% and 18.4%, respectively).

Sensorimotor-Conceptual Integration in Free Walking Enhances Divergent Thinking for Young and Older Adults.

Prior research has shown that free walking can enhance creative thinking. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether bidirectional body-mind links are essential for the positive effect of free walking on creative thinking. Moreover, it is unknown whether the positive effect can be generalized to older adults.

Misattributing the Source of Self-Generated Representations Related to Dissociative and Psychotic Symptoms.

Objective: An intertwined relationship has been found between dissociative and psychotic symptoms, as the two symptom clusters frequently co-occur, suggesting some shared risk factors. Using a source monitoring paradigm, previous studies have shown that patients with schizophrenia made more errors in source monitoring, suggesting that a weakened sense of individuality may be associated with psychotic symptoms. However, no studies have verified a relationship between sense of individuality and dissociation, and it is unclear whether an altered sense of individuality is a shared sociocognitive deficit underlying both dissociation and psychosis.

Switch Function and Pathological Dissociation in Acute Psychiatric Inpatients.

Swift switching, along with atypical ability on updating and inhibition, has been found in non-clinical dissociators. However, whether swift switching is a cognitive endophenotype that intertwines with traumatisation and pathological dissociation remains unknown. Unspecified acute psychiatric patients were recruited to verify a hypothesis that pathological dissociation is associated with swift switching and traumatisation may explain this relationship.

Cumulative traumatization associated with pathological dissociation in acute psychiatric inpatients.

Clinical studies of patients with dissociative disorders and prospective studies of childhood trauma survivors show inconsistent findings regarding the relationship between childhood trauma and dissociation. This study aims to resolve this inconsistency by investigating how dissociation is related to parental dysfunctions, general psychopathology, childhood trauma, and adulthood trauma. Specifically, we focus on the role of cumulative traumatization in pathological and non-taxon dissociation.

Reset a task set after five minutes of mindfulness practice.

This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a brief mindfulness practice on reducing the carryover effect caused by a previous task set and to determine the mechanism for its effectiveness. Experiment 1 showed that a memorized color interfered with subsequent visual search as a singleton distractor only when color was a defining feature for the search target. In Experiment 2, three interventions (scene-viewing, distraction, and mindfulness practice) were implemented across three groups for five minutes between two blocks; color was relevant to search in the first block and irrelevant in the second.

Selection history modulates the effects of dual mechanisms on flanker interference.

The limit of processing capacity and the effectiveness of top-down control are 2 mechanisms that underlie distractor interference in a flanker task. The current study investigates how the interblock selection history shaped by the target number and the predictability of distractor location may modulate the effects of these 2 mechanisms on flanker interference. Experiment 1 showed that the distractor compatibility effect was eliminated when the task array contained 4 or 5 identical targets, which reflected the capacity limit.

Domain-specific control of selective attention.

Previous research has shown that loading information on working memory affects selective attention. However, whether the load effect on selective attention is domain-general or domain-specific remains unresolved. The domain-general effect refers to the findings that load in one content (e.

Attentional load and the consciousness of one's own name.

We investigated how the location of one's own name in a visual display influences its conscious awareness using recall and recognition tests in an inattentional blindness paradigm. The participant's own name or another person's name appeared unexpectedly in the center or the periphery of the display during a critical trial under low- or high-attentional search load. The results showed that the majority of participants detected their names under low load regardless of location and test method.

Perceived object continuity and spontaneous retrieval of features from an inhibited object.

Previous research has shown that attention to an object can trigger the retrieval of features of a preceding object. The present study investigates whether such retrieval would occur to a recently inhibited object. In three experiments, participants saw two successively presented stimuli (S1 and S2) that varied in color and orientation.

Two mechanisms of distractor dilution: visual selection in a continuous flow.

Distractor dilution, which reflects little distractor interference in a context of high display load but easy target processing, has sparked debate between theoretical viewpoints. These two viewpoints can be integrated into a model in which grouping and the efficacy of attention control influence the relative activation strength between the distractor and nontarget representations. In a context in which nontargets and a distractor were presented in separate task-irrelevant regions, the dilution effect was replicated when nontargets were grouped with the target, and the effect was reduced when the distractor was grouped with the target (Experiments 1 to 3).

Prepared or not prepared: top-down modulation on memory of features and feature bindings.

Orienting attention to the to-be-tested representations can enhance representations and protect them from interference. Previous studies have found that this effect on feature and bound representations was comparable despite their difference in stability. This may have occurred because participants were tested in a block design, which is susceptible to participants' effective top-down control on the cued representations based on the predictability of the design.

Strategic control modulates working memory-driven attentional capture.

The current study used a naming task to investigate whether strategic control could modulate the process of attentional capture that is driven by working memory. The use of a naming task to engage working memory eliminates potential strategic perceptual resampling, which may have played a role in several previous studies. After naming a prime, participants performed a selection task in which they judged the direction of a moving target in each trial.

Recovered memory experience in a nonclinical sample is associated with dissociation rather than with aversive experiences.

Different hypotheses exist for the relationship among trauma, dissociation, and recovered memory. According to one view, recovered memory results from dissociation that a survivor adopts as a defense mechanism during a traumatizing event to avoid emotional pain. From this perspective, trauma is a necessary antecedent to relate dissociative symptoms with recovered memory.

Attentional modulation of perceptual comparison for feature binding.

We investigated the neural correlates of attentional modulation in the perceptual comparison process for detecting feature-binding changes in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment. Participants performed a variant of a cued change detection task. They viewed a memory array, a spatial retro-cue, and later a probe array.

Forgetting the unforgotten affective autobiographical memories in nonclinical dissociators.

Inefficient memory inhibition has been observed in nonclinical and clinical dissociators. Paradoxically, dissociators also report unusual forgetfulness. Investigating how forgetting emerges in dissociators may uncover the antecedents for their self-report memory problems.

Relative salience affects the process of detecting changes in orientation and luminance.

This study tests the effect of relative saliency on perceptual comparison and decision processes in the context of change detection in which distinct visual mechanisms process two features (e.g., luminance and orientation).