We evaluated the hypothesis that individual differences in working memory capacity are explained by variation in mental effort, persons with low capacity exerting less effort than persons with high capacity. Groups previously rated high and low in working memory capacity performed the reading span task under three levels of incentive. The effort hypothesis holds that low span subjects exert less effort during task performance than do high spans. Subjects' pupil sizes were recorded online during task performance as a measure of mental effort. Both recall performance and pupil diameter were found to be increased under incentives, but were additive with span (incentives increased performance and pupil diameter equivalently for both span groups). Contrary to the effort hypothesis, task-evoked pupillary responses indicated that if anything, low span subjects exert more effort than do high spans.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.2007.00605.xDOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

working memory
12
memory capacity
12
mental effort
8
effort persons
8
effort hypothesis
8
low span
8
span subjects
8
subjects exert
8
exert effort
8
task performance
8

Similar Publications

Introduction: , a protein kinase located on human chromosome 21, plays a role in postembryonic neuronal development and degeneration. Alterations to have been consistently associated with cognitive functioning and neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To describe the relationship between executive functions (EF) and symptom's severity, behavioral problems, and adaptive functioning in autistic preschoolers.

Method: Seventy-six autistic preschoolers (age-range: 37-72 months; SD: 8.67 months) without intellectual disability were assessed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To predict the areas of snail spread in Anhui Province from 1977 to 2023 using machine learning models, and to compare the effectiveness of different machine learning models for prediction of areas of snail spread, so as to provide insights into investigating the trends in areas of snail spread.

Methods: Data pertaining to snail spread in Anhui Province from 1977 to 2023 were collected and a database was created. Five machine learning models were created using the software Matlab R2019b, including support vector regression (SVR), nonlinear autoregressive (NAR) neural network, back propagation (BP) neural network, gated recurrent unit (GRU) neural network and long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network models, and the model fitting effect was evaluated with mean absolute error (MAE), root mean squared error (RMSE) and coefficient of determination ().

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: For clinical implementation of Alzheimer's disease (AD) blood-based biomarkers (BBMs), knowledge of short-term variability, is crucial to ensure safe and correct biomarker interpretation, i.e., to capture changes or treatment effects that lie beyond that of expected short-term variability and considered clinically relevant.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The aim of the study is to analyze and compare the cognitive profile between 59 patients with long-COVID [LC; 30 of them with and 29 without a positive coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) confirmatory test] and 31 patients with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and a matched group of 39 healthy control participants.

Methods: Participants were examined on a battery of neuropsychological tests, including verbal memory, visuospatial abilities, attention, processing speed, verbal fluency, working memory, and visual memory. Anxious-depressive symptomatology was also analyzed and then controlled for possible influence on cognitive performance.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!