Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience

Studying chess experts helps researchers understand how intensive practice shapes thinking skills. Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adjust thoughts when rules or tasks change. Working memory is the ability to hold and use information over short periods. This study compared cognitive flexibility and working memory precision between adolescent chess players and non-players. Twenty-four professional chess players and twenty-five controls completed two novel behavioral tasks. Chess players showed better accuracy in both tasks than controls. They adapted more efficiently when rules changed during a continuous learning task. They also remembered facial expressions more precisely in a working memory task. Learning rates in the flexibility task did not differ between groups. These results indicate that chess expertise may improve rule-guided flexibility and visual working memory precision in adolescents.

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to change the way of responding when the demands of the environment change. This study tested how cognitive flexibility develops across the lifespan. We used a new computerized task that gives a continuous score instead of just right or wrong answers. 221 healthy adults aged 18 to 71 completed the Continuous-score Probabilistic Reversal Learning Test (CPRLT). We calculated mean absolute error and adjusted error for rule-based learning, and fitted a Rescorla-Wagner model to estimate each persons learning rate (alpha) for reward-based learning. All three scores have one breakpoint, performance improved rapidly from childhood to young adulthood, then declined slowly. Rule-based learning peaked around age 20. Reward-based learning peaked earlier, around age 18. This suggests that reward-based learning matures before rule-based learning. The pattern fits with brain development: reward circuits mature earlier, while prefrontal regions for rule-based learning develop later. Our continuous measure captured this difference, which binary tasks would miss.

Although a substantial body of evidence has demonstrated that emotional interference affects cognitive performance, relatively little is known about its temporal evolution and the respective brain regions underlying its regulation. The present study investigated the temporal dynamics of emotional interference and the contribution of prefrontal regions involved in its regulation. Forty-eight participants completed a 2-back task and a Set-switching task under neutral and negative emotional conditions while receiving sham, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), or ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) stimulation. Stimulation was administered either online during task performance or after a 5 min pre-task period. Consistent with previous findings, negative emotions impaired executive performance, particularly during high-demand updating conditions. Critically, time-resolved analyses revealed that emotional interference evolved dynamically throughout task performance and was differentially modulated by prefrontal stimulation. The most consistent stimulation effects emerged after approximately 10 minutes of cumulative stimulation exposure and varied as a function of the stimulation site, executive-control demands, and stimulation timing. Notably, online stimulation produced more consistent modulation than pre-task stimulation. Together, these findings indicate that both emotional interference and its neuromodulation are dynamic processes. More broadly, they suggest that the contribution of prefrontal control systems to emotion-cognition interactions may be better understood through their temporal evolution rather than through static measures of performance alone.

Ostracism (i.e., social exclusion) threatens social security and individuals who are hypersensitive to it may face long-term negative mental health consequences. Clarifying how self-reported distress and neural responses to ostracism unfold moment-by-moment and across varying levels of individual traits may help better understand what contributes to hypersensitivity. To this objective, the current study employed a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) adapted Cyberball task and single-trial analytic techniques in a sample of 53 college students (aged 18-22 years). Results confirmed that Cyberball induced ostracism increased self-reported distress and neural activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), a region associated with emotion regulation. Self-reported distress varied with differences in social anxiety and need for belonging. Moreover, vlPFC activity sensitized across exclusion-specific trials and this neural sensitization was differentially modulated by social anxiety, need for belonging, and personality growth mindset. The current study highlights the value of single-trial approaches for capturing the nuanced temporal dynamics of ostracism responses. Additionally, it underscores the importance of examining how individual differences shape immediate responses to ostracism to better understand their association with downstream, longer-term consequences.

Audiovisual cues ("bells and whistles") are ubiquitous in commercial gambling products. Pairing wins with sound and light cues in laboratory-based gambling paradigms increases risky choice, but the neurocognitive basis of this effect is unclear. Here we compared patterns of neural activation using functional MRI in healthy volunteers (n = 31) while they performed a two-choice lottery task. Reward-paired cues were either present or absent in a mixed-block, event-related design. As predicted, participants made riskier choices on cued trials. Choice latencies were also longer when cues were present, particularly on trials following a win. Activity within the nucleus accumbens and orbitofrontal cortex was greater during the decision phase when participants made risky choices. Nucleus accumbens signal was also greater when participants were anticipating risky outcomes, and in response to risky wins. Contrary to our pre-registered hypotheses, cue condition did not alter patterns of activity across any task phase, in either of these a priori regions of interest. As such, cue-induced risky choice does not appear to be driven by altered representation of risk or value within this canonically reward-sensitive circuitry. Instead, exploratory analyses revealed that the anterior insula was selectively activated by cued, risky wins. Such activation may signal the saliency of these events, or their emotional impact, and may reflect one mechanism through which cue-induced craving develops in vulnerable individuals.

Disordered eating attitudes exist on a continuum that extends well below clinical diagnostic thresholds, yet the cognitive correlates of this non-clinical variation remain incompletely understood. Previous research linking executive functioning to disordered eating in non-clinical samples has relied almost exclusively on self-report questionnaire measures of executive function, which show weak correspondence with performance-based assessments. This methodological reliance leaves open the question of how objective executive performance relates to eating behavior across the spectrum. The present study addressed this gap by examining the association between performance-based measures of executive function and disordered eating attitudes in a non-clinical sample of 243 university students via an online experiment, using a dimensional approach consistent with the Research Domain Criteria framework. Participants completed established neurocognitive tasks covering three executive function domains: working memory was assessed with Digit Span and an N-back task, inhibitory control with a Go/No-Go task, and cognitive flexibility with the Card Sorting Task. Disordered eating attitudes were indexed using the EAT-26 total score and its subscales. A notable correlation was identified between cognitive flexibility and disordered eating attitudes, while working memory and inhibitory control exhibited no such association. Overall, our findings provide evidence for associations between executive functioning and disordered eating attitudes in a non-clinical sample.

Pupillometry is commonly used to assess workload and fatigue, but its interpretation in applied, continuous-control tasks remains unclear because pupil responses are strongly shaped by task context and often lack a theory-guided interpretive basis. The Compensatory Control Model and Locus Coeruleus-Norepinephrine system offer complementary frameworks for interpreting pupil dynamics in relation to regulatory effort and engagement under sustained cognitive demand. We aimed to examine how tonic and phasic pupil dynamics reflect compensatory regulation following sustained cognitive demand, and how these dynamics relate to subsequent performance during continuous motor control. Participants completed two sessions consisting of a low- versus high- demand working-memory task followed by a joystick-based continuous motor-control task. Linear mixed-effects models tested demand effects on pupil dynamics and behavior and evaluated trial- level pupil-performance associations. Prior high demand produced small and specific changes in motor-control performance. Task-evoked pupil response showed effects of engagement dependent on prior demand and small associations with movement timing and accuracy. Our results show that pupil dynamics sensitively reflect sustained cognitive demand, but their trial-level predictive value for subsequent continuous motor performance is limited.

Bayesian accounts of autism propose that perception is less influenced by prior expectations and more strongly driven by incoming sensory information in autistic than non-autistic individuals, with this altered balance cascading through the cognitive hierarchy to also influence higher cognitive functions. However, empirical support for these accounts remains mixed. Previous work has mostly tested these ideas in the context of objective environmental statistics, but recent work suggests that it may be subjective experience of structure, rather than structure itself, that shapes perceptual processing. Characterising these subjective experiences in autistic individuals is therefore crucial for understanding predictive processing in autism. In the present study, we thus examined subjective experience of statistical structure in autistic and non-autistic adults and tested how this experience relates to perceptual decisions. Participants were exposed to statistical regularities between action cues and visual stimuli (shapes), and we measured their speed and accuracy in reporting which shape they had seen. At the end of the study, participants were asked to estimate the probability and rate their surprise for each action-shape combination. Autistic and non-autistic participants showed similar subjective probability and surprise ratings and a comparable relationship between these ratings and perceptual decisions. Across participants, subjective ratings explained perceptual decisions better than objective structure. Together, these findings show that autistic and non-autistic adults experience statistical structure similarly, with these experiences exerting a similar influence on perceptual decisions - therefore suggesting that subjective experience plays a comparable role in predictive processing in autistic and non-autistic adults.

Underlying the very notion of choice is the fundamental idea of free-will, which is challenged by decision-neuroscience aiming to explain and predict choices using interactions of neurons. The question of whether any choice is truly a free-choice and born out of free-will has long been a subject of philosophical debate. In this work, we do not take a position on this debate, rather investigating the subjective experience of free-will, whose existence is more universally accepted. We had healthy participants report the level of their experienced free-will while performing value-based risky decision-making task to find the neural and behavioral correlates of this experience. We identified regions in mid-cingulum and middle frontal gyrus showing positive association with self-reported free-will as well as a region in hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus showing a negative association. The requirement to report the experience of free-will was associated with a higher BOLD signal in striatum during decision-making. Behaviorally, we found a positive trend between RT and free-will. While our sample size is small, these results help forming hypotheses for further studies with larger cohorts and provide a proof-of-concept for the investigations of neural and behavioral mechanisms of the subjective experience of free-will in decision research.

The ability to seek reward and avoid punishment is a fundamental survival instinct. In natural environments, however, the statistics of rewards and punishments can change independently of one another. In addition, individuals experiencing anxiety and depression may be selectively biased to process rewards and punishments differently. Here, we examine how humans adapt their behavior in such dynamic environments, using a task where cues are associated with independently changing probabilities of rewards (wins) and punishments (losses). We demonstrate that participants dynamically adjust their learning rates based on the relative volatility of each valence. Neuroimaging reveals that this behavioral flexibility is supported by valence-specific segregation of volatility signals within distinct subregions of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC: perigenual and dorsal). Furthermore, individuals with higher levels of anxiety and depression exhibit a relative reduction in loss-volatility learning adaptation, accompanied by less distinct neural encoding of win and loss volatility in both ACC subregions. Together, our findings indicate that flexible adaptation to separate reward and punishment contingencies relies on distinct, valence-specific tracking of volatility within the prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest a potential computational and neuroanatomical framework for understanding maladaptive learning in affective disorders.

Attention abilities, that are critical for most real-life cognitive task, can vary greatly across individuals. A plethora of behavioral and neural metric are commonly utilized to quantify attention; however, these often yield inconsistent and non-replicable results, raising questions as to which measures reliably account for and capture individual differences. To address this tension, here we employed a within-subject cross-paradigm design and quantified both behavioral and EEG-based neural measures associated with attention functioning, to test which measures converged across a gradient of artificial and ecological tasks. We found Inter-Subject Correlation (ISC), which quantifies the similarity in the pattern of neural response across individuals, captured consistent individual differences across both an artificial (Auditory Oddball) and ecological (Attention to Speech) task, with some correlation with performance. Moreover, we found that P300 neural responses to surprising events were qualitatively similar across artificial and ecological tasks, supporting their generalization across contexts. Interestingly, traditional cognitive-behavioral measures of attention - both from speeded response-time tasks and self-report of ADHD symptoms (ASRS) were not correlated with each other nor did they explain variance in neural metrics, nor were they explained by variation in general cognitive abilities (working memory or fluid intelligence). While these results demonstrate the shortcomings of many established measures of attention to generalize across contexts, they also point to the potential of neural measures, and specifically ISC, to serve as reliable indicators of individual differences and to bridge the gap between artificial and ecological studies of attention functioning.

BACKGROUND: An individual's adaptation to threatening environments under uncertainty is reflected in stress responses. Predictability (the ability to anticipate events) and controllability (the ability to control outcomes) are central to how one adapts, yet their joint influence on aversive learning remains unclear. METHODS: Thirty healthy adults completed a probabilistic aversive learning task in which cue-outcome contingencies varied across levels of predictability and controllability, i.e. whether shock intensity depended on prediction accuracy. Prediction accuracy, reaction time, subjective stress ratings, and skin conductance responses were recorded throughout. Trial-wise learning dynamics were estimated using the Volatile Kalman Filter. RESULTS: Prediction accuracy reduced as environments became less predictable and negatively associated with higher learning rates across predictability levels, with the strongest relationship observed in highly predictable blocks. Skin conductance responses showed that moderately predictable environments elicited responses like those in highly predictable environments when accurate predictions reduced shock intensity, but resembled responses in unpredictable environments when shock intensity was uncontrollable. Model comparison revealed a double dissociation between subjective stress ratings and skin conductance responses. Subjective ratings were best explained by model-derived volatility when prediction accuracy determined shock intensity and by belief uncertainty when it was independent of prediction accuracy, whereas skin conductance responses showed the reverse pattern. Reaction times were best explained by belief uncertainty when predictions influenced shock intensity. Higher anxiety was associated with elevated learning rates in highly and moderately predictable blocks when predictions did not control shock intensity.

Creative ideation involves a dynamic exchange between exploring new idea categories and exploiting familiar ones, reflecting optimal foraging principles. Although interoceptive signals, particularly cardiac activity, are associated with differences in attention and cognitive control, their role in explore-exploit dynamics during creative idea generation remains unknown. Recording both electroencephalography (EEG) and electrocardiography (ECG) data, we used convolution general linear models to examine cardiac-brain interactions underlying semantic exploration and exploitation during creative idea generation, in both spontaneous (self-selected) and directed (externally cued) conditions. Cardiac deceleration predicted ideation time: this relationship scaled nonlinearly during exploration (category switching), but linearly during exploitation (category persistence), in both conditions. Cardiac deceleration did not predict semantic distance (between response and cue word) or response accuracy during the directed condition, suggesting that heart rate slowing reflects cognitive effort allocation rather than ideational content. Cardiac phase systematically biased explore-exploit dynamics: spontaneous switching and accurate directed-switching were preferentially associated with diastolic phases and parieto-occipital alpha (8-12 Hz) desynchronization, whereas category persistence was associated with systolic phase timing and frontal theta (4-6 Hz) synchronization. The former activity was coupled to higher CD, as expected. However, the latter time-frequency activity was linked to responses timed to systole. These findings suggest that creative ideation unfolds through embodied cardiac-cortical coordination, whereby diastolic states are associated with flexible semantic exploration and alpha-related attentional dynamics, whereas systolic states are associated with exploitative persistence and theta-related control processes. This suggests interoceptive rhythms as temporal scaffolding that structures when and how ideas emerge, fundamentally expanding creativity neuroscience beyond purely cortical models.

Language production requires the coordination of multiple cognitive processes. The ability to anticipate and override a habitual response in favor of a contextually-appropriate response are key subprocesses of cognitive control which enable speakers to communicate effectively. Word retrieval involves the co-activation of semantically related alternatives from which the speaker must select the appropriate target representation. Although cognitive control mechanisms have been proposed to contribute to resolving semantic interference during language production, the nature of these control processes remain unclear. Studies investigating the temporal dynamics of cognitive control during decision making tasks have led to a distinction between two operating processes: proactive control, initiated prior to the occurrence of conflict, and reactive control recruited after conflict is detected. We investigated the roles of proactive and reactive control in resolving interference between competing linguistic representations during word retrieval. We analyzed congruency sequence effects combined with delta-plot distributional analyses to dissociate potential adjustments in proactive versus reactive cognitive control in a picture-naming task manipulating semantic context compared to a minimally-linguistic Stroop-like paradigm. Reaction time distributional properties following semantically related trials revealed the engagement of proactive control in semantic interference resolution during word retrieval in the PWI task. In contrast, reactive inhibitory control was engaged in resolving semantic interference following low conflict trials. This distinction was not present in the minimally-linguistic task, which did not appear to engage adaptive control to the same extent. These findings demonstrate that both proactive and reactive cognitive control mechanisms contribute to language production, and are engaged dynamically, adjusting trial-by-trial to resolve semantic interference during word retrieval. In addition, our study provides important insight into the comparison of language with other cognitive domains and positions linguistic paradigms as being instrumental in the study of cognitive control dynamics.

Each day we make dozens of decisions about food. These choices are informed not only by information that we receive from our senses, but also by our memories, values, cultural norms, and goals. Evidence accumulation models have been proposed to explain how we transform these disparate sources of information into dietary choices and their corresponding motor actions. These models describe decisions arising from a noisy integration of decisional evidence until a criterion is reached. We investigated whether the centroparietal positivity (CPP), an event-related potential component proposed as a neural correlate of evidence accumulation during perceptual judgements, also traces accumulation trajectories during dietary decisions. Participants (N = 110) made speeded Yes/No judgements about food images relating to three attributes (healthiness, tastiness, and willingness to eat) while electroencephalography was recorded. They subsequently provided continuous ratings for each attribute. After applying signal deconvolution techniques, CPP waveforms exhibited a close correspondence to hypothesised evidence accumulation trajectories, showing steeper amplitude build-up rates for both faster decisions and continuous ratings more strongly in favour of one's categorical choice. Our findings provide clear support for a neurally instantiated evidence accumulation process that integrates multiple sources of information to produce dietary decisions.

Creative performance fluctuates from moment to moment, suggesting that it depends partly on transient internal states present before creative thinking begins. Although such fluctuations have been identified in central neural activity, it remains unclear whether they are also reflected in autonomic physiology. We examined whether cardiac and electrodermal activity during a brief pre-trial resting period was associated with subsequent creative performance. Photoplethysmography, electrocardiography, and electrodermal activity were recorded while 28 participants completed the Alternative Uses Test and Fusion Innovation Test, assessing divergent and convergent creative thinking, respectively. Data from 27 participants was included in the analyses. Heart rate, heart rate variability, tonic skin conductance level, and phasic skin conductance activity were extracted from observation windows ranging from 11 to 30 s within a 30-s pre-trial rest period. Trial-level creativity was evaluated using GPT-based ratings of novelty, feasibility, and goal attainment. Linear mixed-effects models showed that higher pre-trial tonic skin conductance level was consistently associated with better subsequent creative performance across tasks, with overall model fit peaking at a 21-s observation window. Permutation-based feature-importance analysis provided convergent support for the contribution of tonic skin conductance, whereas the cardiac and phasic electrodermal indicators showed no reliable independent associations. However, the model explained only a small proportion of behavioral variance. These findings suggest that tonic sympathetic arousal reflects a momentary physiological state associated with creativity potential, while autonomic signals alone remain insufficient for accurate individual-level prediction.

In this study, we investigated the neural and behavioral basis of motivationally objective versus subjective value-based decisions. Using a within-subject fMRI design, healthy participants performed a risky decision-making task that elicited different levels of subjectivity in decision-making in two task conditions. In the Best or objective condition, choices were rewarded only when they were objectively best on a given trial, incentivizing decisions based on externally specified per-trial point maximization. In the Choice or subjective condition, participants received the reward associated with the chosen option, irrespective of how it compared to the unchosen option, allowing greater freedom to exercise subjective preferences in decision policy. Behaviorally, participants relied more on objectively optimal policy in the Best than the Choice condition. There was also a greater consensus across participants in behaviorally displayed and self-reported policies in the Best condition as well as a greater commitment to a single policy by individual participants in this condition, further confirming more objective behavior in the Best condition, compared to Choice. Moreover, behavioral inferences showed a greater agreement with self-report in the Best condition. Our fMRI results showed that the decision-making in Choice, relative to the Best condition, was associated with greater BOLD response in mid-cingulum/posterior cingulate cortex and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, suggesting their involvement in less externally constrained, or motivationally subjective, decision-making.

Cognitive flexibility is an executive function that allows individuals to adjust behaviour in response to changing environmental demands. We assessed volitional switching under uncertainty, without rule-based learning, in the Change Your Mind task. Nineteen patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), 19 patients with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and matched control participants (20 per group) completed the task whilst undergoing a functional MRI scan. The task was a two-alternative forced choice paradigm where each stimulus was presented twice successively, with spurious feedback following the first presentation. This allowed participants the opportunity to repeat or change their response. Participants with ADHD changed their response more frequently than controls following a previously correct response, associated with reduced accuracy on the second trial. This was accompanied with smaller differences between change and repeat trials in the superior frontal gyrus, paracingulate gyrus and frontal pole compared to controls. Participants with OCD did not differ from healthy controls in their performance but exhibited greater activity on both change and repeat trials in the pre- and postcentral gyri than controls. These results point to distinct neurobehavioural differences in patients with ADHD and OCD underlying what is often termed more broadly inflexible behaviour.

Serotonin and dopamine make dissociable contributions to reinforcement learning (RL) sub-components, yet we lack neural biomarkers capable of detecting their differential effects. Here, we report the development of a five-task EEG battery designed to probe these dissociable RL mechanisms. Using a model-free analytical approach in healthy volunteers, we identify distinct neural markers across probabilistic instrumental learning, motivational vigour, Pavlovian-instrumental transfer, reversal learning, and a working memory-RL task. A centro-parietal P300 tracked incremental learning across three paradigms and showed cross-task convergent validity. Readiness potentials and beta suppression indexed value-based motor preparation, while frontal theta captured Pavlovian-instrumental conflict. The largely independent pattern across markers supports the battery's capacity to detect selective pharmacological effects on distinct neural systems.

Despite the importance of sustaining attention focus throughout a task, sustained attention research demonstrates a rapid decline of task-focus with time-on-task. Separate research body highlights perceptual load as critical determinant of focused attention, showing that increased perceptual load draws more neural energy into task-relevant processing (Bruckmaier et al., 2020) and improves attention focus (Lavie, 2005). However, the effect of perceptual load on the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying time-on-task impact on sustained attention remains unknown. This was the aim of the present study. Participants performed a gradual continuous-performance task, detecting infrequent mountain scenes, among streams of city scenes, under either high or low perceptual load (with or without overlaid salt-and-pepper noise, respectively). EEG was recorded and parameterised into periodic and aperiodic components; the aperiodic 1/f slope linked with excitation-inhibition (E/I) balance: steeper slopes reflecting reduced E/I ratio (Gao et al., 2017). Time-on-task resulted in a wide-spread increase in alpha power, and a steeper 1/f slope in a left temporal-parietal cluster, accompanied by reduced detection sensitivity and increased response variability, as well as increased mind wandering, with reduced thoughts detail. Perceptual load improved task focus, as indexed by reduced mind wandering, but exacerbated the effect of time-on-task on detection sensitivity, and the 1/f slope, which was steeper with time-on-task in a right parieto-occipital cluster with increased load. Overall, the findings suggest that sustained attention decline with time-on-task can be attributed to depletion of neural energy needed for excitatory signalling, which is further drained with increased processing demands in tasks of high perceptual load.