Differential Impact of Methamphetamine Dependence and Social Media Overuse on Cognitive Control: Based on the Dual Mechanisms of Control Theory.

Cognitive control impairments contribute to the onset and maintenance of both substance and behavioral addictions. Guided by the Dual Mechanisms of Control framework, this study examined cognitive control deficits in methamphetamine-dependent individuals and those who overuse social media, each compared to a matched control group. Across two experiments, participants completed an operational working memory span task (Experiment 1) to assess their cognitive control resources, and a modified AX-Continuous Performance Test (AX-CPT, Experiment 2) to evaluate their inhibition-based proactive and reactive control.

Spontaneous coordination with self-commitment: How the presence of others alters the strength, goal and timing of commitment.

Commitment is a paradoxical feature of human behavior, often seen as both an irrational bias and a virtue for achieving goals. This study investigates its social roots, revealing how social contexts shape the strength, content, and timing of self-commitment, even in individual tasks. Through a series of game-like experiments, participants pursued one of two equally desirable goals via sequential actions under varied social conditions: alone in a private room (Experiment 1), alongside an optimal reinforcement learning (RL) agent (Experiment 2) or another human (Experiment 3) on a shared display, or alone with a mere passive observer present (Experiment 4).

Dissecting Social Working Memory: Neural and Behavioral Evidence for Externally and Internally Oriented Components.

Social working memory (SWM)-the ability to maintain and manipulate social information in the brain-plays a crucial role in social interactions. However, research on SWM is still in its infancy and is often treated as a unitary construct. In the present study, we propose that SWM can be conceptualized as having two relatively independent components: "externally oriented SWM" (e-SWM) and "internally oriented SWM" (i-SWM).

Limited capacity for the visual working memory-driven access to visual awareness.

Previous studies have shown that sensory information matching the content of visual working memory (VWM) gains prioritized access into awareness. While these studies primarily focused on a single stimulus, it remains unclear whether the prioritization persists when multiple items are memorized. Using a breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm, the current study systematically investigated the time taken to detect a suppressed stimulus when two items were maintained in VWM.

PATE Model: A 30-Year Review and Analysis of Gestural Interaction Research.

ObjectiveThis study aimed to conduct a systematic literature review of gestural interaction research by tracing its evolution from a focus on functionality and performance toward a human-centered paradigm, and to develop a theoretical framework that structures the understanding of gestural interaction processes.BackgroundDespite extensive research, no comprehensive review has yet been conducted on gestural interaction from a human-centered perspective, highlighting the need for a structured synthesis to inform design and evaluation practices.MethodWe first developed a conceptual Person-Action-Target-Environment (PATE) model for gestural interaction.

Expectation violation enhances short-term source memory.

Recent studies of short-term source amnesia demonstrated that source information is rapidly forgotten in memory, reflecting a highly selective mode of memory encoding. In this study, we explored the flexibility of memory selection by investigating whether short-term source amnesia is affected by expectation violations. In seven experiments, we first replicated the short-term source amnesia phenomenon and then induced various forms of expectation violations.

Event cache: An independent component in working memory.

Working memory (WM) has been a major focus of cognitive science and neuroscience for the past 50 years. While most WM research has centered on the mechanisms of objects, there has been a lack of investigation into the cognitive and neural mechanisms of events, which are the building blocks of our experience. Using confirmatory factor analysis, psychophysical experiments, and resting-state and task functional magnetic resonance imaging methods, our study demonstrated that events have an independent storage space within WM, named as event cache, with distinct neural correlates compared to object storage in WM.

How Prosocial Modeling Promotes Children's Sharing: A Goal Contagion Account.

While a wealth of research evidence has highlighted the significant impact of prosocial modeling on shaping children's sharing behavior, the mechanism underlying this effect remains less understood. Here we consider the goal contagion account whereby children recognize the prosocial goal of others' actions and these goals are contagious, encouraging children to subsequently be more willing to engage in prosocial behaviors themselves. Accordingly, children's prosocial modeling may generalize across different types of prosocial behaviors that share the same prosocial goal.

Good to see you R2-D2: Inducing spontaneous perspective-taking towards non-human agents through human-like gaze and reach.

Observing the world from another's perspective is a fundamental social cognitive ability essential for human cooperation. With the increasing prevalence of intelligent systems in our society, highly intelligent social robots such as R2-D2 in Star Wars is becoming a reality, thus it is compelling to explore how this capability can extend from humans to non-human agents. Although previous research indicates that a human-like appearance might facilitate this extension, our study contends that human-like actions are more critical.

Testing the memory encoding cost theory using the multiple cues paradigm.

Recent developments have introduced the Memory Encoding Cost (MEC) theory to explain the role of attention in exogenous spatial cueing effects. According to this theory, the cost effect (when comparing invalid to neutral cues) arises from attentional suppression resulting from memory encoding of the cue. Conversely, the benefit effect (when comparing valid to neutral cues) is thought to result from a combination of attentional facilitation caused by the cue and encoding-related attentional suppression.

Holding the product of visual working memory integration: The role of attention.

The involuntary integration of discrete fragments into meaningful units (e.g., Gestalt) within visual working memory (VWM) is a crucial process in mind.

Integrated encoding of relations and objects in visual working memory.

Comprehensive understanding of visual scenes necessitates grasping the relations among visual objects. Given the potentially pivotal role of visual working memory (VWM) in processing visual relations, it is important to investigate the representation of relations in VWM. In our previous study, we proposed the integrated storage hypothesis, postulating that relations and objects are stored together as an integrated structured representation in VWM.

Involuntary and voluntary processes compete for entering the focus of attention of working memory.

Representations in the focus of attention (FoA) of working memory (WM) have the highest activation state and processing privilege among representations in WM. There are two distinct processes for representations entering the FoA: involuntary and voluntary. The former is an automatic attentional response to stimuli, while the latter is directed by the central executive.

Enhancement of joint flanker effect in intergroup competition.

Representing the mental state of the partner lays the foundation for successful social interaction. While the representation of group members has been extensively studied, it is unclear how intergroup interactions affect it. In three experiments utilizing the joint flanker task, we found that competition between groups brought about a greater joint flanker effect (Experiment 1).

Unraveling the binding problem in working memory: insights from the hierarchical binding model.

The binding problem is a crucial issue in the study of working memory (WM) and remains a central topic of debate among various WM models. Over the past decade, we have explored feature binding within WM, guided by the Hierarchical Binding Model (HBM). This model suggests that WM binding occurs in two stages: an initial implicit binding involving rapid, coarse feature processing, followed by explicit binding where focused attention refines these features via a reentry process.

Boolean map and object reconcile as the unit of visual working memory.

The unit of visual working memory is a fundamental issue under debate in the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, with some traditional research suggesting that it is an object, while other recent studies demonstrating that a Boolean map offers a better account. The controversy surrounding the unit of visual working memory often centers on the representation of objects consist of same dimensional features (e.g.

Selectively maintaining an object's feature in visual working memory: A comparison between highly discriminable and fine-grained features.

Selectively maintaining information is an essential function of visual working memory (VWM). Recent VWM studies have mainly focused on selective maintenance of objects, leaving the mechanisms of selectively maintaining an object's feature in VWM unknown. Based on the interactive model of perception and VWM, we hypothesized that there are distinct selective maintenance mechanisms for objects containing fine-grained features versus objects containing highly discriminable features.

Hierarchical Constraints on the Distribution of Attention in Dynamic Displays.

Human vision is remarkably good at recovering the latent hierarchical structure of dynamic scenes. Here, we explore how visual attention operates with this hierarchical motion representation. The way in which attention responds to surface physical features has been extensively explored.

The object as the unit for state switching in visual working memory.

This study aimed to determine the unit for switching representational states in visual working memory (VWM). Two opposing hypotheses were investigated: (a) the unit of switching being a feature (feature-based hypothesis), and (b) the unit of switching being an object (object-based hypothesis). Participants (N = 180) were instructed to hold two features from either one or two objects in their VWM.

Children exhibit superior memory for attended but outdated information compared to adults.

Research on the development of cognitive selectivity predominantly focuses on attentional selection. The present study explores another facet of cognitive selectivity-memory selection-by examining the ability to filter attended yet outdated information in young children and adults. Across five experiments involving 130 children and 130 adults, participants are instructed to use specific information to complete a task, and then unexpectedly asked to report this information in a surprise test.

Unconscious prioritization for face-to-face people.

One central question in the scientific and philosophical study of consciousness is regarding the scope of human consciousness. There is a lively debate as to whether high-level information integration is necessarily dependent on consciousness. This study presents a new form of unconscious integration based on the facingness between two individuals.

Microsaccades reflect attention shifts: a mini review of 20 years of microsaccade research.

Microsaccades are small, involuntary eye movements that occur during fixation. Since the 1950s, researchers have conducted extensive research on the role of microsaccades in visual information processing, and found that they also play an important role in human advanced visual cognitive activities. Research over the past 20 years further suggested that there is a close relationship between microsaccades and visual attention, yet lacking a timely review.

Dual routes of chunking social interaction: Insights from grouping two agent actions in working memory.

Humans have evolved the sophisticated ability to extract social relations embedded in interactive entities. One typical demonstration is a social chunking phenomenon wherein the cognitive system chunks individual actions into a unified episode basing on perceived interactive actions. However, the mechanisms underlying social chunking remain to be elucidated.

Flexibility Retained: Unimpaired Updating of Expectations in Schizophrenia.

Flexibly and actively updating expectations based on feedback is crucial for navigating daily life. Previous research has shown that people with schizophrenia (PSZ) have difficulty adjusting their expectations. However, there are studies suggesting otherwise.