Effects of material and non-material rewards on remembering to do things for others.

Recent research has shown that pro-social prospective memory, i.e., remembering to do something for others, is negatively affected by the presence of small material rewards. While this competition between pro-social and self-gain motives leads to poor memory for the intention, people do not seem to be aware of the possible collision effects of competing motives (Brandimonte et al., 2010). Extending research on this general topic, in two activity-based prospective memory (PM) experiments, we explored the effects of different types and amount of rewards on pro-social prospective remembering. In Experiment 1, participants could receive no reward, a low material reward (1 euro), or a high material reward (20 euro) for their pro-social PM action. In Experiment 2, their pro-social PM performance could be rewarded or not with an image reward (disclosure of their altruistic behavior). Results revealed that introducing a small material reward (Experiment 1) or a non-material reward (Experiment 2) impaired pro-social PM. However, introducing a high material reward eliminated the impairment (Experiment 1). Importantly, in Experiment 1, ongoing task performance in the pro-social condition was faster than in the No PM condition. However, in Experiment 2, ongoing task costs emerged in the presence of a non-material reward, as compared to the pro-social condition. Also, results from two independent ratings showed that people's predictions on their future pro-social actions were at odds (Experiment 1) or in line (Experiment 2) with actual PM performance. It is suggested that, according to the nature and amount of rewards, memory for a pro-social future action may be modulated by conscious or unconscious motivational mechanisms

Voluntary task switching in children:Switching more reduces the cost of task selection

peer reviewedEmerging cognitive control supports increasingly efficient goal-directed behaviors. With age, children are increasingly expected to decide autonomously and with little external aid which goals to attain. However, little is known about how children engage cognitive control in such a self-directed fashion. The present study examined self-directed control development by adapting the voluntary task switching paradigm-the gold standard measure of this control form in adults-for use with 5-6-year-old and 9-10-year-old children. Overall, p(switch) suggested that even younger children can engage self-directed control successfully. However, other measures showed they struggled with task selection. Specifically, compared with older children and adults, they relied more on systematic strategies which reduced the cost of task selection, even when the strategy involved switching more often. Like externally driven control, self-directed control relies critically on task selection processes. These two forms of control likely form a continuum rather than two discrete categories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

When the Mind “Flies”: the Effects of Mind-Wandering on Driving

Mind wandering (MW) refers to a shift of attention away from a primary task toward internal information, such as memories, future thoughts, or fantasies. Several lines of research showed that MW has a costly influence on many cognitive processes, such as reading comprehension, sustained attention and working memory. The aim of the present study was to assess whether MW impairs, like secondary-task distraction, driver’s performance. Results showed that MW is indeed pervasive during daily driving, as indicated by the participants’ answers to an ad-hoc questionnaire assessing the source of inattentiveness during daily driving; furthermore, MW states detected during simulated driving were found to affect driving performance

Understanding autonomous behaviour development: Exploring the developmental contributions of context-tracking and task selection to self-directed cognitive control.

peer reviewedGaining autonomy is a key aspect of growing up and cognitive control development across childhood. However, little is known about how children engage cognitive control in an autonomous (or self-directed) fashion. Here, we propose that in order to successfully engage self-directed control, children identify, and achieve goals by tracking contextual information and using this information to select relevant tasks. To disentangle the respective contributions of these processes, we manipulated the difficulty of context-tracking via altering the presence or absence of contextual support (Study 1) and the difficulty of task selection by varying task difficulty (a)symmetry (Study 2) in 5-6 and 9-10-year-olds, and adults. Results suggested that, although both processes contribute to successful self-directed engagement of cognitive control, age-related progress mostly relates to context-tracking

Prospective memory performance in older people, adults and youth

The aims of this study were to verify the potential differences in prospective memory (PM) among young people, adults and the elderly; analyze the relationships between variables of comprehension and verbal fluency and PM; and finally, verify the existence of a relationship between self-reported health status and performance on PM. A cross- sectional design was used. The study involved 270 participants divided into three age groups: young people aged 18 to 28 years; adults 45 to 55, and seniors 60 to 80. Their comprehension and verbal fluency skills were assessed as well as their self-perceived health status. Subsequently, an experiment was carried out where participants were presented with paragraphs of three sentences on a computer screen and they had to recognize previously agreed words that would indicate their level of MP. The results established significant differences in prospective memory between adults and older people and between young people and the elderly. But no differences between youth and adults were found..The importance of verbal comprehension and verbal fluency in solving prospective memory experimental tasks was also significant. In addition, a better self-perception of well-being was linked to a higher performance in PMEste trabajo fue posible gracias a la financiación del grupo de investigación HUM634 de la Junta de Andalucía y al contrato OTRI de este grupo con la Diputación provincial de Cádiz. El primer autor fue becario AECID en el Departamento de Psicología de la UCA durante la realización del estu

Disentangling the respective contribution of task selection and task execution in self-directed cognitive control development

peer reviewedTask selection and task execution are key constructs in cognitive control development. Yet, little is known about how separable they are and how each contributes to task switching performance. Here, 60 4- to 5-year olds, 60 7- to 8-year olds, and 60 10- to 11-year olds children completed the double registration procedure, which dissociates these two processes. Task selection yielded both mixing and switch costs, especially in younger children, and task execution mostly yielded switch costs at all ages, suggesting that task selection is costlier than task execution. Moreover, both task selection and execution varied with task self-directedness (i.e., to what extent the task is driven by external aids) demands. Whereas task selection and task execution are dissociated regarding performance costs, they nevertheless both contribute to self-directed control