Sharing tasks or sharing actions? Evidence from the joint Simon task.

In a joint Simon task, a pair of co-acting individuals divide labors of performing a choice-reaction task in such a way that each actor responds to one type of stimuli and ignores the other type that is assigned to the co-actor. It has been suggested that the actors share the mental representation of the joint task and perform the co-actor’s trials as if they were their own. However, it remains unclear exactly which aspects of co-actor’s task-set the actors share in the joint Simon task. The present study addressed this issue by manipulating the proportions of compatible and incompatible trials for one actor (inducer actor) and observing its influences on the performance of the other actor (diagnostic actor) for whom there were always an equal proportion of compatible and incompatible trials. The design of the present study disentangled the effect of trial proportion from the confounding effect of compatibility on the preceding trial. The results showed that the trial proportions for the inducer actor had strong influences on the inducer actor’s own performance, but it had little influence on the diagnostic actor’s performance. Thus, the diagnostic actor did not represent aspects of the inducer actor’s task-set beyond stimuli and responses of the inducer actor. We propose a new account of the effect of preceding compatibility on the joint Simon effect.Action Contro

Bilingualism and Creativity: Benefits in Convergent Thinking Come with Losses in Divergent Thinking

Bilingualism is commonly assumed to improve creativity but the mechanisms underlying creative acts, and the way these mechanisms are affected by bilingualism, are not very well understood. We hypothesize that learning to master multiple languages drives individuals toward a relatively focused cognitive-control state that exerts strong top-down impact on information processing and creates strong local competition for selection between cognitive codes. Considering the control requirements posed by creativity tasks tapping into convergent and divergent thinking, this predicts that high-proficient bilinguals should outperform low-proficient bilinguals in convergent thinking, while low-proficient bilinguals might be better in divergent thinking. Comparing low- and high-proficient bilinguals on convergent-thinking and divergent-thinking tasks indeed showed a high-proficient bilingual advantage for convergent thinking but a low-proficient bilingual advantage for fluency in divergent thinking. These findings suggest that bilingualism should not be related to “creativity” as a unitary concept but, rather, to the specific processes and mechanisms that underlie creativity

Metacontrol and body ownership: Divergent thinking increases the virtual hand illusion

The virtual hand illusion (VHI) paradigm demonstrates that people tend to perceive agency and bodily ownership for a virtual hand that moves in synchrony with their own movements. Given that this kind of effect can be taken to reflect self–other integration (i.e., the integration of some external, novel event into the representation of oneself), and given that self–other integration has been previously shown to be affected by metacontrol states (biases of information processing towards persistence/selectivity or flexibility/integration), we tested whether the VHI varies in size depending on the metacontrol bias. Persistence and flexibility biases were induced by having participants carry out a convergent thinking (Remote Associates) task or divergent-thinking (Alternate Uses) task, respectively, while experiencing a virtual hand moving synchronously or asynchronously with their real hand. Synchrony-induced agency and ownership effects were more pronounced in the context of divergent thinking than in the context of convergent thinking, suggesting that a metacontrol bias towards flexibility promotes self–other integration.Action Contro

Impaired autoregulation of the glomerular filtration rate in patients with nondiabetic nephropathies

Impaired autoregulation of the glomerular filtration rate in patients with nondiabetic nephropathies.BackgroundThe ability of the kidney to maintain constancy of the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) over a wide range of renal perfusion pressures is termed autoregulation. Defective autoregulation of GFR has been demonstrated in diabetic nephropathy. Whether this is also the case in patients with nondiabetic nephropathies is not known.MethodsWe investigated the effect of acute lowering of blood pressure (BP) on GFR in 16 (8 males and 8 females) albuminuric subjects suffering from different nondiabetic nephropathies and in 14 (7 males and 7 females) controls matched with respect to sex, age, BP, and baseline GFR. The subjects received in random order an intravenous injection of either clonidine (150 to 225 μg) or saline (0.154 mmol/liter) within two weeks. We measured GFR ([51Cr]-EDTA), albuminuria (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; ELISA), and BP (Takeda TM-2420).ResultsClonidine induced similar reductions in mean arterial BP 17 (2) versus 19 (2) mm Hg [mean (SE)] in patients with nephropathy and in controls, respectively. GFR diminished in average from 89 (6) to 82 (5) ml/min/1.73 m2 (P < 0.05), and albuminuria declined from a geometric mean of 1218 (antilog SE 1.3) μg/min to 925 (1.3) in the patients with nondiabetic nephropathies (P < 0.05), whereas these variables remained unchanged in the control group. The mean difference between changes in GFR (95% confidence interval) between the nondiabetic macroalbuminuric and control subjects was 6.1 (-0.03 to 12.21) ml/min/1.73 m2 (P = 0.051).ConclusionOur study suggests that albuminuric patients with nondiabetic nephropathies frequently suffer from impaired autoregulation of GFR

Context-induced contrast and assimilation effects in explicit and implicit measures of agency

Virtual-hand-illusion studies often use explicit and implicit measures of body ownership but no agreed-on implicit measure of agency exists. We investigated whether the Intentional Binding (IB) effect could serve as such a measure. A pilot study confirmed that current consistency increases both perceived agency and IB. In three experiments, current consistency was 50% but the previously experienced consistency was either 100% or 0%. When previous and present consistency experience were separated by a short break, both explicit judgments and IB showed a contrast effect. Eliminating the break reversed the effect in explicit agency but not in IB; and making the transition between previous and present consistency smoother replicated the effect for explicit agency but reversed the pattern for IB. Our findings suggest that explicit agency and IB rely on different sources of information, presumably including cross-sensory correlations, predictions of expected action-effects, and comparisons between present and previous consistency experiences.Action Contro

Enfacing a female reduces the gender-science stereotype in males

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Meditation-induced cognitive-control states regulate working memory task performance

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Cognitive load dissociates explicit and implicit measures of body ownership and agency

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