Experience sampling reveals the role that covert goal states play in task-relevant behavior

Cognitive neuroscience has gained insight into covert states using experience sampling. Traditionally, this approach has focused on off-task states. However, task-relevant states are also maintained via covert processes. Our study examined whether experience sampling can also provide insights into covert goal-relevant states that support task performance. To address this question, we developed a neural state space, using dimensions of brain function variation, that allows neural correlates of overt and covert states to be examined in a common analytic space. We use this to describe brain activity during task performance, its relation to covert states identified via experience sampling, and links between individual variation in overt and covert states and task performance. Our study established deliberate task focus was linked to faster target detection, and brain states underlying this experience—and target detection—were associated with activity patterns emphasizing the fronto-parietal network. In contrast, brain states underlying off-task experiences—and vigilance periods—were linked to activity patterns emphasizing the default mode network. Our study shows experience sampling can not only describe covert states that are unrelated to the task at hand, but can also be used to highlight the role fronto-parietal regions play in the maintenance of covert task-relevant states

Shorter-lived neural taste representations in obese compared to lean individuals

Previous attempts to uncover a relation between taste processing and weight status have yielded inconclusive results leaving it unclear whether lean and obese individuals process taste differently, and whether group differences reflect differential sensory encoding or evaluative and reward processing. Here, we present the first comparison of dynamic neural processing as assessed by gustatory evoked potentials in obese and lean individuals. Two supra-threshold concentrations of sweet and salty tastants as well as two sizes of blue and green squares were presented to 30 lean (BMI 18.5–25) and 25 obese (BMI > 30) individuals while recording head-surface electroencephalogram (EEG). Multivariate pattern analyses (MVPA) revealed differential taste quality representations from 130 ms until after stimulus offset. Notably, taste representations faded earlier and exhibited a reduced strength in the obese compared to the lean group; temporal generalization analysis indicated otherwise similar taste processing. Differences in later gustatory response patterns even allowed decoding of group membership. Importantly, group differences were absent for visual processing thereby excluding confounding effects from anatomy or signal-to-noise ratio alone. The latency of observed effects is consistent with memory maintenance rather than sensory encoding of taste, thereby suggesting that later evaluative aspects of taste processing are altered in obesity

Musical agency reduces perceived exertion during strenuous physical performance

Music is known to be capable of reducing perceived exertion during strenuous physical activity. The current interpretation of this modulating effect of music is that music may be perceived as a diversion from unpleasant proprioceptive sensations that go along with exhaustion. Here we investigated the effects of music on perceived exertion during a physically strenuous task, varying musical agency, a task that relies on the experience of body proprioception, rather than simply diverting from it. For this we measured psychologically indicated exertion during physical workout with and without musical agency while simultaneously acquiring metabolic values with spirometry. Results showed that musical agency significantly decreased perceived exertion during workout, indicating that musical agency may actually facilitate physically strenuous activities. This indicates that the positive effect of music on perceived exertion cannot always be explained by an effect of diversion from proprioceptive feedback. Furthermore, this finding suggests that the down-modulating effect of musical agency on perceived exertion may be a previously un-acknowledged driving force for the development of music in humans: making music makes strenuous physical activities less exhausting