The purpose of this study was to examine whether mental fatigue influences the perceived effort required to complete fairly light and hard effort self-paced exercise challenges. 12 participants completed 2 trials in a randomised cross-over design. Each participant was required to complete a time-matched pre-exercise task: 1) a continuous cognitive activity test (EXP condition; n=12), or 2) a time-matched passive neutral observation task (CON condition; n=12). Following the pre-exercise task, participants performed 2 consecutive bouts of self-paced cycling exercise again in randomized order at fairly light (RPE 11) and hard (RPE 15) effort. Physiological, psychological and EEG indices were measured throughout both conditions. EXP participants reported significantly greater sensations of fatigue (p<0.01) and demonstrated greater EEG beta-band activation compared with CON (p<0.01) prior to exercise. Power outputs from the exercise bouts were significantly reduced for EXP in both self-paced: RPE 11 (83±7 vs. 99±7 W;  p=0.005) and RPE 15 (132±9 vs. 143±8 W; p=0.028) trials. This study demonstrates that individuals with higher self-reported sensations of fatigue and elevations of EEG beta activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain prior to exercise produce less work during self-paced exercise trials than in a control condition, probably due to an altered perception of effort.

Selective attention and multisensory integration are fundamental to perception, but little is known about whether, or under what circumstances, these processes interact to shape conscious awareness. Here, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate the causal role of attention-related brain networks in multisensory integration between visual and auditory stimuli in the sound-induced flash illusion. The flash illusion is a widely studied multisensory phenomenon in which a single flash of light is falsely perceived as multiple flashes in the presence of irrelevant sounds. We investigated the hypothesis that extrastriate regions involved in selective attention, specifically within the right parietal cortex, exert an influence on the multisensory integrative processes that cause the flash illusion. W e found that disruption of the right angular gyrus, but not of the adjacent supramarginal gyrus or of a sensory control site, enhanced participants' veridical perception of the multisensory events, thereby reducing their susceptibility to the illusion. Our findings suggest that the same parietal networks that normally act to enhance perception of attended events also play a role in the binding of auditory and visual stimuli in the sound-induced flash illusion.

A stratified random doorknock method was used to interview 2744 respondents in four state capitals in Australia. The interview was in 3 parts with the latter two only administered to regular, once per week or more often gamblers (N=290). The measures completed by this group included the South Oaks Gambling Screen and a range of psychological measures. A conservative interpretation of the results was that "problem gamblers," defined in terms of a range of personal and interpersonal gambling-related costs, comprised 1.16% (±0.34%) of the Australian population. It was estimated that problem players' losses may account for about one quarter of all expenditures on gambling.

ObjectiveThe positive effect of an audience on performance is anecdotally well known, but the impact of such social facilitation to both performance and the motivation to exercise have not been thoroughly explored. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate verbal encouragement as a means to promote positive behavioural adherence to exercise and augmented performance.MethodsTwelve untrained but active individuals (seven female), age 24±3 years participated in this study. Exercise conditions with external verbal encouragement (EVE) and without external verbal encouragement (WEVE) were compared in both endurance (20 min) and sprint (2 × 30 s Wingate) cycling tasks in a randomised crossover design. Results were analysed by separate 2 (EVE/WEVE) × 2 (sprint/endurance) within-subjects analyses of variance for each dependent variable. Statistical significance was set at p≤0.05.ResultsEVE resulted in a significant increase, F(1,11)=15.37, p=0.002, ηp2=0.58 in the average power generated by participants in each exercise bout on the cycle ergometer. EVE also had a significant effect on reported motivation to exercise the next day, F(1,11)=5.5, p=0.04, ηp2 =0.33, which did not differ between type of exercise.ConclusionExternal encouragement in both sprint and endurance activities resulted in large improvements in performance and motivation to continue an exercise regimen the next day, which has important implications for health, adherence and maximising physical performance using a practical intervention.

Two experiments examined the role of syllables in writing Spanish words. In Experiment 1, participants had to write single words that were aurally presented. The interletter intervals (ILIs) between critical letters were measured. Longer ILIs were found in the intersyllabic than the intrasyllabic condition. In Experiment 2, the inputs were pictures to remove any potential phonological bias stemming from the input stimulus. Results suggested that the linguistic nature of the input is not determining the output. Post hoc analyses revealed that other characteristics of the stimuli cannot explain the results. These results indicate that syllables are essential units of processing in writing Spanish and that central processes related to spelling and the graphemic buffer affect peripheral processes at movement execution.