Cognitive Fitness Framework: Towards Assessing, Training and Augmenting Individual-Difference Factors Underpinning High-Performance Cognition

Abstract

The aim of this article is to introduce the concept of Cognitive Fitness (CF), identify its key ingredients underpinning both real-time task performance and career longevity in high-risk occupations, and to canvas a holistic framework for their assessment, training, and augmentation. CF as a capacity to deploy neurocognitive resources, knowledge and skills to meet the demands of operational task performance, is likely to be multifaceted and differentially malleable. A taxonomy of CF constructs derived from Cognitive Readiness (CR) and Mental fitness (MF) literature maps into phases of operational cycle from foundational to advanced, mission-ready and recovery. Foundational cognitive attributes, such as attention, executive control and co-action, were hypothesized to be trainable at the initial Cognitive Gym phase. More advanced training targets at the CR phase included stress and arousal regulation, adaptability, teamwork, situation awareness (including detection, sense-making and prediction) and decision making (de-biasing and confidence calibration). The mission-ready training phase is focused on tolerances (to sleep loss, monotony, pain, frustration, uncertainty) and resistance (to distraction, deception or manipulation). Operational Augmentation phase relies on support tools such as decision aids and fatigue countermeasures, while the Recovery phase employs reflexive (e.g., mindfulness), and restorative practices (e.g., nutrition and sleep hygiene). The periodization of cognitive training in this cycle is hypothesized to optimize both real-time cognitive performance and the resilience that enables lifelong thriving. One of the most promising avenues of validating this hypothesis is by developing an expert consensus on the key CF ingredients and their relative importance in high-performance settings.

Caffeine may disrupt the impact of real-time drowsiness on cognitive performance: a double-blind, placebo-controlled small-sample study

“…The magnitude of this dissociation appeared to depend on task complexity, with caffeine significantly reducing the impact of momentary fluctuations of drowsiness on executive performance in the Go-NoGo task, while producing similar but weaker trends in the PRT and SRT tasks. This is consistent with previous findings showing performance on simple tasks, such as the PVT, to be highly sensitive to sleep loss, while more complex tasks such as response inhibition and decision making tend to be less affected 23 , 29 , 30 . Similarly, caffeine has been shown to improve response speed in the PVT task to a greater extent than its more complex aspect—lapses 37 in a 77-h TSD.…”

Have We Taken Advantage of the Quarantine to Develop Healthy Habits? A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Spanish COVID-19 Situation by Gender

“…It is currently considered that healthy habits are not limited to exercise and nutrition behaviors. Thus, Cognitive Fitness [ 29 ], a recent concept proposed by Aidman on the basis of Seligman’s Positive Health definition [ 30 ], enables the application of knowledge, skills, and attitudes in the development of task performance, which influences mental health [ 31 ] from a holistic and practical perspective that describes how these faculties are enhanced and decline across the real-life processes of maturation, ageing, training and education, medical treatment, social awareness and others. This research adopts this new concept of healthy habits, studying the extent to which people initiated such habits during quarantine.…”

Effects of Dynamic Resilience on the Reactivity of Vagally Mediated Heart Rate Variability

“…By testing combinations of performance and physiological measures for predictive power of dynamic resilience and performance, future dynamic resilience assessments can be enhanced and automated to provide quick accurate information of working personnel for industry organizations. Lastly, dynamic resilience theory and metrics could be examined as part of a more global cognitive performance theory and assessments such as Cognitive Readiness constructs (Grier, 2012 ; O'Neil et al, 2014 ; Crameri et al, 2019 ) or Cognitive Fitness assessments (Aidman, 2020 ). This would be most suitable at the operational and tactical levels of cognitive readiness, and either the cognitive gym, advanced cognitive training, or mission-ready training of the cognitive fitness framework depending on the training or monitoring objectives; for example, fatigue tolerance assessments (Aidman et al, 2018 ; Crameri et al, 2019 ; Aidman, 2020 ).…”

“…Lastly, dynamic resilience theory and metrics could be examined as part of a more global cognitive performance theory and assessments such as Cognitive Readiness constructs (Grier, 2012;O'Neil et al, 2014;Crameri et al, 2019) or Cognitive Fitness assessments (Aidman, 2020). This would be most suitable at the operational and tactical levels of cognitive readiness, and either the cognitive gym, advanced cognitive training, or mission-ready training of the cognitive fitness framework depending on the training or monitoring objectives; for example, fatigue tolerance assessments (Aidman et al, 2018;Crameri et al, 2019;Aidman, 2020). Ultimately, through the aforementioned future research paths, dynamic resilience may become a valued component of operational performance predictions.…”