The Effects of Self-Report Cognitive Failures and Cognitive Load on Antisaccade Performance

Abstract

Individuals reporting high levels of distractibility in everyday life show impaired performance in standard laboratory tasks measuring selective attention and inhibitory processes. Similarly, increasing cognitive load leads to more errors/distraction in a variety of cognitive tasks. How these two factors interact is currently unclear; highly distractible individuals may be affected more when their cognitive resources are taxed, or load may linearly affect performance for all individuals. We investigated the relationship between self-reported levels of cognitive failures (CF) in daily life and performance in the antisaccade task, a widely used tool examining attentional control. Levels of concurrent cognitive demand were manipulated using a secondary auditory discrimination task. We found that both levels of self-reported CF and task load increased antisaccade latencies while having no effect on prosaccade eye-movements. However individuals rating themselves as suffering few daily life distractions showed a comparable load cost to those who experience many. These findings suggest that the likelihood of distraction is governed by the addition of both internal susceptibility and the external current load placed on working memory.

A systematic review of cognitive failures in daily life: Healthy populations

“…Whilst performance outcomes in each of these domains were associated with self-reports of cognitive failures (e.g. Berggren et al, 2011;Ishigami & Klein, 2009;McVay et al, 2009;Tipper & Baylis, 1987), findings were inconsistent and no definitive link between failures and a specific objective assessment is yet evident.…”

“…Considering behavioural inhibition first, there were no differences between high and low cognitive failure groups on performance of a visual Go/NoGo task (Roche, Garavan, Foxe, & O'Mara, 2005). On a physiological level, however, those who report more frequent cognitive failures demonstrated increased latency of antisaccade in an eye-movement inhibition task, suggestive of both poorer inhibition and greater distractibility (Berggren et al, 2011). Additionally, when completing a Go/NoGo task, individuals with higher cognitive failures demonstrated larger and earlier N2 and P3 components; event-related brain potentials thought to reflect activity of the cortical inhibition system (Roche et al, 2005).…”

“…Cognitive domains were studied via performance on lab-based tasks, and included attentional networks, behavioural inhibition, and working memory and executive control (e.g. Berggren, Hutton, & Derakshan, 2011;Broadbent et al, 1986;Ishigami & Klein, 2009). Whilst performance outcomes in each of these domains were associated with self-reports of cognitive failures (e.g.…”

The anticue task: no effect of working memory load on inhibitory control

“…This so-called RT benefit is expected to increase even further when the PI increases to 450 ms, which is the result of increased time of the prefrontal cortex to prepare the correct finger-response (2). As several research has shown no disruptive impact of WM load in pro-saccade tasks (12,13), no significant differences in the procue task were expected. Hence, the automatically activated processes should not be affected by a high cognitive demand.…”

“…In addition, when more WM load is engaged, higher costs and lower benefits are expected for all PIs (12,13). This reflects a less efficient inhibitory control process when WM load increases.…”