The "Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Palma" (IdISPa) was created in December 2013 to investigate 7 scientific areas, bringing together 46 research groups and over 550 researchers. Its two main centers are the Universitary Hospital Son Espases and the iUNICS at the University of the Balearic Islands. Our group has been officially integrated into IdISPa within the Neuroscience area.
The Effects of Chronic Exercise on Attentional Networks
Another study from our group in PlosOne...
Pérez, L., Padilla, C., Parmentier, F. B. R., & Andrés, P. (2014, July 10th). The effects of chronic exercise on attentional networks. PlosONE. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0101478
Abstract: The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that chronic physical exercise improves attentional control in young healthy participants. To do this, we compared the performance of physically active and passive participants in the Attentional Network Task, which allows for the assessment of the executive, orienting and alerting networks. The results showed a selective positive effect of exercise on the executive network. These results extend the evidence gathered in children, older adults and certain clinical populations suggesting that exercise can also improve attentional control in healthy young adults.
Physical exercise helps working memory and inhibition
Conchy Padilla & Pilar andrés
The new study by Padilla, Pérez and Andrés published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience compared sedentary and physically active young adults on working memory and inhibition task. The results show that physical activity improves working memory and inhibition. Active adults were better at controlling their actions, ignore distractors in a memory task and process two verbal tasks at the same time.
Reference:
Padilla, C.; Pérez, L.; i Andrés, P. (2014, 11th March). Chronic exercise keeps working memory and inhibitory capacities fit». Frontiers in Behavorial Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00049 [download]
Abstract:
Padilla et al. (2013) recently showed that chronic aerobic exercise in young adults is associated with better inhibitory control as measured by the strategic Stop Signal Task (SST). The aim of the current study was to explore whether better inhibitory abilities, associated with high levels of physical fitness, were also associated with higher working memory capacity (WMC) in young healthy adults. Participants aged between 18 and 30 years and showing different levels of fitness confirmed by the Rockport 1-mile walking fitness test took part in this study. Active and passive participants were administered the SST to measure inhibitory control, and the Automatic Operation Span to measure verbal WMC. We first replicated Padilla et al.’s results showing that exercise specifically modulates strategic inhibitory processes. Our results also showed that active participants presented with better WMC than sedentary ones, showing a better capacity to manage simultaneously two verbal tasks and to inhibit interference. The results point to an association between chronic exercise, inhibitory abilities and WMC. The theoretical relationship between these variables will be discussed.
The role of sensory modality in deviance distraction
Congratulations to Alicia for the acceptation for publication of the second study from her PhD in the journal Experimental Psychology!
The study presents four experiments in which young adults performed a digit categorization task while ignoring irrelevant stimuli. The sensory modality of the irrelevant and target stimuli (auditory/visual) was manipulated orthogonally and within-participants. The results overall suggest that auditory irrelevant deviants yield a strong distraction effect while visual deviants only do so to a limited extent and under specific conditions (e.g., when participants are forced to attend to the irrelevant stimuli).
Reference:
Leiva, A., Parmentier, F. B. R., & Andrés, P. (in press). Comparing the effects of auditory and visual deviant stimuli on auditory and visual target processing Experimental Psychology. Experimental Psychology.
Abstract:
We report the results of oddball experiments in which an irrelevant stimulus (standard, deviant) was presented before a target stimulus and the modality of these stimuli was manipulated orthogonally (visual/auditory). Experiment 1 showed that auditory deviants yielded distraction irrespective of the target’s modality while visual deviants did not impact on performance. When participants were forced to attend the distractors in order to detect a rare target (“target-distractor”), auditory deviants yielded distraction irrespective of the target’s modality and visual deviants yielded a small distraction effect when targets were auditory (Experiments 2 & 3). Visual deviants only produced distraction for visual targets when deviant stimuli were not visually distinct from the other distractors (Experiment 4). Our results indicate that while auditory deviants yield distraction irrespective of the targets’ modality, visual deviants only do so when attended and under selective conditions, at least when irrelevant and target stimuli are temporally and perceptually decoupled.
Congratualations Toñi!
The University of Granada has awarded Toñi Pacheco-Unguetti the Prize for Research Excellence in Social Sciences for her work on attention and anxiety published in 2010 in Psychological Science.
Official announcement here.
Reference: Pacheco-Unguetti, A. P., Acosta, A., Callejas, A., & Lupiáñez, J. (2010). Attention and anxiety; different attentional biases underlie state and trait. Psychological Science, 21, 298-304.