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Kérébel A, Caille JA, Sackur J. Dynamics of spontaneous thoughts: Exploration, attentional profile and the segmentation of the stream of thoughts. Conscious Cogn 2024; 124:103735. [PMID: 39173572 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2024.103735] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2024] [Revised: 08/05/2024] [Accepted: 08/06/2024] [Indexed: 08/24/2024]
Abstract
For a long time, clinical knowledge and first-person reports have pointed to individual differences in the dynamics of spontaneous thoughts, in particular in the extreme case of psychiatric conditions (e.g. racing thoughts in Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder, ADHD; rumination in depression). We used a novel procedure to investigate this individual variability by combining verbal fluency tasks and introspective reports of thought content. Our goal was twofold. First, we tested the hypothesis that a greater segmentation of the stream of thoughts would be associated with trait inattention, in line with subjective reports of ADHD patients. Second, we tested whether the segmentation of the stream of thoughts increased with an increased tendency for exploratory behavior, following recent theoretical claims on the mechanisms underpinning the generation of spontaneous thoughts. Our results support both hypotheses, shedding light on the factors contributing to the individual variability in the dynamics of the stream of thought.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adrien Kérébel
- Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (LSCP), Département d'Études Cognitives de l'École Normale Supérieure (ENS), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) Research University, Paris, France.
| | - Jacques-Antoine Caille
- Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (LSCP), Département d'Études Cognitives de l'École Normale Supérieure (ENS), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) Research University, Paris, France
| | - Jérôme Sackur
- Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (LSCP), Département d'Études Cognitives de l'École Normale Supérieure (ENS), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) Research University, Paris, France; Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de l'X, École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France
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Güldener L, Saravanakumar P, Happel MFK, Ohl FW, Vollmer M, Pollmann S. Differential patch-leaving behavior during probabilistic foraging in humans and gerbils. Commun Biol 2024; 7:1000. [PMID: 39147833 PMCID: PMC11327252 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-024-06683-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/19/2023] [Accepted: 08/06/2024] [Indexed: 08/17/2024] Open
Abstract
Foraging confronts animals, including humans, with the need to balance exploration and exploitation: exploiting a resource until it depletes and then deciding when to move to a new location for more resources. Research across various species has identified rules for when to leave a depleting patch, influenced by environmental factors like patch quality. Here we compare human and gerbil patch-leaving behavior through two analogous tasks: a visual search for humans and a physical foraging task for gerbils, both involving patches with randomly varying initial rewards that decreased exponentially. Patch-leaving decisions of humans but not gerbils follow an incremental mechanism based on reward encounters that is considered optimal for maximizing reward yields in variable foraging environments. The two species also differ in their giving-up times, and some human subjects tend to overharvest. However, gerbils and individual humans who do not overharvest are equally sensitive to declining collection rates in accordance with the marginal value theorem. Altogether this study introduces a paradigm for a between-species comparison on how to resolve the exploitation-exploration dilemma.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lasse Güldener
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Otto-von-Guericke-University, 39106, Magdeburg, Germany.
| | - Parthiban Saravanakumar
- Department of Systems Physiology of Learning, Leibniz-Institute for Neurobiology, 39118, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Max F K Happel
- Department of Systems Physiology of Learning, Leibniz-Institute for Neurobiology, 39118, Magdeburg, Germany
- Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences, 39106, Magdeburg, Germany
- Medical School Berlin, Faculty for Medicine, 14197, Berlin, Germany
| | - Frank W Ohl
- Department of Systems Physiology of Learning, Leibniz-Institute for Neurobiology, 39118, Magdeburg, Germany
- Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences, 39106, Magdeburg, Germany
- Institute of Biology, Otto-von-Guericke-University, 39106, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Maike Vollmer
- Department of Systems Physiology of Learning, Leibniz-Institute for Neurobiology, 39118, Magdeburg, Germany
- Department of Experimental Audiology, Otto-von-Guericke-University, 39120, Magdeburg, Germany
- University Clinic of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Otto-von-Guericke-University, 39120, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Stefan Pollmann
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Otto-von-Guericke-University, 39106, Magdeburg, Germany
- Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences, 39106, Magdeburg, Germany
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Coolen IEJI, van Langen J, Hofman S, van Aagten FE, Schaaf JV, Michel L, Aristodemou M, Judd N, van Hout ATB, Meeussen E, Kievit RA. Protocol and preregistration for the CODEC project: measuring, modelling and mechanistically understanding the nature of cognitive variability in early childhood. BMC Psychol 2024; 12:407. [PMID: 39060934 PMCID: PMC11282758 DOI: 10.1186/s40359-024-01904-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2024] [Accepted: 07/13/2024] [Indexed: 07/28/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Children's cognitive performance fluctuates across multiple timescales. However, fluctuations have often been neglected in favour of research into average cognitive performance, limiting the unique insights into cognitive abilities and development that cognitive variability may afford. Preliminary evidence suggests that greater variability is associated with increased symptoms of neurodevelopmental disorders, and differences in behavioural and neural functioning. The relative dearth of empirical work on variability, historically limited due to a lack of suitable data and quantitative methodology, has left crucial questions unanswered, which the CODEC (COgnitive Dynamics in Early Childhood) study aims to address. METHOD The CODEC cohort is an accelerated 3-year longitudinal study which encompasses 600 7-to-10-year-old children. Each year includes a 'burst' week (3 times per day, 5 days per week) of cognitive measurements on five cognitive domains (reasoning, working memory, processing speed, vocabulary, exploration), conducted both in classrooms and at home through experience sampling assessments. We also measure academic outcomes and external factors hypothesised to predict cognitive variability, including sleep, mood, motivation and background noise. A subset of 200 children (CODEC-MRI) are invited for two deep phenotyping sessions (in year 1 and year 3 of the study), including structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging, eye-tracking, parental measurements and questionnaire-based demographic and psychosocial measures. We will quantify developmental differences and changes in variability using Dynamic Structural Equation Modelling, allowing us to simultaneously capture variability and the multilevel structure of trials nested in sessions, days, children and classrooms. DISCUSSION CODEC's unique design allows us to measure variability across a range of different cognitive domains, ages, and temporal resolutions. The deep-phenotyping arm allows us to test hypotheses concerning variability, including the role of mind wandering, strategy exploration, mood, sleep, and brain structure. Due to CODEC's longitudinal nature, we are able to quantify which measures of variability at baseline predict long-term outcomes. In summary, the CODEC study is a unique longitudinal study combining experience sampling, an accelerated longitudinal 'burst' design, deep phenotyping, and cutting-edge statistical methodologies to better understand the nature, causes, and consequences of cognitive variability in children. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov - NCT06330090.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ilse E J I Coolen
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Trigon Building, Kapittelweg 29, Nijmegen, 6525 EN, the Netherlands
| | - Jordy van Langen
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Trigon Building, Kapittelweg 29, Nijmegen, 6525 EN, the Netherlands
| | - Sophie Hofman
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Trigon Building, Kapittelweg 29, Nijmegen, 6525 EN, the Netherlands
| | - Fréderique E van Aagten
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Trigon Building, Kapittelweg 29, Nijmegen, 6525 EN, the Netherlands
| | - Jessica V Schaaf
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Trigon Building, Kapittelweg 29, Nijmegen, 6525 EN, the Netherlands
| | - Lea Michel
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Trigon Building, Kapittelweg 29, Nijmegen, 6525 EN, the Netherlands
| | - Michael Aristodemou
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Trigon Building, Kapittelweg 29, Nijmegen, 6525 EN, the Netherlands
| | - Nicholas Judd
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Trigon Building, Kapittelweg 29, Nijmegen, 6525 EN, the Netherlands
| | - Aran T B van Hout
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Trigon Building, Kapittelweg 29, Nijmegen, 6525 EN, the Netherlands
| | - Emma Meeussen
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Trigon Building, Kapittelweg 29, Nijmegen, 6525 EN, the Netherlands
| | - Rogier A Kievit
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Radboud University Medical Center, Trigon Building, Kapittelweg 29, Nijmegen, 6525 EN, the Netherlands.
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Barack DL, Ludwig VU, Parodi F, Ahmed N, Brannon EM, Ramakrishnan A, Platt ML. Attention deficits linked with proclivity to explore while foraging. Proc Biol Sci 2024; 291:20222584. [PMID: 38378153 PMCID: PMC10878810 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.2584] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/07/2023] [Accepted: 01/12/2024] [Indexed: 02/22/2024] Open
Abstract
All mobile organisms forage for resources, choosing how and when to search for new opportunities by comparing current returns with the average for the environment. In humans, nomadic lifestyles favouring exploration have been associated with genetic mutations implicated in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), inviting the hypothesis that this condition may impact foraging decisions in the general population. Here we tested this pre-registered hypothesis by examining how human participants collected resources in an online foraging task. On every trial, participants chose either to continue to collect rewards from a depleting patch of resources or to replenish the patch. Participants also completed a well-validated ADHD self-report screening assessment at the end of sessions. Participants departed resource patches sooner when travel times between patches were shorter than when they were longer, as predicted by optimal foraging theory. Participants whose scores on the ADHD scale crossed the threshold for a positive screen departed patches significantly sooner than participants who did not meet this criterion. Participants meeting this threshold for ADHD also achieved higher reward rates than individuals who did not. Our findings suggest that ADHD attributes may confer foraging advantages in some environments and invite the possibility that this condition may reflect an adaptation favouring exploration over exploitation.
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Affiliation(s)
- David L. Barack
- Department of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104, USA
- Department of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104, USA
| | - Vera U. Ludwig
- Department of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104, USA
- University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104, USA
| | - Felipe Parodi
- Department of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104, USA
| | - Nuwar Ahmed
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104, USA
| | | | - Arjun Ramakrishnan
- Department of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering and Mehta Family Centre for Engineering in Medicine, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur 208016, India
| | - Michael L. Platt
- Department of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104, USA
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104, USA
- Department of Marketing, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104, USA
- University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104, USA
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