Refine
Has Fulltext
- no (2)
Document Type
- Article (2) (remove)
Language
- English (2)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (2)
Keywords
- Working memory (2) (remove)
Institute
- Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften (2) (remove)
Different systems for habitual versus goal-directed control are thought to underlie human decision-making. Working memory is known to shape these decision-making systems and
their interplay, and is known to support goal-directed decision making even under stress. Here, we investigated if and how decision systems are differentially influenced by breaks filled with diverse everyday life activities known to modulate working memory performance. We used a within-subject design where young adults listened to music and played a video game during breaks interleaved with trials of a sequential two-step Markov decision task, designed to assess habitual as well as goal-directed decision making. Based on a neurocomputational model of task performance, we observed that for individuals with a rather limited
working memory capacity video gaming as compared to music reduced reliance on the goal-directed decision-making system, while a rather large working memory capacity prevented such a decline. Our findings suggest differential effects of everyday activities on key decision-making processes.
We investigated the mental rehearsal of complex action instructions by recording spontaneous eye movements of healthy adults as they looked at objects on a monitor. Participants heard consecutive instructions, each of the form "move [object] to [location]''. Instructions were only to be executed after a go signal, by manipulating all objects successively with a mouse. Participants re-inspected previously mentioned objects already while listening to further instructions. This rehearsal behavior broke down after 4 instructions, coincident with participants' instruction span, as determined from subsequent execution accuracy. These results suggest that spontaneous eye movements while listening to instructions predict their successful execution.