Interfering with the Central Executive by Means of a Random Interval Repetition Task

Vandierendonck, André; Vooght, Gino De; Goten, K Van der

doi:10.1080/713755748

Cited by 74 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Twenty-four healthy students from the VU Amsterdam (mean age 20.63 years, SD = 3.12; 19 female, 5 male) performed a Random Interval Repetition task (RIR; Vandierendonck, de Vooght, & van der Goten, 1998) and were instructed to press the space bar with their non-dominant hand as soon as they heard a beep. The RIR task took 3 min and consisted of 148 stimuli (beeps).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and testing of TraumaGameplay: an iterative experimental approach using the trauma film paradigm

Asselbergs

Sijbrandij

Hoogendoorn³

et al. 2018

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

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Background: Vivid trauma-related intrusions are a hallmark symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and may be involved in its onset. Effective interventions to reduce intrusions and to potentially prevent the onset of subsequent PTSD are scarce. Studies suggest that playing the videogame Tetris, shortly after watching aversive film clips, reduces subsequent intrusions. Other studies have shown that taxing working memory (WM) while retrieving an emotional memory reduces the memory’s vividness and emotionality. Objective: We developed TraumaGameplay (TGP), a gaming app designed to reduce intrusions. This paper describes two successive experiments to determine whether playing TGP without memory retrieval (regular TGP) or TGP with memory retrieval (dual-task TGP) reduces intrusion frequency at one week compared to a no-game control. Method: For both experiments, healthy university students were recruited. Experiment 1: 92 participants were exposed to a trauma film and randomized to (1) regular TGP1 (n = 31), (2) dual-task TGP1 (n = 31) or (3) control (n = 30). In experiment 2, 120 healthy students were exposed to a trauma film and randomized to (1) regular TGP2 (n = 30), (2) dual-task TGP2 (n = 29), (3) recall only (n = 31) or (4) control (n = 30). Results: We found no significant difference between conditions on the number of intrusions for either playing regular TGP or dual-task TGP in both experiment 1 and experiment 2. Conclusion: Our results could not replicate earlier promising findings from preceding experimental research. Several reasons may underpin this difference ranging from the visuospatial videogame used in our experiments to the method of the experiment to the difficulties of replicability in general.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and testing of TraumaGameplay: an iterative experimental approach using the trauma film paradigm

Asselbergs

Sijbrandij

Hoogendoorn³

et al. 2018

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

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“…The distraction task used was the Random Interval Repetition task (RIR; [59]). This task has been successfully used in previous distraction research [20,57].…”

Section: Distraction Taskmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Third, we used a distraction task that had theoretical advantages: it was attention-20 demanding [59], directed attention to an external cue [26] and involved another perceptual modality [60]. The task was, however, not rated as very interesting.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of motivation in distracting attention away from pain: An experimental study

Verhoeven

Crombez

Eccleston

et al. 2010

Pain

124

128

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Research on the effectiveness of distraction as a method of pain control is inconclusive. One mechanism pertains to the motivational relevance of distraction tasks. In this study the motivation to engage in a distraction task during pain was experimentally manipulated. Undergraduate students (N=73) participated in a cold pressor test (CPT) and were randomly assigned to three groups: a distraction-only group performed a tone-detection task during ther CPT, a motivated-distraction group performed the same task and received a monetary reward for good task performance, and a control group did not perform the tone-detection task. Results indicated that engagement in the distraction task was better in the motivated-distraction group in comparison with the distraction-only group. Participants in both distraction groups experienced less pain compared to the control group. There were no overall differences in pain intensity between the two distraction groups. The effect of distraction was influenced by the level of catastrophic thinking about pain. For low catastrophizers, both distraction groups reported less pain as compared to the nondistracted control group. This was not the case for high catastrophizers. For high catastrophizers it mattered whether the distraction task was motivationally relevant:High catastrophizers reported less intense pain in the motivated distraction group, as compared to the non-distracted control group. We conclude that increasing the motivational relevance of the distraction task may increase the effects of distraction, especially for those who catastrophize about pain.

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“…Baddeley et al (1998), for example, found that the deviation of randomness in generated key presses increased when an irrelevant memory load was larger, which shows that maintaining a memory load may interfere with cognitive control processes needed for the generation task. Several studies have also reported poorer recall on a memory task when an unrelated random generation task was performed concurrently (e.g., Fisk & Sharp, 2003;Macizo, Bajo, & Soriano, 2006;Towse & Cheshire, 2007;Vandierendonck, 2000aVandierendonck, , 2000bVandierendonck, De Vooght, & Van der Goten, 1998a, 1998bVandierendonck, Kemps, Fastame, & Szmalec, 2004), suggesting that random generation interferes with maintenance of unrelated memory contents. Based on these findings, the expectation may be formulated that performing VTS under a memory load could result in the usage of shorter chains.…”

Section: Avenues For Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

A chain-retrieval model for voluntary task switching

Vandierendonck

Demanet

Liefooghe

et al. 2012

Cognitive Psychology

Self Cite

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To account for the findings obtained in voluntary task switching, this article describes and tests the chain-retrieval model. This model postulates that voluntary task selection involves retrieval of task information from long-term memory, which is then used to guide task selection and task execution. The model assumes that the retrieved information consists of acquired sequences (or chains) of tasks, that selection may be biased towards chains containing more task repetitions and that bottom-up triggered repetitions may overrule the intended task. To test this model, four experiments are reported. In Studies 1 and 2, sequences of task choices and the corresponding transition sequences (task repetitions or switches) were analyzed with the help of dependency statistics. The free parameters of the chain-retrieval model were estimated on the observed task sequences and these estimates were used to predict autocorrelations of tasks and transitions. In Studies 3 and 4, sequences of hand choices and their transitions were analyzed similarly. In all studies, the chain-retrieval model yielded better fits and predictions than statistical models of event choice. In applications to voluntary task switching (Studies 1 and 2), all three parameters of the model were needed to account for the data. When no task switching was required (Studies 3 and 4), the chain-retrieval could account for the data with one or two parameters clamped to a neutral value. Implications for our understanding of voluntary task selection and broader theoretical implications are discussed.

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Interfering with the Central Executive by Means of a Random Interval Repetition Task

Cited by 74 publications

References 33 publications

Development and testing of TraumaGameplay: an iterative experimental approach using the trauma film paradigm

Development and testing of TraumaGameplay: an iterative experimental approach using the trauma film paradigm

The role of motivation in distracting attention away from pain: An experimental study

A chain-retrieval model for voluntary task switching

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