Biology subjects

Arnau, S.

Publications and source records attributed to Arnau, S..

10 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Why Is Spontaneous Blink Timing Informative? An Adaptive Scheduling Perspective

Spontaneous eye blinks have long been linked to cognitive processing, yet how task demands shape blink timing and its relationship to behavioral performance remains unclear. We examined spontaneous blink behavior in 576 adults performing two variants of the Continuous Performance Task (CPT). Blink occurrence and timing were most strongly modulated by the experimental condition in the more demanding CPT-AX task, whereas their association with response time was stronger in the CPT-X task, where more consistent blink timing predicted faster responses. This dissociation suggests that task structure changes not only blink behavior but also the behavioral relevance of blink timing. These findings are consistent with an adaptive scheduling account of spontaneous blinking and provide a conceptual framework for understanding when and why blink timing contains chronometric information about ongoing cognition.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Aperiodic EEG activity is a domain-specific marker of attentional aging in neurotypical adults

Aperiodic neural activity has been reliably shown to be reduced among older adults, and these reductions are associated with age-related cognitive decline. These results suggest that aperiodic activity, as measured by the spectral exponent, might be a viable electrophysiological biomarker for cognitive aging. However, this has not been tested longitudinally, within participants, during normal aging. Here, we used a longitudinal cohort to test whether changes in aperiodic activity between two sessions, approximately 5 years apart, track behavioral change across two domains: sustained attention (Psychomotor Vigilance Test) and executive function (modified Simon task). We found that aperiodic activity declined within individuals after the interval, independent of age at baseline. This within-person change tracked concurrent changes in reaction times during visual attention but was not associated with changes in any Simon task measure. Within a resampling framework, the aperiodic-PVT association was stable across cohort resamples and independently fitted partitions, though it was not confirmed in a small, frozen held-out set. These findings suggest the longitudinal decline in aperiodic activity specifically tracks sustained-attention processing speed rather than general cognitive aging, supporting its potential as a domain-specific biomarker of attentional aging in neurotypical populations.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Spontaneous eye blinks as temporal markers of internal attention

While eye blinks interrupt the flow of visual information, their timing may reveal the temporal organisation of cognitive processing. Here, we asked whether the temporal distribution of blinks across trials provides a time-resolved signature of attentional focusing in working memory. In Experiment 1, blink-locked EEG analyses showed that blink timing was aligned with neural activity reflecting attentional focusing on a relevant memory representation. In Experiment 2, participants remembered the same visual information across conditions, but the relevant item was cued either early during storage, or later with presentation of the memory probe. Blink-frequency profiles shifted accordingly, increasing after the cue when selection was possible early and after the probe when selection was delayed. Post-cue blinks in the early-selection condition were also associated with better memory performance. Thus, our findings establish eye-blink frequency profiles as an unobtrusive chronometric signal for tracking latent cognitive processing in settings where neuroimaging is not feasible.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Investigating Effects of Outcome Controllability and Error Attribution on Proactive Attentional Control: Insights from EEG and Cognitive Modelling

Sense of agency (SoA), the experience of controlling ones actions and their consequences, is crucial for self-representation and adaptive goal-directed behavior. Classic comparator models explain SoA as the match between predicted and actual sensorimotor outcomes, whereas inference-based and Bayesian accounts emphasize cue integration and probabilistic weighting. Besides the influence of action-outcome contingencies on SoA, the feedback effect of perceived SoA on cognitive processing is also crucial for cognitive performance. Much of todays cognitive work is performed through interaction with devices that are not entirely reliable or are prone to operator error. Against this background, it is of particular interest whether the impact of an expectancy violation differs depending on whether the outcome is attributed to a malfunctioning system or to ones own mistake. To investigate this, the present EEG study deploys manipulated performance feedback in a color-discrimination task, while EEG was recorded. Thirty-five participants performed in this task with periods of veridical feedback, periods with feedback simulating an increased error rate, and periods of feedback suggesting malfunctioning response buttons. Behavioral performance was decomposed using the EZ-diffusion model, and time-frequency EEG analyses focused on event-related alpha, beta, and theta oscillations. The participants responded significantly slower in the self-attribution of errors condition compared to neutral feedback, and also significantly slower in the system-attribution of errors condition compared to self-attribution of errors. Decomposing behavior using drift-diffusion modeling indicates that a general decrease of response times with manipulated feedback can be attributed to decreased drift rates, whereas the difference between the self and system error conditions are reflected in the non-decision time. In the EEG, the manipulated feedback was reflected in attenuated decreases of occipital alpha and sensorimotor beta power during the cue-target interval. Furthermore, system-versus self-attributed errors elicited stronger feedback-locked midfrontal theta responses. Our findings suggest a functional dissociation within the agency inference process, where perceived controllability regulates preparatory investment of cognitive resources, while the attribution of action-outcome discrepancies seem to modulate sensory processes or motor-execution.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Electrophysiological resting-state signatures link polygenic scores to general intelligence

Intelligence is associated with important life outcomes. Behavioral, genetic, structural, and functional brain correlates of intelligence have been studied for decades, but questions remain as to how genetics are related to trait expression and what intermediary role brain properties play. This study investigated these mediations in a representative sample of 434 individuals, comprising young and older adults. Polygenic scores (PGS) for intelligence were calculated. Resting-state EEG recordings were analyzed using graph theory quantifying functional connectivity across different frequencies. We tested whether global and local graph metrics like efficiency and clustering mediated the association between PGS and intelligence. PGS significantly predicted variance in intelligence and were related to frequency-specific graph metrics in areas predominantly located in parieto-frontal regions, which in turn were associated with intelligence. These findings, which are based on the first study linking PGS to intelligence using EEG-derived graph metrics, advance our understanding of the neurogenetics of intelligence.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

The effect of performance contingent reward prospects flexibly adapts to more versus less specific task goals

In some situations, e.g., when we expect to gain a reward in case of good performance, goal-driven top-down attention is particularly strong. Little is known about the task specificity of such increases of top-down attention due to environmental factors. To understand to what extent performance-contingent reward prospects can result in specific and unspecific changes in cognitive processing, we here investigate reward effects under different levels of task specification. Thirty-two participants performed a visual or an auditory discrimination task cued by two consecutive visual stimuli: First, a reward cue indicated if good performance was rewarded. Second, a task cue announced either which of the two tasks would follow (precise cue) or that both tasks would follow equally likely (imprecise cue). Reward and task cue preciseness both significantly improved performance. Moreover, the response time difference between precisely and imprecisely cued trials was significantly stronger in rewarded than in unrewarded trials. These effects were reflected in ERP slow wave amplitudes: Reward and preciseness both significantly enhanced the contingent negative variation (CNV) prior to the task stimulus. In an early CNV time interval, both factors also showed an interaction. A negative slow wave prior to the task cue was also significantly enhanced for rewarded trials. This effect correlated with the reward difference in response times. These results indicate that reward prospects trigger task-specific changes in preparatory top-down attention which can flexibly adapt over time and across different task requirements. This highlights that a reward-induced increase of cognitive control can occur on different specificity levels.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Frontal midline theta power during the cue-target-interval reflects increased cognitive effort in rewarded task-switching

Cognitive performance largely depends on how much effort is invested during task-execution. This also means that we rarely perform as good as we could. Cognitive effort is adjusted to the expected outcome of performance, meaning that it is driven by motivation. The results from recent studies investigating the effects manipulations of motivation clearly suggest that it is the expenditure of cognitive control that is particularly prone to being affected by modulations of cognitive effort. Although recent EEG studies investigated the neural underpinnings of the interaction of effort and control, reports on how cognitive effort is reflected by oscillatory activity of the EEG are quite sparse. It is the goal of the present study to bridge this gap by performing an exploratory analysis of high-density EEG data from a switching-task using manipulations of monetary incentives. A beamformer approach is used to localize the sensor-level effects in source-space. The results indicate that the manipulation of cognitive effort was successful. The participants reported significantly higher motivation and cognitive effort in high versus low reward trials. Performance was also significantly increased. The analysis of the EEG data revealed that the increase of cognitive effort was reflected by an increased mid-frontal theta activity during the cue-target interval, suggesting an increased use of proactive control. Alpha-desynchronization throughout the trial was also more pronounced in high reward trials, signaling a bias of attention towards the processing of external stimuli. Source reconstruction suggests that these effects are located in areas related to cognitive control, and visual processing.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2022

Task prioritization modulates low frequency EEG dynamics reflecting proactive cognitive control

Most neuroscientific studies investigating mental effort apply unspecific effort allocation paradigms. In contrast, the present EEG study targets specific effort allocation during task prioritization. Twenty-eight participants performed a cued number classification task during the retention interval of a working memory task including retrospective cues. One of two possible number classifications was done per trial. Each trial started with a cue indicating which of the two tasks would be more important in the upcoming trial. Subjects were told to engage in both tasks, but to concentrate on the important one. Feedback given at the end of each trial was calculated based on task performance, with scores obtained from the relevant task being tripled. Participants performed significantly better in either task when it was important compared to when not.Task prioritization modulates theta, alpha and beta oscillations, predominantly during task preparation. Multivariate pattern analysis revealed that the exact type of the two possible number classifications was decodable, however, decoding accuracy did not depend on task importance. Hemispheric alpha power asymmetries indicating attentional orienting between working memory representations also did not depend on task importance. The findings suggest that task prioritization primarily affects proactive cognitive control on a superordinate level.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

The Electrophysiological Signature of Mind Wandering

Mind wandering during ongoing tasks can impede task performance and increase the risk of failure in laboratory as well as in daily-life tasks and work environments. Neurocognitive measures like the electroencephalography (EEG) offer the opportunity to assess mind wandering non-invasively without interfering with the primary task. However, the literature on electrophysiological correlates of mind wandering is rather inconsistent. The present study aims towards clarifying this picture by breaking down the temporal dynamics of mind-wandering encounters using a cluster-based permutation approach. Participants performed a switching task during which mind wandering was occasionally assessed via thought probes applied after trial completion at random time points. In line with previous studies, response accuracy was reduced during mind wandering. Moreover, alpha power during the inter-trial interval was significantly increased on those trials on which participants reported that they had been mind-wandering. This spatially widely distributed effect is theoretically well in line with recent findings linking an increased alpha power to an internally oriented state of attention. Measurements of alpha power may therefore be used to detect mind wandering online during critical tasks in traffic and industry in order to prevent failures.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Excitatory and inhibitory attentional mechanisms involved in the control of distractor interference in working memory: A neural oscillations perspective

There is an ongoing debate on the contribution of target enhancement and distractor inhibition processes to selective attention. In a working memory task, we presented to-be-memorized information in a way that posterior hemispheric asymmetries in oscillatory power could be unambiguously linked to lateral target vs. distractor processing. Alpha power asymmetries (8-14 Hz) were insensitive to the number of cued or non-cued items, supporting their relation to spatial attention. Furthermore, we found an increase in alpha power contralateral to non-cued working memory content and an alpha power suppression contralateral to relevant information. These oscillatory patterns relative to the positions of cued and non-cued items were related to the participants ability to control for the impact of irrelevant information on working memory retrieval. Based on these results, we propose that spatially specific modulations of posterior alpha power are related to accessing vs. inhibiting the spatial context of information stored in working memory.

neuroscience↗