Back
poster_SPS_2022_Rey-Mermet
Conference poster (not in proceedings)

The Cognitive Boost at the Peak of Circadian Arousal is Not as General as Previously Thought! : Poster presented at the 17th Conference of the Swiss Psychological Society. Zurich. Switzerland.

  • 2022
individual differences
attentional control
working memory
English Cognitive performance is generally assumed to be enhanced at the peak of circadian arousal compared to at off peak. The existing literature suggests that this so-called synchrony effect can be reliably found for tasks measuring the ability to maintain or store information. By contrast, the literature seems to suggest mixed evidence for tasks measuring attentional control (i.e., the ability to avoid being distracted by irrelevant information). The purpose of the present study was to test the synchrony effect for both maintenance and attentional control by means of a within-subject design. To this end, we recruited 194 young participants who were either morning or evening types. All participants performed a set of verbal-numerical and spatial short-term memory and working-memory tasks at on- and off-peak times. Using structural equation modeling, we assessed maintenance as a common factor between short-term and working-memory tasks. Attentional control was measured by separating variance specific to working memory from the common maintenance factor. Contrary to the expectations, the results showed one verbal-numerical and one spatial maintenance factor across both on- and off-peak times, thus challenging the view of a synchrony effect for maintenance of information. For attentional control, we observed at best a latent change between both on- and off-peak times. However, the attentional-control factors had low factor reliability, thus questioning the validity of this latent change. To conclude, the present results indicate that the synchrony effect is not as general and robust as the last 30 years of research seems to suggest.
Language
  • English
Classification
Psychology
License
CC BY
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://n2t.net/ark:/51647/srd1322112
Statistics
Document views: 52 File downloads:
  • poster_SPS_2022_Rey-Mermet: 137