Circadian modulation of the time course of automatic and controlled semantic processing

Chronobiol Int. 2024 Feb 5:1-15. doi: 10.1080/07420528.2024.2312806. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTWe investigated whether chronotype and time-of-day modulate the time course of automatic and controlled semantic processing. Participants performed a category semantic priming task at either the optimal or non-optimal time of day. We varied the prime-target onset asynchrony (100-, 450-, 650-, and 850-ms SOAs) and kept the percentage of unrelated targets constant at 80%. Automatic processing was expected with the short SOA, and controlled processing with longer SOAs. Intermediate-types (Experiment 1) verified that our task was sensitive to capturing both types of processes and served as a reference to assess themin extreme chronotypes. Morning-type and evening-type participants (Experiment 2) differed in the influence of time of testing on priming effects. Morning-types applied control in all conditions, and no performance modulation by time-of-day was observed. In contrast, evening-types were most adversely affected by the time of day to shift from automatic-based to controlled-based responses. Also, they were considerably affected in successfully implementing controlled processing with long intervals, particularly at the non-optimal time of day, with inhibitory priming showing only a marginally significant effect at the longest SOA. These results suggest that extreme chronotypes may be associated with different styles of cognitive control. Morning-types would be driven by a pro...

Source: Chronobiology International - February 6, 2024 Category: Biology Authors: Luc ía B Palmero Miriam Tortajada V íctor Martínez-Pérez Alejandro Sandoval-Lentisco Guillermo Campoy Luis J Fuentes Source Type: research