In this study, we investigate the task offloading issue in mobile social networks. Although the ‘d-choice’ paradigm in ‘ball and bin’ theory [1] had shown the power of random choice in load balancing with random walk model, its performance could be fairly poor when real trace data sets are concerned. According to our preliminary evaluation results with ‘MobiClique’ [2], the ‘d-choice’ scheme co...

Perceptual load is a key determinant of distraction by task-irrelevant stimuli (e.g., Lavie, N. (2005). Distracted and confused?: Selective attention under load. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 75-82). Here we establish the role of perceptual load in determining an internal form of distraction by task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs or "mind-wandering"). Four experiments demonstrated reduced frequenc...

The present study investigated the relative contribution of bottom-up and top-down control to task selection in the voluntary task switching (VTS) procedure. In order to manipulate the efficiency of top-down control, a concurrent working-memory load was imposed during VTS. In three experiments bottom-up factors such as stimulus repetitions, repetition of irrelevant information and stimulus-task...

We evaluated frontal brain activation during a mixed attentional/working memory task with graded levels of difficulty in a group of 19 healthy subjects, by means of time-domain functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Brain activation was assessed, and load-related oxy- and deoxy-hemoglobin changes were studied. Generalized linear model (GLM) was applied to the data to explore the metabol...

Many theories of attention have proposed that visual working memory plays an important role in visual search tasks. The present study examined the involvement of visual working memory in search using a dual-task paradigm in which participants performed a visual search task while maintaining no, two, or four objects in visual working memory. The presence of a working memory load added a constant...

Attentional interference between tasks performed in parallel is known to have strong and often undesired effects. As yet, however, the mechanisms by which interference operates remain elusive. A better knowledge of these processes may facilitate our understanding of the effects of attention on human performance and the debilitating consequences that disruptions to attention can have. According ...