title: Cognitive control predicted by color vision, and vice versa.
abstract: One of the most important functions of cognitive control is to continuously adapt cognitive processes to changing and often conflicting demands of the environment. Dopamine (DA) has been suggested to play a key role in the signaling and resolution of such response conflict. Given that DA is found in high concentration in the retina, color vision discrimination has been suggested as an index of DA functioning and in particular blue-yellow color vision impairment (CVI) has been used to indicate a central hypodopaminergic state. We used color discrimination (indexed by the total color distance score; TCDS) to predict individual differences in the cognitive control of response conflict, as reflected by conflict-resolution efficiency in an auditory Simon task. As expected, participants showing better color discrimination were more efficient in resolving response conflict. Interestingly, participants showing a blue-yellow CVI were associated with less efficiency in handling response conflict. Our findings indicate that color vision discrimination might represent a promising predictor of cognitive controlability in healthy individuals.
authors: Leiden University, Institute for Psychological Research & Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, The Netherlands. Electronic address: colzato@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.
authors: Lorenza S
authors: LS
authors: Colzato
authors: Leiden University, Institute for Psychological Research & Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors: Roberta
authors: R
authors: Sellaro
authors: University of Zurich Experimental and Clinical Pharmacopsychology Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Psychiatric Hospital, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
authors: Lea M
authors: LM
authors: Hulka
authors: University of Zurich Experimental and Clinical Pharmacopsychology Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Psychiatric Hospital, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
authors: Boris B
authors: BB
authors: Quednow
authors: Leiden University, Institute for Psychological Research & Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors: Bernhard
authors: B
authors: Hommel
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055253:Color Vision / Q000502:physiology*; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Cognitive control; Color vision discrimination; Dopamine