Behavioural, psychophysical, genetic and neuroimaging investigations of boredom.

无聊的行为、心理物理、遗传和神经影像学研究。

• 批准号: RGPIN-2018-03713
• 负责人: Danckert, James
• 金额: $ 9.47万
• 依托单位: University of Waterloo
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=763989
• 关键词: Behavioural; psychophysical; genetic; neuroimaging; investigations

Boredom is a ubiquitous and consequential cognitive-affective experience. Strongly associated with myriad negative affective states (e.g., anxiety, aggression) and suboptimal behaviours (e.g., increased impulsivity/sensation seeking, addictive behaviours), boredom is clearly an important human experience that demands close research attention. We define boredom as an aggressively dissatisfying state in which the individual is motivated to engage in their environment, but all attempts to do so fail. In the past granting period we showed that those high in boredom proneness demonstrate poor performance on sustained attention tasks, have lower levels of self-control and demonstrate physiological changes (i.e., in heart rate and skin conductance levels) indicative of a failure to efficiently engage with a task. We also used functional MRI to show that when bored a particular part of the brain known as the insular cortex is down-regulated. The current proposal expands this work in four directions: first, behavioural studies will replicate the association between boredom and impoverished attention before exploring the relationship between boredom and executive functions. Executive functions are those higher level behaviours such as abstract reasoning, self-regulation, inhibitory control, etc. that we suspect are deficient in highly boredom prone individuals. Our second focus will explore the psychophysiological signature of boredom in more detail than we have previously using measures of heart rate variability. Previous research has shown that lower levels of heart rate variability are associated with poor performance on executive function tasks. We expect that highly boredom prone individuals will present with lower heart rate variability. The third research focus will explore genetic influences on self-control, self-regulation and boredom. This builds on a recent collaboration in which we examined the association between phenotypes of the so-called foraging gene and boredom. Finally, we plan to using functional neuroimaging to examine the dynamics of boredom over time. We expect that modulation of activity in the insular cortex will track changes in self-reported boredom in response to differences in the rate of change of information in a task (i.e., a low rate of change will be associated with down-regulation of the insula and vice versa). Understanding boredom has important consequences for a broad range of basic science questions ranging from the understanding of attention is deployed to decision making and the optimal control of behaviour. From a practical point of view, this work has implications for applied settings in which accuracy demands are high but the environment is monotonous (e.g., air traffic control). Finally, these studies will have important insights for understanding a range of psychological and neurological conditions in which boredom is prevalent.

无聊是一种无处不在的认知影响体验。与无数的负面情感状态（例如焦虑，侵略）和次优行为（例如，寻求冲动/感觉的增加，成瘾性行为）密切相关，无聊显然是一种重要的人类体验，需要密切的研究关注。我们将无聊定义为一个积极的不满意状态，在这种状态下，个人有动力参与其环境，但所有尝试这样做的尝试都失败了。在过去的授予期内，我们表明那些无聊倾斜度的人表明，持续注意任务的表现较差，自我控制水平较低，并且表明生理变化（即心率和皮肤电导水平）表明未能有效参与任务。我们还使用功能性MRI来表明，当无聊的大脑的特定部分被称为岛状皮层时。当前的提案将这项工作扩展到四个方向：首先，行为研究将在探索无聊与行政功能之间的关系之前复制无聊和贫困注意力之间的关联。执行功能是我们怀疑在高度无聊的容易患者中缺乏的较高级别的行为，例如抽象推理，自我调节，抑制性控制等。我们的第二个重点将比我们以前使用心率变异性的度量更详细地探索无聊的心理生理特征。先前的研究表明，较低的心率变异性与执行功能任务的性能差有关。我们预计高度无聊的人会出现较低的心率变异性。第三个研究重点将探索对自我控制，自我调节和无聊的遗传影响。这是基于最近的合作，我们研究了所谓的觅食基因和无聊的表型之间的关联。最后，我们计划使用功能性神经影像来检查无聊的动力学随着时间的流逝。我们预计，在岛状皮层中的活动调制将跟踪自我报告的无聊的变化，以应对任务中信息变化率的差异（即，较低的变化率将与岛屿的下调相关，而邪恶的变化率将导致较低的变化率）。理解无聊对广泛的基础科学问题有重要的影响，包括部署注意力的理解到决策和对行为的最佳控制。从实际的角度来看，这项工作对准确性需求很高但环境单调（例如，空中交通管制）的应用设置具有影响。最后，这些研究将具有重要的见解，以理解一系列无聊的心理和神经系统条件。