Todd S Braver
Biographic Data
| ID | 1659673 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Todd S Braver |
| GIVEN NAMES | Todd S |
| FAMILY NAME | Braver |
| SIGNATURE | BRAVER T S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Washington University in St. Louis |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2631-3393 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 62 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Meditation-Specific Neural Predictors of State Mindfulness During Eyes Open Meditation
Investigating mindfulness influences on cognitive function: On the promise and potential of converging research strategies
Cognitive Effort-Based Decision-Making Across Experimental and Daily Life Indices in Younger and Older Adults
Together, these results suggest that cognitive effort costs, as measured through behavioral choice patterns in a neuroeconomic decision-making task, can be used to predict and explain engagement in mentally demanding activities during daily life among both older and younger adults
A College First-Year Mindfulness Seminar to Enhance Psychological Well-Being and Cognitive Function
Mindfulness training (MT) has shown promise in improving psychological health among college students, yet has rarely been evaluated as an addition to the college academic curriculum. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of a first-year MT seminar offered to residential students at a selective private university, evaluating its impact on psychological and cognitive functioning, in relationship to a comparable positive psychology …
Cognitive effort: A neuroeconomic approach
Motivation and Cognitive Control: From Behavior to Neural Mechanism
Research on cognitive control and executive function has long recognized the relevance of motivational factors. Recently, however, the topic has come increasingly to center stage, with a surge of new studies examining the interface of motivation and cognitive control. In the present article we survey research situated at this interface, considering work from cognitive and social psychology and behavioral economics, but with a particular focus on …
What Is the Subjective Cost of Cognitive Effort? Load, Trait, and Aging Effects Revealed by Economic Preference
It has long been assumed that people treat cognitive effort as costly, but also that such effort costs may vary greatly across individuals. Individual differences in subjective effort could present a major and pervasive confound in behavioral and neuroscience assessments, by conflating cognitive ability with cognitive motivation. Self-report cognitive effort scales have been developed, but objective measures are lacking. In this study, we use the…
The variable nature of cognitive control: A dual mechanisms framework
Exploring emotional and cognitive conflict using speeded voluntary facial expressions
Affective conflict and control may have important parallels to cognitive conflict and control, but these processes have been difficult to quantitatively study with emotionally naturalistic laboratory paradigms. The current study examines a modification of the AX-Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT), a well-validated probe of cognitive conflict and control, for the study of emotional conflict. In the Emotional AX-CPT, speeded emotional facial expr…
Flexible neural mechanisms of cognitive control within human prefrontal cortex
A major challenge in research on executive control is to reveal its functional decomposition into underlying neural mechanisms. A typical assumption is that this decomposition occurs solely through anatomically based dissociations. Here we tested an alternative hypothesis that different cognitive control processes may be implemented within the same brain regions, with fractionation and dissociation occurring on the basis of temporal dynamics. Reg…
Intellect as distinct from openness: Differences revealed by fMRI of working memory
Relatively little is known about the neural bases of the Big Five personality trait Openness/Intellect. This trait is composed of 2 related but separable aspects, Openness to Experience and Intellect. On the basis of previous behavioral research (C. G. DeYoung, J. B. Peterson, & D. M. Higgins, 2005), the authors hypothesized that brain activity supporting working memory (WM) would be related to Intellect but not to Openness. To test this hypothes…
Event perception: A mind-brain perspective
People perceive and conceive of activity in terms of discrete events. Here the authors propose a theory according to which the perception of boundaries between events arises from ongoing perceptual processing and regulates attention and memory. Perceptual systems continuously make predictions about what will happen next. When transient errors in predictions arise, an event boundary is perceived. According to the theory, the perception of events d…
Conflict monitoring and cognitive control.
A neglected question regarding cognitive control is how control processes might detect situations calling for their involvement. The authors propose here that the demand for control may be evaluated in part by monitoring for conflicts in information processing. This hypothesis is supported by data concerning the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain area involved in cognitive control, which also appears to respond to the occurrence of conflict. The …
Anterior Cingulate Cortex, Error Detection, and the Online Monitoring of Performance
An unresolved question in neuroscience and psychology is how the brain monitors performance to regulate behavior. It has been proposed that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), on the medial surface of the frontal lobe, contributes to performance monitoring by detecting errors. In this study, event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine ACC function. Results confirm that this region shows activity during erroneous respo…
Event perception: A mind-brain perspective
People perceive and conceive of activity in terms of discrete events. Here the authors propose a theory according to which the perception of boundaries between events arises from ongoing perceptual processing and regulates attention and memory. Perceptual systems continuously make predictions about what will happen next. When transient errors in predictions arise, an event boundary is perceived. According to the theory, the perception of events d…
Intellect as distinct from openness: Differences revealed by fMRI of working memory
Relatively little is known about the neural bases of the Big Five personality trait Openness/Intellect. This trait is composed of 2 related but separable aspects, Openness to Experience and Intellect. On the basis of previous behavioral research (C. G. DeYoung, J. B. Peterson, & D. M. Higgins, 2005), the authors hypothesized that brain activity supporting working memory (WM) would be related to Intellect but not to Openness. To test this hypothes…
Anterior Cingulate Cortex, Error Detection, and the Online Monitoring of Performance
An unresolved question in neuroscience and psychology is how the brain monitors performance to regulate behavior. It has been proposed that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), on the medial surface of the frontal lobe, contributes to performance monitoring by detecting errors. In this study, event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine ACC function. Results confirm that this region shows activity during erroneous respo…
Conflict monitoring and cognitive control.
A neglected question regarding cognitive control is how control processes might detect situations calling for their involvement. The authors propose here that the demand for control may be evaluated in part by monitoring for conflicts in information processing. This hypothesis is supported by data concerning the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain area involved in cognitive control, which also appears to respond to the occurrence of conflict. The …
Event perception: A mind-brain perspective
People perceive and conceive of activity in terms of discrete events. Here the authors propose a theory according to which the perception of boundaries between events arises from ongoing perceptual processing and regulates attention and memory. Perceptual systems continuously make predictions about what will happen next. When transient errors in predictions arise, an event boundary is perceived. According to the theory, the perception of events d…
Flexible neural mechanisms of cognitive control within human prefrontal cortex
A major challenge in research on executive control is to reveal its functional decomposition into underlying neural mechanisms. A typical assumption is that this decomposition occurs solely through anatomically based dissociations. Here we tested an alternative hypothesis that different cognitive control processes may be implemented within the same brain regions, with fractionation and dissociation occurring on the basis of temporal dynamics. Reg…
Intellect as distinct from openness: Differences revealed by fMRI of working memory
Relatively little is known about the neural bases of the Big Five personality trait Openness/Intellect. This trait is composed of 2 related but separable aspects, Openness to Experience and Intellect. On the basis of previous behavioral research (C. G. DeYoung, J. B. Peterson, & D. M. Higgins, 2005), the authors hypothesized that brain activity supporting working memory (WM) would be related to Intellect but not to Openness. To test this hypothes…
Exploring emotional and cognitive conflict using speeded voluntary facial expressions
Affective conflict and control may have important parallels to cognitive conflict and control, but these processes have been difficult to quantitatively study with emotionally naturalistic laboratory paradigms. The current study examines a modification of the AX-Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT), a well-validated probe of cognitive conflict and control, for the study of emotional conflict. In the Emotional AX-CPT, speeded emotional facial expr…
The variable nature of cognitive control: A dual mechanisms framework
What Is the Subjective Cost of Cognitive Effort? Load, Trait, and Aging Effects Revealed by Economic Preference
It has long been assumed that people treat cognitive effort as costly, but also that such effort costs may vary greatly across individuals. Individual differences in subjective effort could present a major and pervasive confound in behavioral and neuroscience assessments, by conflating cognitive ability with cognitive motivation. Self-report cognitive effort scales have been developed, but objective measures are lacking. In this study, we use the…
Cognitive effort: A neuroeconomic approach
Motivation and Cognitive Control: From Behavior to Neural Mechanism
Research on cognitive control and executive function has long recognized the relevance of motivational factors. Recently, however, the topic has come increasingly to center stage, with a surge of new studies examining the interface of motivation and cognitive control. In the present article we survey research situated at this interface, considering work from cognitive and social psychology and behavioral economics, but with a particular focus on …
A College First-Year Mindfulness Seminar to Enhance Psychological Well-Being and Cognitive Function
Mindfulness training (MT) has shown promise in improving psychological health among college students, yet has rarely been evaluated as an addition to the college academic curriculum. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of a first-year MT seminar offered to residential students at a selective private university, evaluating its impact on psychological and cognitive functioning, in relationship to a comparable positive psychology …
Investigating mindfulness influences on cognitive function: On the promise and potential of converging research strategies
Cognitive Effort-Based Decision-Making Across Experimental and Daily Life Indices in Younger and Older Adults
Together, these results suggest that cognitive effort costs, as measured through behavioral choice patterns in a neuroeconomic decision-making task, can be used to predict and explain engagement in mentally demanding activities during daily life among both older and younger adults
Meditation-Specific Neural Predictors of State Mindfulness During Eyes Open Meditation
Cognition (13 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Cognitive psychology (12 works) · Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies (11 works) · Neuroscience (9 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Cognitive science (5 works) · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics (4 works) · Developmental psychology (4 works) · Anterior cingulate cortex (3 works)