背景:许多癌症幸存者经历癌症相关的认知障碍(CRCI),通常会在各个生活领域产生重大的负面影响。新出现的证据表明,在采取行动之前允许更多的时间来处理信息,对于那些有CRCI的人来说,这可能是一个有用的策略,以减轻其影响。威斯康星州卡片分类任务(WCST),衡量一般认知,已经表明,对于一些癌症幸存者来说,更长的任务完成时间有助于类似的任务绩效结果,以控制有关毅力错误的人群;WCST的关键绩效指标。然而,评估这个策略是否有用,以及确定它可能对谁有用,关于选择认知领域的优势和劣势,由于任务杂质问题等因素,具有挑战性。因此,这项研究提供了初步的计算和实验评估,即对于那些患有CRCI的人来说,在采取行动之前额外处理信息的时间是否是有用的策略.
方法:我们通过执行功能成分的不同贡献(更新,shifting,抑制)产生48个不同的WCST计算模型。然后,我们的主要操作是在模型执行动作以对给定卡进行排序之前,为这些模型提供或多或少的时间(在20、40和60周期的三个级别)。我们比较了计算模型在WCST上产生的坚持错误的数量。此外,我们通过将模型产生的坚持错误数与人类数据进行比较,确定了模拟癌症幸存者在WCST上表现的模型.
结果:额外的处理时间导致模型产生的坚持错误显著减少,支持我们的假设。此外,8个独特的模型模拟了癌症幸存者在WCST上的表现。额外的时间似乎主要通过减轻严重抑制损伤的影响而对性能产生积极影响。对于更严重的全球执行功能障碍,需要大量的额外时间来减轻减损的影响。对于最严重的损伤,额外的时间无法充分减轻对绩效的影响。
结论:额外的处理时间可能是纠正患有CRCI的癌症幸存者的坚持错误的有用策略。我们的发现对实际战略的制定有意义,例如职业环境中的工作量和截止日期管理,这可能会减轻CRCI的负面影响。
BACKGROUND: Many cancer survivors experience cancer-related cognitive impairment (CRCI), often with significant negative consequences across various life domains. Emerging evidence suggests that allowing additional time to process information before acting may be a useful strategy for those with CRCI to mitigate some of its impacts. The Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST), a measure of general cognition, has shown that for some cancer survivors, longer task completion time facilitates similar task performance outcomes to control populations concerning perseveration errors; a key performance metric of the WCST. However, assessing if this strategy may be useful, as well as determining for whom it may be useful, with regard to strengths and weaknesses among select cognitive domains, is challenging due to factors such as the problem of task impurity. Accordingly, this study provides an initial computational and experimental assessment of whether additional time to process information before acting is a useful strategy for those with CRCI.
METHODS: We simulated individual cognitive differences observed in humans by varying contributions of executive functioning components (updating, shifting, inhibition) to yield 48 distinct computational models of the WCST. Our main manipulation was then to provide these models with more or less time (at three levels of 20, 40 and 60 cycles) before models executed an action to sort a given card. We compared the number of perseveration errors on the WCST produced by the computational models. Additionally, we determined models that simulated the performance of cancer survivors on the WCST by comparing the number of perseveration errors produced by the models to human data.
RESULTS: Additional processing time resulted in the models producing significantly fewer perseveration errors, supporting our hypothesis. In addition, 8 unique models simulated the performance of cancer survivors on the WCST. Additional time appeared to have a positive influence on performance primarily by mitigating the impacts of severe inhibition impairments. For more severe global executive function impairments, a substantial amount of additional time was required to mitigate the impacts of the impairments. For the most severe impairments, additional time was unable to adequately mitigate the impact on performance.
CONCLUSIONS: Additional processing time may be a useful strategy to rectify perseveration errors among cancer survivors with CRCI. Our findings have implications for the development of practical strategies, such as workload and deadline management in occupational settings, which may mitigate the negative effects of CRCI.