Evidence of task-triggered retrieval of the previous response: a binding perspective on response-repetition benefits in task switching.

In task switching, response repetitions (RRs) usually yield performance benefits as compared to response switches, but only when the task also repeats. When the task switches, RR benefits vanish or even turn into costs, yielding an interaction between repeating versus switching the task and the response (the RR effect). Different theoretical accounts for this RR effect exist, but, in the present study, we specifically tested a prediction derived from binding and retrieval accounts. These maintain that repeating the task retrieves the previous-trial response, thus causing RR benefits. Retrieval is possible due to the task-response binding formed in the previous trial. We employed a task-switching paradigm with three response options that allowed us to differentiate error types. Across two experiments (N = 46 and N = 107) we showed that response-repetition errors in response-switch trials were more likely in task repetitions than in task switches, supporting the notion that the previous response is retrieved by the repeating task, despite being wrong. Such a finding is in line with binding and retrieval accounts but cannot be easily accommodated by the competing theoretical accounts. Thus, the present study indicates task-response binding as an important mechanism underlying RR benefits in task repetitions.

Comparison of mucus and serum biomarker sampling in chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to analyze advantages and disadvantages of mucus and serum for biomarker analysis. METHODS: This study includes prospective study of 61 CRS with nasal polyps patients who were followed over 24 months and over nine time points after functional endoscopic sinus surgery. At each time points, the nasal polyp score (NPS) was assessed and mucus as well as serum was collected. Selected were measured in mucus and serum. Mean, standard deviation and variance, undetectable values, and the correlation of the biomarkers to the NPS over time and to early recurrences were calculated, and the effect of surgery on the biomarkers was assessed. Additionally, the diurnal rhythm of all biomarkers was measures in order to assure stable biomarker values during sampling times. RESULTS: All biomarkers showed stable values during sampling times. Serum biomarker levels displayed higher percentages of undetectable values compared to mucus biomarkers. Mucus periostin (p < 0.001, r = 0.89), mucus IgE (p < 0.001, r = 0.51), serum periostin (p < 0.001, r = 0.53), mucus CST1 (p < 0.001, r = 0.27), and serum IgE (p < 0.01, r = -0.18) were the best marker and medium combinations to track the NPS over time and to predict recurrences. Mucus serpinF2 was negatively correlated and predicted early recurrences (p = 0.026, R2  = 0.015). CONCLUSIONS: Serum and mucus both represent viable mediums for "liquid biopsies." The most promising biomarker/medium combinations over time to track disease severity were mucus periostin, mucus IgE, serum periostin, mucus CST1, and serum IgE. Mucus serpinF2 was the best biomarker to predict early recurrences.

The influence of event segmentation by context on stimulus-response binding.

A core characteristic of auditory stimuli is that they develop over time. Referring to the event segmentation theory, we assume that the on- and offset of a contextual sound indicates the start and end of an event. As a consequence, stimuli and responses appearing within a common auditory context may be integrated more likely/strongly, forming so-called event files, than those appearing in different auditory contexts. In two experiments, this hypothesis was tested using the negative priming paradigm and the distractor-response binding paradigm. In prime-probe presentations, participants identified target sounds via keypresses while ignoring distractor sounds. Additional sine tones acted as the context in the prime, whereas the probe context was silence. In the common context condition, the context started with the prime sounds and ended with the prime response. In the changing context condition, the context started with the prime sounds but changed to another tone after the offset of the prime sounds. Results from both experiments revealed a larger stimulus-response binding effect in the common than in the changing context condition. We conducted a control experiment to test the alternative account of contextual similarity between the prime and the probe. Together, our results suggest that common context can temporally segment stimuli and responses into event files, providing evidence of common context as a binding principle. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Effect of postoperative systemic prednisolone on short-term and long-term outcomes in chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps: A multi-centered randomized clinical trial.

Introduction: The objective of this study was to determine whether postoperative additive systemic steroid administration in chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) impacted selected endoscopic, subjective and objective outcome measures. Methods: This was a prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, noninferiority multicenter trial of n=106 patients with CRSwNP. All patients underwent primary functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) followed by topical nasal steroids. Patients were randomized to a systemic steroid or placebo for 1 month. Patients were followed up for 2 years over 9 time points. The primary outcome measures were the differences between groups with respect to the nasal polyp score (NPS) and sinonasal quality of life (SNQoL). Secondary outcome measures included interactions with respect to the Lund-Kennedy score (LKS), sinonasal symptoms, general quality of life (GQoL), 16-item odor identification test scores, recurrence rates, need for revision surgery and mucus biomarker levels. Results: 106 patients were randomized to either the placebo or the systemic steroid group (n=53 per group). Postoperative systemic steroids were not superior to placebo with respect to all primary (p= 0.077) and secondary outcome measures (p>0.05 for all). Reported adverse events were similar between the two groups. Conclusion: In conclusion, the addition of postoperative systemic steroids after primary FESS did not confer a benefit over topical steroid nasal spray alone with respect to NPS, SNQOL, LKS, GQOL, sinonasal symptoms, smell scores, recurrence rates, the need for revision surgery or biomarkers over a short-term follow-up of up to 9 months and a long-term follow-up of up to 24 months in CRSwNP patients. Functional endoscopic surgery did, however, show a strong effect on all outcome measures, which remained relatively stable up to the endpoint at 2 years.

Core Mechanisms in Action Control: Binding and Retrieval.

This special collection focuses on action control and its two postulated core processes, namely feature binding and retrieval. Action control is an important topic as humans interact with their environment by means of goal-directed behavior, i.e. by means of actions. Cognitive processes were developed and shaped to enhance preparation, execution, and regulation of action. Therefore, it is the current consensus that cognition serves action. To date, research on human action control is comprised mainly of an abundance of paradigm-specific results and models. To gain a better understanding of action control, an integrative framework was proposed (the BRAC framework - for Binding and Retrieval in Action Control, Frings et al., 2020) that can explain a wide range of findings across different experimental paradigms by assuming two core processes as key functions in action control: feature binding and feature retrieval. In this special collection, 20 articles present and discuss different types of sequential paradigms in terms of this integrative account. This editorial explains the major assumptions of the BRAC framework and provides an integrative overview of the articles that are included in this special collection.

Binding of task-irrelevant contextual features in task switching.

Research in attention and action control produced substantial evidence suggesting the presence of feature binding. This study explores the binding of task-irrelevant context features in cued task switching. We predicted that repeating a context feature in trial n retrieves the trial n - 1 episode. Consequently, performance should improve when the retrieved features match the features of the current trial. Two experiments (N = 124; N = 96) employing different tasks and materials showed that repeating the task-irrelevant context improved performance when the task and the response repeated. Furthermore, repeating the task-irrelevant context increased task repetition benefits only when the context feature appeared synchronously with cue onset, but not when the context feature appeared with a 300-ms delay (Experiment 1). Similarly, repeating the task-irrelevant context improved performance when the task and the response repeated only when the context feature was part of the cue, and not when it was part of the target (Experiment 2). Taken together, binding and retrieval processes seem to play a crucial role in task switching, alongside response inhibition processes. In turn, our study provided a better understanding of binding and retrieval of task-irrelevant features in general, and specifically on how they modulate response repetition benefits in task repetitions.

Contextual Features of the Cue Enter Episodic Bindings in Task Switching.

Evidence suggests that the features of a stimulus and the actions performed on it are bound together into a coherent mental representation of the episode, which is retrieved from memory upon reencountering at least one of these features. Effects of such binding and retrieval processes emerge in action control, such as in multitasking situations like task switching. In the task-switching paradigm, response-repetition benefits are observed in task repetitions, but response-repetition costs in task switches. This interaction of task repetition (vs. switch) with response repetition (vs. switch) may be explained in terms of task-response binding. In two experiments, we included a task-irrelevant contextual feature in a cued task-switching paradigm using word identification tasks. In Experiment 1, the cue modality could vary between visual and auditory; in Experiment 2, the cue language could vary between English and Spanish, while the target stimulus was always presented visually and in German. We predicted that repeating the contextual feature in the subsequent trial would retrieve the features of the previous trial, even though cue modality or cue language did not afford any response and were not associated with either task. The results showed that response repetition-benefits in task repetitions were observable when the context (i.e., the modality or the language of the cue) repeated but disappeared when the context switched from the previous trial. These results are consistent with context-specific binding and retrieval processes in task switching.

Inter-Trial Variability of Context Influences the Binding Structure in a Stimulus-Response Episode.

There is strong evidence that stimuli and responses are bound together in a direct (binary) fashion into an episodic representation called stimulus-response episode (or event file). However, in an auditory negative priming study in which participants were required to respond to the target stimulus and to ignore the distractor stimulus, context information (i.e., a completely task-irrelevant stimulus) was found to rather modulate the binding between the distractor stimulus and the response, instead of entering into a binary binding with the response itself (Mayr et al., 2018). The current study demonstrates that simply increasing the variability of the context across trials leads to a binary binding between the context and the response. The same auditory negative priming task was implemented, and participants were either assigned to the high-variability group (8 different context sounds) or the low-variability group (2 different context sounds). For the low-variability group, results replicated previous findings of contextual modulation of the binding between the distractor stimulus and the response. For the high-variability group, however, repetition of the context per se retrieved the prime response, indicating a binary binding between the context and the response. Together, the current findings provide evidence that the inter-trial variability of context information is a determinant of how context is bound in a stimulus-response episode. Possible underlying mechanisms are discussed.

Saliency determines the integration of contextual information into stimulus-response episodes.

When humans perform a task, it has been shown that elements of this task, like stimulus (e.g., target and distractor) and response, are bound together into a common episodic representation called stimulus-response episode (or event file). Recently, the context, a completely task-irrelevant stimulus, was found to be integrated into an episode as well. However, instead of being bound directly with the response in a binary fashion, the context modulates the binary binding between the distractor and response. This finding raises the questions of whether the context can also enter into a binary binding with the response, and if so, what determines the way of its integration. In order to resolve these questions, saliency of the context was manipulated in three experiments by changing the loudness (Experiment 1) and emotional valence (Experiment 2A and 2B) of the context. All experiments implemented the four-alternative auditory negative priming paradigm introduced by Mayr and Buchner (2006, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32[4], 932-943). Results showed that the integration of context changed as a function of its saliency level. Specifically, the context of low saliency was not bound at all, the context of moderate saliency modulated the binary binding between the distractor and response, whereas the context of high saliency entered into a binary binding with the response. The current results extend a previous finding by Hommel (2004, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8[11], 494-500) that there is a saliency threshold which determines whether a stimulus is bound or not, by suggesting that a second threshold determines the specific structure (i.e., binary vs. configural) of the resulting binding.

LED-based light sources optimised for high colour rendition from an end users' perspective.

Light emitting diode (LED) technology is continuously developing, leading to the current transition from simple phosphor-converted LED lamps to LED lamps optimised for high colour rendition in residential lighting. To assess whether such optimised phosphor-converted LED lamps may fulfil the end users' needs better than simple phosphor-converted LED lamps we asked participants to rank two particular brands of phosphor-converted LED lamps optimised for high colour rendition, a typical simple phosphor-converted LED lamp and a halogen lamp for pleasantness, naturalness and purchase preference. The results of two experiments suggest that phosphor-converted LED lamps optimised for high colour rendition have the potential to outperform simple phosphor-converted LED lamps and even to measure up to traditional halogen lighting in terms of user preference. However, this is not the case for all phosphor-converted LED lamps optimised for high colour rendition. From the end users' perspective, unfortunately, it is currently difficult if not impossible to choose the LED light source that one would prefer most. Practitioner Summary: Considering innovations in LED technology, we assessed the potential of LED lamps optimised for high colour rendition to outperform their predecessors regarding user preference. In one of two conditions, these optimised LED lamps outperformed a simple phosphor-converted LED lamp and measured up to halogen lighting. Abbreviations: LED: light emitting diode; CCT: correlated colour temperature; CRI: colour rendering index; CIE: Commission Internationale de l'Éclairage; CRI Ra: CIE General Colour Rendering Index; K: kelvin; lx: lux; GFC: goodness of fit coefficient; BLED80: simple blue-pumped phosphor-converted LED with a CRI Ra of 80; BLED96: blue-pumped phosphor-converted LED optimised for high colour rendition with a CRI Ra of 96; VLED97: violet-pumped phosphor-converted LED optimised for high colour rendition with a CRI Ra of 97; R9: CIE Special Colour Rendering Index for red; ANSI: American National Standards Institute; IES: Illuminating Engineering Society; Rf: IES Fidelity Index; Rg: IES Gamut Index; CC: chromaticity coordinates.

Binding and Retrieval in Action Control (BRAC).

Human action control relies on representations that integrate perception and action, but the relevant research is scattered over various experimental paradigms and the theorizing is overly paradigm-specific. To overcome this obstacle we propose BRAC (binding and retrieval in action control), an overarching, integrative framework that accounts for a wide range of seemingly unrelated findings by assuming 'two core processes: feature binding and retrieval'. In contrast to previous approaches, we define binding and retrieval as functionally different and separable processes that independently contribute to the observed effects. Furthermore, both processes are independently modulated by top-down and/or bottom-up processes. BRAC organizes the literature on action control in novel ways, and relates diverse independently investigated action-related phenomena from different research fields to each other.

A common type of commercially available LED light source allows for colour discrimination performance at a level comparable to halogen lighting.

As light sources based on light emitting diodes (LED) are increasingly used to replace classic tungsten-based light sources in household lighting applications, possible impairments of colour perception under those light sources due to a different spectral power distribution become a major concern. The Colour Rendering Index (CRI) which is the only measure available to the end user is controversial and does not represent a comprehensive measure of colour perception. Aspects of colour perception disregarded by the CRI such as colour discrimination have to be taken into account as well. Therefore, we evaluated colour discrimination performance under a commercially available phosphor-converted LED light source from a popular brand (OSRAM) in comparison to a classic tungsten-based halogen light source. Colour discrimination performance was not affected by the type of light source, indicating that the phosphor-converted LED light source enables colour discrimination performance comparable to that of halogen lighting despite being associated with a lower CRI. Practitioner summary: Considering the increasing use of energy efficient light sources, we compared colour discrimination under a common type of phosphor-converted LED and under traditional halogen lighting. Colour discrimination performance was comparable in both lighting conditions, indicating that the phosphor-converted LED can replace halogen lighting without sacrificing colour discrimination for energy efficiency. Abbreviations: LED: light emitting diode; CRI: colour rendering index; CCT: correlated colour temperature; CIE: commission internationale de l'éclairage; FMHT: Farnsworth-Munsell 100-Hue Test; lm: lumen; lx: lux, lumen/m^2; W: watt; nm: nanometer; K: kelvin.

Links Between Users' Online Social Network Homogeneity, Ambiguity Tolerance, and Estimated Public Support for Own Opinions.

False consensus effect (FCE) refers to a cognitive bias of relative overestimation of public support for one's own opinion. FCE has been linked to selective social interaction with like-minded people as well as to selective exposure to attitude-consistent information. Previous studies tested these links mostly in offline settings. However, it is assumed that FCE is also affected by the homogeneity of users' online contact network, the extent to which they use online social network (OSN), and their individual tendency to avoid ambiguous information. Two online studies with a total of 380 participants aged 18-35 years were conducted to test these hypotheses through a multilevel modeling approach. In Study 1, participants with a more homogeneous online network, longer daily OSN usage time, and lower ambiguity tolerance displayed significantly higher FCE. The effects of network homogeneity and ambiguity tolerance were replicated in Study 2. The implications of these findings are interpreted in the context of prior studies on FCE as well as the notion of OSN as "echo chambers."

Inhibition of irrelevant response codes is affected by matching target-distractor modalities.

Lateralized responses to central targets are facilitated when distractors are presented ipsilaterally (congruent trials) compared with contralaterally (incongruent trials) to the response. This accessory Simon effect is explained by assuming that distractors generate a spatial code that conforms to, or conflicts with, the response. The effect typically diminishes as the distractor-target interval increases. However, it is unclear whether irrelevant spatial codes passively decay or are actively inhibited. Given that inhibition takes time to develop, its operation may reverse the Simon effect-indicated by impaired performance in congruent compared with incongruent trials-when the distractor is presented prior to the target. In the present study, the temporal separation between distractor and target was systematically manipulated. Participants responded to a centrally presented visual (Experiments 1 and 2) or auditory (Experiments 3 and 4) target. A lateralized auditory distractor either occurred prior to, or simultaneously with, the target. A Simon effect occurred when distractor and target were presented simultaneously or in close temporal proximity. The effect was reversed with longer distractor-target intervals, but only when targets and distractors were presented in the same modality (Experiments 3 and 4), suggesting that an inhibition process operates on distractor events, which is stronger in the case of matching target and distractor modalities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Correction to: Contextual modulation of prime response retrieval processes: Evidence from auditory negative priming.

The Publisher regrets that two erroneous values were introduced by the typesetter when performing proof corrections.

Contextual modulation of prime response retrieval processes: Evidence from auditory negative priming.

Contextual similarity between learning and test phase has been shown to be beneficial for memory retrieval. Negative priming is known to be caused by multiple processes; one of which is episodic retrieval. Therefore, the contextual similarity of prime and probe presentations should influence the size of the negative priming effect. This has been shown for the visual modality. In Experiment 1, an auditory four-alternative forced choice reaction time task was used to test the influence of prime-probe contextual similarity on negative priming and the processes underlying the modulation by context. The negative priming effect was larger when the auditory context was repeated than when it was changed from prime to probe. The modulation by context was exclusively caused by an increase in prime response retrieval errors in ignored repetition trials with context repetition, whereas repeating only the context but not the prime distractor did not lead to an increase in prime response retrieval. This exact pattern of results was replicated in Experiment 2. The findings suggest that contextual information is integrated with prime distractor and response information. Retrieval of the previous episode, including prime distractor, prime response, and context (event file), can be triggered when the former prime distractor is repeated, whereas a context cue alone does not retrieve the event file. This suggests an event file structure that is more complicated than its usually assumed binary structure.

Reading from computer screen versus reading from paper: does it still make a difference?

Four experiments were conducted to test whether recent developments in display technology would suffice to eliminate the well-known disadvantages in reading from screen as compared with paper. Proofreading speed and performance were equal for a TFT-LCD and a paper display, but there were more symptoms of eyestrain in the screen condition accompanied by a strong preference for paper (Experiment 1). These results were replicated using a longer reading duration (Experiment 2). Additional experiments were conducted to test hypotheses about the reasons for the higher amount of eyestrain associated with reading from screen. Reduced screen luminance did not change the pattern of results (Experiment 3), but positioning both displays in equal inclination angles eliminated the differences in eyestrain symptoms and increased proofreading speed in the screen condition (Experiment 4). A paper-like positioning of TFT-LCDs seems to enable unimpaired reading without evidence of increased physical strain. Practitioner Summary: Given the developments in screen technology, a re-assessment of the differences in proofreading speed and performance, well-being, and preference between computer screen and paper was conducted. State-of-the-art TFT-LCDs enable unimpaired reading, but a book-like positioning of screens seems necessary to minimise eyestrain symptoms.

Event-related potentials in response to cheating and cooperation in a social dilemma game.

A sequential prisoner's dilemma game was combined with psychophysiological measures to examine the cognitive underpinnings of reciprocal exchange. Participants played four rounds of the game with partners who either cooperated or cheated. In a control condition, the partners' faces were shown, but no interaction took place. The partners' behaviors were consistent in the first three rounds of the game, but in the last round some of the partners unexpectedly changed strategies. In the first round of the game, the feedback about a partner's decision elicited a feedback P300, which was more pronounced for cooperation and cheating in comparison to the control condition, but did not vary as a function of feedback valence. In the last round, both the feedback negativity and the feedback P300 were sensitive to expectancy violations. There was no consistent evidence for a negativity bias, that is, enhanced allocation of attention to feedback about another person's cheating in comparison to feedback about another person's cooperation. Instead, participants focused on both positive and negative information, and flexibly adjusted their processing biases to the diagnosticity of the information. This conclusion was corroborated by the ERP correlates of memory retrieval. Successful retrieval of a partner's reputation was associated with an anterior positivity between 400 and 600 ms after face onset. This anterior positivity was more pronounced for both cooperator and cheater faces in comparison to control faces. The results suggest that it is not the negativity of social information, but rather its motivational and behavioral relevance that determines its processing.

The time-course of distractor processing in auditory spatial negative priming.

The spatial negative priming effect denotes slowed-down and sometimes more error-prone responding to a location that previously contained a distractor as compared with a previously unoccupied location. In vision, this effect has been attributed to the inhibition of irrelevant locations, and recently, of their task-assigned responses. Interestingly, auditory versions of the task did not yield evidence for inhibitory processing of task-irrelevant events which might suggest modality-specific distractor processing in vision and audition. Alternatively, the inhibitory processes may differ in how they develop over time. If this were the case, the absence of inhibitory after-effects might be due to an inappropriate timing of successive presentations in previous auditory spatial negative priming tasks. Specifically, the distractor may not yet have been inhibited or inhibition may already have dissipated at the time performance is assessed. The present study was conducted to test these alternatives. Participants indicated the location of a target sound in the presence of a concurrent distractor sound. Performance was assessed between two successive prime-probe presentations. The time between the prime response and the probe sounds (response-stimulus interval, RSI) was systematically varied between three groups (600, 1250, 1900 ms). For all RSI groups, the results showed no evidence for inhibitory distractor processing but conformed to the predictions of the feature mismatching hypothesis. The results support the assumption that auditory distractor processing does not recruit an inhibitory mechanism but involves the integration of spatial and sound identity features into common representations.