Unraveling Temporal Dynamics of Multidimensional Statistical Learning in Implicit and Explicit Systems: An X-Way Hypothesis.

Statistical learning enables humans to involuntarily process and utilize different kinds of patterns from the environment. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying the simultaneous acquisition of multiple regularities from different perceptual modalities remain unclear. A novel multidimensional serial reaction time task was developed to test 40 participants' ability to learn simple first-order and complex second-order relations between uni-modal visual and cross-modal audio-visual stimuli. Using the difference in reaction times between sequenced and random stimuli as the index of domain-general statistical learning, a significant difference and dissociation of learning occurred between the initial and final learning phases. Furthermore, we used a negative and positive occurrence-frequency-and-reaction-time correlation to indicate implicit and explicit learning, respectively, and found that learning simple uni-modal patterns involved an implicit-to-explicit segue, while acquiring complex cross-modal patterns required an explicit-to-implicit segue, resulting in a X-shape crossing of regularity learning. Thus, we propose an X-way hypothesis to elucidate the dynamic interplay between the implicit and explicit systems at two distinct stages when acquiring various regularities in a multidimensional probability space.

Alerting effects require the absence of surprise.

Ongoing actions are interrupted for a brief period of time whenever salient and expectancy-discrepant stimuli (surprise stimuli) interfere with the present task set. By contrast, salient stimuli (alerting cues) preceding targets can facilitate behaviour by reducing time to initiate actions. Both phenomena seem to be at odds with each other as actions are either impaired or facilitated. Therefore, in the present study, we asked how surprise and alerting effects interact. In two experiments, participants performed choice reaction tasks without any prior knowledge of the impending alerting cue. After a baseline period of trials without an alerting cue, the alerting cue was presented for the first time. It was found that the initial presentation of the alerting cue significantly slowed down reaction times. However, after just a single trial this impairment went away. This reveals that the beneficial effects of alerting for action presuppose that alerting cues are expected and represented in the top-down task set. As such, the present findings challenge the standard view of phasic alerting as a bottom-up and entirely stimulus-driven phenomenon.

EEG and fNIRS datasets based on Stroop task during two weeks of high-altitude exposure in new immigrants.

Maintaining sufficient cerebral oxygen metabolism is crucial for human survival, especially in challenging conditions such as high-altitudes. Human cognitive neural activity is sensitive to fluctuations in oxygen levels. However, there is a lack of publicly available datasets on human behavioural responses and cerebral dynamics assessments during the execution of conflicting tasks in natural hypoxic environments. We recruited 80 healthy new immigrant volunteers (males, aged 20 ± 2 years) and employed the Stroop cognitive conflict paradigm. After a two-week exposure to both high and low-altitudes, the behavioural performance, prefrontal oxygen levels, and electroencephalography (EEG) signals were recorded. Comparative analyses were conducted on the behavioural reaction times and accuracy during Stroop tasks, and statistical analyses of participants' prefrontal oxygen levels and EEG signals were performed. We anticipate that our open-access dataset will contribute to the development of monitoring devices and algorithms, designed specifically for measuring cerebral oxygen and EEG dynamics in populations exposed to extreme environments, particularly among individuals suffering from oxygen deficiency.

Optimization of chaotic light output in semiconductor laser systems based on multi-objective optimization algorithm.

Aiming at the weak performance of chaotic light output in semiconductor laser systems, the study designed a power control algorithm for semiconductor laser drive systems based on linear self-disturbance rejection control. Then the optimization parameters and scope were determined, and multi-objective optimization and direction preference algorithms were introduced. A chaotic optical performance optimization model based on improved multi-objective genetic algorithm was constructed using adaptive functions as evaluation indicators. These results confirmed that the larger the bandwidth of the controller, the faster the response speed of the resonant converter, but the stability was poor. When the input voltage underwent a sudden change, the current ripple coefficient of the PID algorithm was 0.55%. The linear active disturbance rejection control algorithm could ensure that the voltage and current maintained at the set values, and the output current of the algorithm was more stable when the load underwent sudden changes. The directional preference algorithm could further provide more valuable solutions on the basis of adaptive genetic algorithms. When the peak value of the autocorrelation function was equal to 0.2, the delay characteristics of chaotic light were effectively suppressed, having strong signal bandwidth and complexity. In summary, the constructed model has good application effects in optimizing chaotic optical performance and has certain positive significance for communication security.

Video game addiction is associated with early stage of inhibitory control problems: An event-related potential study using cued Go/NoGo task.

Video game addiction (VGA) is associated with cognitive problems, particularly deficits in inhibitory control. The present study aimed to investigate behavioural responses and event-related potential associated with specific response inhibition using the cued Go/NoGo task to examine the effects of VGA on brain activity related to response inhibition. Twenty-five individuals addicted to video games (action video games) and 25 matched healthy controls participated in the study. The results showed that the VGA group had significantly more commission error in the NoGo trials and faster reaction time in the Go trials compared with the control group. The event-related potential analyses revealed significant reductions in amplitudes of N2 cue and N2 NoGo in the VGA group. While there was no significant difference between the N2 amplitudes of the Go and NoGo trials in the VGA group, the control group had a larger N2 amplitude in the NoGo trials. These results indicate that VGA subjects have difficulties in the early stages of response inhibition, as well as some level of impairment in proactive cognitive control.

Rapid Return to Braking After Anterior and Posterior Approach Total Hip Arthroplasty.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the effect of surgical approach on return to braking after total hip arthroplasty (THA), and few studies have investigated braking after THA with modern surgical techniques and rehabilitation protocols. METHODS: In a prospective comparative design, we enrolled 65 patients who received right-sided primary THA at our institution from April 2018 through March 2020, 34 with a direct anterior approach (DAA) and 31 with a posterior approach (PA). Braking tests measuring brake reaction time (BRT) and brake pedal depression (BPD) were administered to patients preoperatively and at 1, 2, and 4 weeks postoperatively using a realistic driving simulator. BRT and BPD were compared between groups and preoperatively versus postoperatively using mixed-effects models. RESULTS: Preoperative BRT averaged 638 msec in the DAA group and 604 msec in the PA group (P = 0.31). At 1 week postoperatively, the DAA group had significantly prolonged BRT compared with preoperatively (694 msec, P = 0.02). No significant difference was observed in the PA group (633 msec, P = 0.31). Both groups had returned to baseline by 2 weeks, and both had significantly faster BRT at 4 weeks compared with preoperatively (583 msec for DAA, P = 0.01; 537 msec for PA, P < 0.001). BPD was similar between groups, and there were no significant differences between preoperative and postoperative BPD at any time point. CONCLUSIONS: With modern surgical techniques, BRT after right-sided THA returns to baseline levels approximately 2 weeks after surgery. There seems to be a quicker return to preoperative BRT observed in patients with a PA.

Smooth pursuit inhibition reveals audiovisual enhancement of fast movement control.

The sudden onset of a visual object or event elicits an inhibition of eye movements at latencies approaching the minimum delay of visuomotor conductance in the brain. Typically, information presented via multiple sensory modalities, such as sound and vision, evokes stronger and more robust responses than unisensory information. Whether and how multisensory information affects ultra-short latency oculomotor inhibition is unknown. In two experiments, we investigate smooth pursuit and saccadic inhibition in response to multisensory distractors. Observers tracked a horizontally moving dot and were interrupted by an unpredictable visual, auditory, or audiovisual distractor. Distractors elicited a transient inhibition of pursuit eye velocity and catch-up saccade rate within ∼100 ms of their onset. Audiovisual distractors evoked stronger oculomotor inhibition than visual- or auditory-only distractors, indicating multisensory response enhancement. Multisensory response enhancement magnitudes were equal to the linear sum of responses to component stimuli. These results demonstrate that multisensory information affects eye movements even at ultra-short latencies, establishing a lower time boundary for multisensory-guided behavior. We conclude that oculomotor circuits must have privileged access to sensory information from multiple modalities, presumably via a fast, subcortical pathway.

Attribute latencies causally shape intertemporal decisions.

Intertemporal choices - decisions that play out over time - pervade our life. Thus, how people make intertemporal choices is a fundamental question. Here, we investigate the role of attribute latency (the time between when people start to process different attributes) in shaping intertemporal preferences using five experiments with choices between smaller-sooner and larger-later rewards. In the first experiment, we identify attribute latencies using mouse-trajectories and find that they predict individual differences in choices, response times, and changes across time constraints. In the other four experiments we test the causal link from attribute latencies to choice, staggering the display of the attributes. This changes attribute latencies and intertemporal preferences. Displaying the amount information first makes people more patient, while displaying time information first does the opposite. These findings highlight the importance of intra-choice dynamics in shaping intertemporal choices and suggest that manipulating attribute latency may be a useful technique for nudging.

Motivation and emotional distraction interact and affect executive functions.

Previous research on cool-hot executive function (EF) interactions has examined the effects of motivation and emotional distraction on cool EF separately, focusing on one EF component at a time. Although both incentives and emotional distractors have been shown to modulate attention, how they interact and affect cool EF processes is still unclear. Here, we used an experimental paradigm that manipulated updating, inhibition, and shifting demands to determine the interactions of motivation and emotional distraction in the context of cool EF. Forty-five young adults (16 males, 29 females) completed the go/no-go (inhibition), two-back (updating), and task-switching (shifting) tasks. Monetary incentives were implemented to manipulate motivation, and task-irrelevant threatening or neutral faces were presented before the target stimulus to manipulate emotional distraction. We found that incentives significantly improved no-go accuracy, two-back accuracy, and reaction time (RT) switch cost. While emotional distractors had no significant effects on overall task performance, they abolished the incentive effects on no-go accuracy and RT switch cost. Altogether, these findings suggest that motivation and emotional distraction interact in the context of cool EF. Specifically, transient emotional distraction disrupts the upregulation of control activated by incentives. The present investigation has advanced knowledge about the relationship between cool and hot EF and highlights the importance of considering motivation-emotion interactions for a fuller understanding of control.

Attentional Bias Toward Cigarette-Related Cues in Male Smokers is Modulated by Cognitive Control Mechanisms.

Background: Many studies have found that smokers' attentional bias toward cigarette-related cues and cognitive control impairment significantly impacts their cigarette use. However, there is limited research on how the interaction between attentional bias and cognitive control may modulate smokers' cigarette-seeking behavior. Objectives: This study used a cigarette Stroop task to examine whether smokers with different attentional control ability had different levels of attentional bias toward cigarette-related cues. Methods: A total of 130 male smokers completed the Flanker task to measure their attentional control ability. The attentional control scores of all participants were ranked from low to high, with the top 27% placed in the high attentional control group and the bottom 27% in the low attentional control group. Subsequently, both groups completed the cigarette Stroop task to measure their attentional bias toward cigarette-related cues. Results: Smokers with low attentional control responded more slowly to cigarette-related cues than to neutral cues, while smokers with high attentional control showed no significant difference in their response time to either condition. Conclusions/Importance: Attentional control ability can regulate smokers' attentional bias toward cigarette-related cues. Smokers with low attentional control ability are more likely to have attentional bias toward cigarette-related cues, offering insights for targeted prevention of cigarette addiction.

Evaluation of physiological response and synchronisation errors during synchronous and pseudosynchronous stimulation trials.

Rhythm perception and synchronisation is musical ability with neural basis defined as the ability to perceive rhythm in music and synchronise body movements with it. The study aimed to check the errors of synchronisation and physiological response as a reaction of the subjects to metrorhythmic stimuli of synchronous and pseudosynchronous stimulation (synchronisation with an externally controlled rhythm, but in reality controlled or produced tone by tapping) Nineteen subjects without diagnosed motor disorders participated in the study. Two tests were performed, where the electromyography signal and reaction time were recorded using the NORAXON system. In addition, physiological signals such as electrodermal activity and blood volume pulse were measured using the Empatica E4. Study 1 consisted of adapting the finger tapping test in pseudosynchrony with a given metrorhythmic stimulus with a selection of preferred, choices of decreasing and increasing tempo. Study 2 consisted of metrorhythmic synchronisation during the heel stomping test. Numerous correlations and statistically significant parameters were found between the response of the subjects with respect to their musical education, musical and sports activities. Most of the differentiating characteristics shown evidence of some group division in the undertaking of musical activities. The use of detailed analyses of synchronisation errors can contribute to the development of methods to improve the rehabilitation process of subjects with motor dysfunction, and this will contribute to the development of an expert system that considers personalised musical preferences.

High visual salience of alert signals can lead to a counterintuitive increase of reaction times.

It is often assumed that rendering an alert signal more salient yields faster responses to this alert. Yet, there might be a trade-off between attracting attention and distracting from task execution. Here we tested this in four behavioral experiments with eye-tracking using an abstract alert-signal paradigm. Participants performed a visual discrimination task (primary task) while occasional alert signals occurred in the visual periphery accompanied by a congruently lateralized tone. Participants had to respond to the alert before proceeding with the primary task. When visual salience (contrast) or auditory salience (tone intensity) of the alert were increased, participants directed their gaze to the alert more quickly. This confirms that more salient alerts attract attention more efficiently. Increasing auditory salience yielded quicker responses for the alert and primary tasks, apparently confirming faster responses altogether. However, increasing visual salience did not yield similar benefits: instead, it increased the time between fixating the alert and responding, as high-salience alerts interfered with alert-task execution. Such task interference by high-salience alert-signals counteracts their more efficient attentional guidance. The design of alert signals must be adapted to a "sweet spot" that optimizes this stimulus-dependent trade-off between maximally rapid attentional orienting and minimal task interference.

Raising the Roof: Situating Verbs in Symbolic and Embodied Language Processing.

Recent investigations on how people derive meaning from language have focused on task-dependent shifts between two cognitive systems. The symbolic (amodal) system represents meaning as the statistical relationships between words. The embodied (modal) system represents meaning through neurocognitive simulation of perceptual or sensorimotor systems associated with a word's referent. A primary finding of literature in this field is that the embodied system is only dominant when a task necessitates it, but in certain paradigms, this has only been demonstrated using nouns and adjectives. The purpose of this paper is to study whether similar effects hold with verbs. Experiment 1 evaluated a novel task in which participants rated a selection of verbs on their implied vertical movement. Ratings correlated well with distributional semantic models, establishing convergent validity, though some variance was unexplained by language statistics alone. Experiment 2 replicated previous noun-based location-cue congruency experimental paradigms with verbs and showed that the ratings obtained in Experiment 1 predicted reaction times more strongly than language statistics. Experiment 3 modified the location-cue paradigm by adding movement to create an animated, temporally decoupled, movement-verb judgment task designed to examine the relative influence of symbolic and embodied processing for verbs. Results were generally consistent with linguistic shortcut hypotheses of symbolic-embodied integrated language processing; location-cue congruence elicited processing facilitation in some conditions, and perceptual information accounted for reaction times and accuracy better than language statistics alone. These studies demonstrate novel ways in which embodied and linguistic information can be examined while using verbs as stimuli.

The Effects of Problematic Internet Use and Emotional Connotation on Internet Slang Processing: Evidence from a Lexical Decision Task.

Young people use slang for identifying themselves with a particular social group, gaining social recognition and respect from that group, and expressing their emotional state. One feature of Internet slang is its active use by youth in online communication, which, under certain conditions, may cause problematic Internet use (PIU). We conducted two studies in young Russian speakers (n1 = 115, n2 = 106). In study 1, participants were asked to rate a set of slang and common words using Self-Assessment Manikin. The study revealed that the most reliable predictor of higher emotional ratings was word familiarity. There were no significant effects of slang vs. common words or word frequency. In study 2, we used a dual lexical decision task to reveal the effects of word characteristics and propensity for PIU on reaction time (RT) for Internet slang words in pairs with semantically related vs. unrelated common words. Study 2 did not reveal any significant semantic priming effect. Word frequency was a significant predictor of lexical decision facilitation. Common, but not slang, word valence and dominance significantly affected RT in the opposite direction. Individuals with higher cognitive preoccupation with the Internet responded significantly faster, while those more likely to use online communication for mood regulation responded significantly slower to the stimuli. Apparently, on explicit and implicit levels, in-depth knowledge of Internet slang can be one the PIU markers. The results are discussed in line with Davis' approach to determining the general pathological Internet use.

Effects of expectation on face perception and its association with expertise.

Perceptual decisions are derived from the combination of priors and sensorial input. While priors are broadly understood to reflect experience/expertise developed over one's lifetime, the role of perceptual expertise at the individual level has seldom been directly explored. Here, we manipulate probabilistic information associated with a high and low expertise category (faces and cars respectively), while assessing individual level of expertise with each category. 67 participants learned the probabilistic association between a color cue and each target category (face/car) in a behavioural categorization task. Neural activity (EEG) was then recorded in a similar paradigm in the same participants featuring the previously learned contingencies without the explicit task. Behaviourally, perception of the higher expertise category (faces) was modulated by expectation. Specifically, we observed facilitatory and interference effects when targets were correctly or incorrectly expected, which were also associated with independently measured individual levels of face expertise. Multivariate pattern analysis of the EEG signal revealed clear effects of expectation from 100 ms post stimulus, with significant decoding of the neural response to expected vs. not stimuli, when viewing identical images. Latency of peak decoding when participants saw faces was directly associated with individual level facilitation effects in the behavioural task. The current results not only provide time sensitive evidence of expectation effects on early perception but highlight the role of higher-level expertise on forming priors.

Vergence-Accommodation Conflict: Increased Presbyopia in Virtual Reality.

BACKGROUND: Performance and symptoms in completing a visual search task on a PC monitor and using a head-mounted display (HMD) were compared for different viewing conditions and between users of different ages. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Twenty-three young (M = 30 y, SD = 7 y) and 23 older (M = 52 y, SD = 5 y) participants performed a visual search task presented on a PC monitor. The task was repeated using an HMD for a near and a far virtual viewing distance. Reaction times (RT), detection sensitivity (d'), and symptoms were recorded for the three different viewing conditions. RESULTS: RT and d' were not affected by the viewing condition (p > 0.05). In contrast, symptoms significantly depended on the viewing condition but were, in part, not significantly affected by age. It is interesting to note that although not significant, young participants reported more ocular symptoms than older participants in the near vision task carried out using the HMD. DISCUSSION: HMD increases visual symptoms. However, HMD could be, in part, a remedy to problems when using visual aids for near work, in particular for presbyopes.

Sex similarities and dopaminergic differences in interval timing.

Rodent behavioral studies have largely focused on male animals, which has limited the generalizability and conclusions of neuroscience research. Working with humans and rodents, we studied sex effects during interval timing that requires participants to estimate an interval of several seconds by making motor responses. Interval timing requires attention to the passage of time and working memory for temporal rules. We found no differences between human females and males in interval timing response times (timing accuracy) or the coefficient of variance of response times (timing precision). Consistent with prior work, we also found no differences between female and male rodents in timing accuracy or precision. In female rodents, there was no difference in interval timing between estrus and diestrus cycle stages. Because dopamine powerfully affects interval timing, we also examined sex differences with drugs targeting dopaminergic receptors. In both female and male rodents, interval timing was delayed after administration of sulpiride (D2-receptor antagonist), quinpirole (D2-receptor agonist), and SCH-23390 (D1-receptor antagonist). By contrast, after administration of SKF-81297 (D1-receptor agonist), interval timing shifted earlier only in male rodents. These data illuminate sex similarities and differences in interval timing. Our results have relevance for rodent models of both cognitive function and brain disease by increasing representation in behavioral neuroscience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A mismatch between early and recent life stress predicts better response inhibition, but not cognitive inhibition.

A growing body of work has found that a mismatch between early and recent life stress, more than a cumulative influence of stress, contributes to detrimental stress-related health outcomes. To date, however, no work has examined how such a mismatch might relate to stress-related cognitive outcomes. We addressed this gap in the current study by assessing participants' (N = 154, Mage = 18.7, 104 female) early and recent life stress using the same inventory, and subsequently assessing their inhibitory control in a hybrid stop-signal/flanker task. Surprisingly, we found that a greater degree of stressor mismatch was associated with better response inhibition (i.e. smaller stop-signal reaction time) across a number of analytic approaches. Cognitive inhibition (i.e. the flanker interference effect) was not associated with stressor mismatch. These results thus show that a greater degree of mismatch between early and recent life stress is related to response inhibition in the same way as acute stress affects response inhibition, suggesting that response inhibition may be an important cognitive process for navigating both acute stress and general environmental conditions that do not match the conditions in which expected stress occurrence was established.

Influence of age and cognitive demand on motor decision making under uncertainty: a study on goal directed reaching movements.

In everyday life, we constantly make decisions about actions to be performed subsequently. Research on motor decision making has provided empirical evidence for an influence of decision uncertainty on movement execution in young adults. Further, decision uncertainty was suggested to be increased in older adults due to limited cognitive resources for the integration of information and the prediction of the decision outcomes. However, the influence of cognitive aging on decision uncertainty during motor decision making and movement execution has not been investigated, yet. Thus, in the current study, we presented young and older adults with a motor decision making task, in which participants had to decide on pointing towards one out of five potential targets under varying cognitive demands. Statistical analyses revealed stronger decreases in correctly deciding upon the pointing target, i.e. task performance, from low to higher cognitive demand in older as compared to young adults. Decision confidence also decreased more strongly in older adults with increasing cognitive demand, however, only when collapsing across correct and incorrect decision trials, but not when considering correct decision trials, only. Further, older adults executed reaching movements with longer reaction times and increased path length, though the latter, again, not when considering correct decision trials, only. Last, reaction time and variability in movement execution were both affected by cognitive demand. The outcomes of this study provide a differentiated picture of the distinct and joint effects of aging and cognitive demand during motor decision making.

Fast saccades to faces during the feedforward sweep.

Saccadic choice tasks use eye movements as a response method, typically in a task where observers are asked to saccade as quickly as possible to an image of a prespecified target category. Using this approach, face-selective saccades have been observed within 100 ms poststimulus. When taking into account oculomotor processing, this suggests that faces can be detected in as little as 70 to 80 ms. It has therefore been suggested that face detection must occur during the initial feedforward sweep, since this latency leaves little time for feedback processing. In the current experiment, we tested this hypothesis using backward masking-a technique shown to primarily disrupt feedback processing while leaving feedforward activation relatively intact. Based on minimum saccadic reaction time, we found that face detection benefited from ultra-fast, accurate saccades within 110 to 160 ms and that these eye movements are obtainable even under extreme masking conditions that limit perceptual awareness. However, masking did significantly increase the median SRT for faces. In the manual responses, we found remarkable detection accuracy for faces and houses, even when participants indicated having no visual experience of the test images. These results provide evidence for the view that the saccadic bias to faces is initiated by coarse information used to categorize faces in the feedforward sweep but that, in most cases, additional processing is required to quickly reach the threshold for saccade initiation.