The Role of Incentive Framing on Training and Transfer of Learning in a Visual Threat Detection Task

Perceptual learning is the improvement in perceptual performance through training or exposure. Here, we used fMRI before and after extensive behavioral training to investigate the effects of perceptual learning on the recognition of objects under challenging viewing conditions. Objects belonged either to trained or untrained categories. Trained categories were further subdivided into trained and untrained exemplars and were coupled with high or low monetary rewards during training. After a 3-day training, object recognition was markedly improved. Although there was a considerable transfer of learning to untrained exemplars within categories, an enhancing effect of reward reinforcement was specific to trained exemplars. fMRI showed that hippocampus responses to both trained and untrained exemplars of trained categories were enhanced by perceptual learning and correlated with the effect of reward reinforcement. Our results suggest a key role of hippocampus in object recognition after perceptual learning.

Download Full-text

The use and nature of grapheme coding during sub-lexical processing and lexical access

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology ◽

10.1080/17470218.2017.1318294 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 71 (6) ◽

pp. 1324-1339 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Eva Commissaire ◽

Séverine Casalis

Keyword(s):

Lexical Access ◽

Lexical Processing ◽

Stimulus Onset ◽

Detection Task ◽

Single Letter ◽

Decision Task ◽

Letter Detection ◽

Experimental Conditions ◽

Lexical Route

This work aimed to investigate grapheme coding during sub-lexical processing and lexical access. Using the letter detection task in Experiment 1, we compared letter pairs that could be considered as a grapheme unit or not depending on context (referred to as weakly cohesive complex, e.g., an in chant vs cane) to real two-letter graphemes (highly cohesive complex, e.g., au in chaud) and single-letter graphemes (simple, e.g., a in place). Three experimental conditions were used, one of which was designed to prevent phonological influences. Data revealed that only highly cohesive complex graphemes were processed as units, not the weakly cohesive ones. The same pattern was found across experimental conditions in favor of an orthographic mechanism. In Experiments 2 and 3, a primed lexical decision task was used with two stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) and two different ranges of lexical frequency. We manipulated the number of graphemes removed from partial primes ( d**che vs do**he-DOUCHE) and relatedness. In contrast to Experiment 1, no evidence was provided in favor of a role of graphemes during lexical access. We suggest that graphemes can be conceived as sub-lexical orthographic units per se but can only be captured within a sub-lexical route to reading.

Download Full-text

Role of Auditory Temporal Processing for Reading and Spelling Disability

Perceptual and Motor Skills ◽

10.2466/pms.1998.86.3.1043 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 86 (3) ◽

pp. 1043-1047 ◽

Cited By ~ 48

Author(s):

Gerd Schulte-Körne ◽

Wolfgang Deimel ◽

Jürgen Bartling ◽

Helmut Remschmidt

Keyword(s):

Temporal Processing ◽

Detection Threshold ◽

Detection Task ◽

Gap Detection ◽

Auditory Temporal Processing ◽

Spelling Disability ◽

Processing Deficit ◽

Reading And Spelling

The role of auditory temporal processing in reading and spelling was investigated in a sample of 30 children and one of 31 adults, using a gap-detection task with nonspeech stimuli. There was no evidence for a relationship between reading and spelling disability (dyslexia) and the gap-detection threshold. The results were discussed regarding the relevance for the popular hypothesis of an auditory temporal processing deficit underlying dyslexia.

Download Full-text

Evidence accumulation, not a perceptual threshold, constrains neural and behavioural responses in human collision threat detection

10.31234/osf.io/ca3h9 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Gustav Markkula ◽

Zeynep Uludağ ◽

Richard Wilkie ◽

Jac Billington

Keyword(s):

Collision Detection ◽

Applied Research ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Detection Task ◽

Threat Detection ◽

Time Varying ◽

Evidence Accumulation ◽

Behavioural Responses ◽

Basic And Applied Research ◽

Perceptual Threshold

Detection of impending collision is fundamental to many human activities, and is widely assumed to be limited by a ‘looming threshold’. Evidence accumulation models explain decision-making in abstract paradigms, but have not been shown to remain valid for continuously time-varying, ecologically relevant stimuli. Here, we record behavioural and EEG responses in a collision detection task, disprove the conventional looming threshold assumption, and instead provide stringent evidence for a looming accumulation model. Generalising existing model assumptions from stationary to time-varying evidence, we show that our model accounts for previously unexplained observations and full distributions of detection. We replicate a centroparietal pre-decision positivity in scalp potentials, and show that our model explains its onset rather than its buildup, suggesting that neural evidence accumulation is implemented differently, possibly in distinct brain regions, in collision detection compared to previous paradigms. Our findings illustrate the value of connecting basic and applied research on human behaviour.

Download Full-text