Author Correction: Associative learning and extinction of conditioned threat predictors across sensory modalities

A growing body of literature has demonstrated that primary sensory cortices are not exclusively unimodal, but can respond to stimuli of different sensory modalities. However, several questions concerning the neural representation of cross-modal stimuli remain open. Indeed, it is poorly understood if cross-modal stimuli evoke unique or overlapping representations in a primary sensory cortex and whether learning can modulate these representations. Here we recorded single unit responses to auditory, visual, somatosensory, and olfactory stimuli in the gustatory cortex (GC) of alert rats before and after associative learning. We found that, in untrained rats, the majority of GC neurons were modulated by a single modality. Upon learning, both prevalence of cross-modal responsive neurons and their breadth of tuning increased, leading to a greater overlap of representations. Altogether, our results show that the gustatory cortex represents cross-modal stimuli according to their sensory identity, and that learning changes the overlap of cross-modal representations.

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Prevailing theories of consciousness are challenged by novel cross-modal associations acquired between subliminal stimuli

10.31234/osf.io/tj3d2 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Ryan Bradley Scott ◽

Jason Samaha ◽

Ron Chrisley ◽

Zoltan Dienes

Keyword(s):

Associative Learning ◽

Priming Effect ◽

The Other ◽

The Unconscious ◽

Independent Functions ◽

Sensory Modalities ◽

Global Access ◽

Cortical Regions

While theories of consciousness differ substantially, the ‘conscious access hypothesis’, which aligns consciousness with the global accessibility of information across cortical regions, is present in many of the prevailing frameworks. This account holds that consciousness is necessary to integrate information arising from independent functions such as the specialist processing required by different senses. We directly tested this account by evaluating the potential for associative learning between novel pairs of subliminal stimuli presented in different sensory modalities. First, pairs of subliminal stimuli were presented and then their association assessed by examining the ability of the first stimulus to prime classification of the second. In Experiments 1-4 the stimuli were word-pairs consisting of a male name preceding either a creative or uncreative profession. Participants were subliminally exposed to two name-profession pairs where one name was paired with a creative profession and the other an uncreative profession. A supraliminal task followed requiring the timed classification of one of those two professions. The target profession was preceded by either the name with which it had been subliminally paired (concordant) or the alternate name (discordant). Experiment 1 presented stimuli auditorily, Experiment 2 visually, and Experiment 3 presented names auditorily and professions visually. All three experiments revealed the same inverse priming effect with concordant test pairs associated with significantly slower classification judgements. Experiment 4 sought to establish if learning would be more efficient with supraliminal stimuli and found evidence that a different strategy is adopted when stimuli are consciously perceived. Finally, Experiment 5 replicated the unconscious cross-modal association achieved in Experiment 3 utilising non-linguistic stimuli. The results demonstrate the acquisition of novel cross-modal associations between stimuli which are not consciously perceived and thus challenge the global access hypothesis and those theories embracing it.

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Reaction Time and Brain Waves in Omitted Stimulus Tasks

Journal of Psychophysiology ◽

10.1027/0269-8803/a000001 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 1-6 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Oscar H. Hernández ◽

Muriel Vogel-Sprott

Keyword(s):

Reaction Time ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Young Male ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Auditory Stimuli ◽

Motor Action ◽

Cognitive Component ◽

Sensory Modalities ◽

Two Measures ◽

Somatosensory Stimuli

A missing stimulus task requires an immediate response to the omission of a regular recurrent stimulus. The task evokes a subclass of event-related potential known as omitted stimulus potential (OSP), which reflects some cognitive processes such as expectancy. The behavioral response to a missing stimulus is referred to as omitted stimulus reaction time (RT). This total RT measure is known to include cognitive and motor components. The cognitive component (premotor RT) is measured by the time from the missing stimulus until the onset of motor action. The motor RT component is measured by the time from the onset of muscle action until the completion of the response. Previous research showed that RT is faster to auditory than to visual stimuli, and that the premotor of RT to a missing auditory stimulus is correlated with the duration of an OSP. Although this observation suggests that similar cognitive processes might underlie these two measures, no research has tested this possibility. If similar cognitive processes are involved in the premotor RT and OSP duration, these two measures should be correlated in visual and somatosensory modalities, and the premotor RT to missing auditory stimuli should be fastest. This hypothesis was tested in 17 young male volunteers who performed a missing stimulus task, who were presented with trains of auditory, visual, and somatosensory stimuli and the OSP and RT measures were recorded. The results showed that premotor RT and OSP duration were consistently related, and that both measures were shorter with respect to auditory stimuli than to visual or somatosensory stimuli. This provides the first evidence that the premotor RT is related to an attribute of the OSP in all three sensory modalities.

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Blocking Is Sensitive to Causal Structure in 4-Year-Old and 8-Year-Old Children

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169.52.4.264 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 52 (4) ◽

pp. 264-271 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Tom Beckers ◽

Uschi Van den Broeck ◽

Marij Renne ◽

Stefaan Vandorpe ◽

Jan De Houwer ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Young Children ◽

Associative Learning ◽

Learning Theory ◽

Causal Structure ◽

Age Groups ◽

Learning Task ◽

Contingency Learning

Abstract. In a contingency learning task, 4-year-old and 8-year-old children had to predict the outcome displayed on the back of a card on the basis of cues presented on the front. The task was embedded in either a causal or a merely predictive scenario. Within this task, either a forward blocking or a backward blocking procedure was implemented. Blocking occurred in the causal but not in the predictive scenario. Moreover, blocking was affected by the scenario to the same extent in both age groups. The pattern of results was similar for forward and backward blocking. These results suggest that even young children are sensitive to the causal structure of a contingency learning task and that the occurrence of blocking in such a task defies an explanation in terms of associative learning theory.

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Learned Placebo Effects in the Immune System

Zeitschrift für Psychologie ◽

10.1027/2151-2604/a000184 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 222 (3) ◽

pp. 148-153 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Sabine Vits ◽

Manfred Schedlowski

Keyword(s):

Nervous System ◽

Immune System ◽

Associative Learning ◽

Placebo Response ◽

Immunosuppressive Drug ◽

Immune Functions ◽

Placebo Effects ◽

New Therapeutic Approaches ◽

Biological Variables ◽

Experimental Approaches

Associative learning processes are one of the major neuropsychological mechanisms steering the placebo response in different physiological systems and end organ functions. Learned placebo effects on immune functions are based on the bidirectional communication between the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral immune system. Based on this “hardware,” experimental evidence in animals and humans showed that humoral and cellular immune functions can be affected by behavioral conditioning processes. We will first highlight and summarize data documenting the variety of experimental approaches conditioning protocols employed, affecting different immunological functions by associative learning. Taking a well-established paradigm employing a conditioned taste aversion model in rats with the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine A (CsA) as an unconditioned stimulus (US) as an example, we will then summarize the efferent and afferent communication pathways as well as central processes activated during a learned immunosuppression. In addition, the potential clinical relevance of learned placebo effects on the outcome of immune-related diseases has been demonstrated in a number of different clinical conditions in rodents. More importantly, the learned immunosuppression is not restricted to experimental animals but can be also induced in humans. These data so far show that (i) behavioral conditioned immunosuppression is not limited to a single event but can be reproduced over time, (ii) immunosuppression cannot be induced by mere expectation, (iii) psychological and biological variables can be identified as predictors for this learned immunosuppression. Together with experimental approaches employing a placebo-controlled dose reduction these data provide a basis for new therapeutic approaches to the treatment of diseases where a suppression of immune functions is required via modulation of nervous system-immune system communication by learned placebo effects.

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