Comparing learning during the familiarization phase with a slanted mouse and a vertical mouse when performing a repeated pointing–clicking task

Author(s):  
Gaudez Clarisse ◽  
François Cail ◽  
Wild Pascal
2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-218
Author(s):  
Laura de Vaan ◽  
Kobie Van Krieken ◽  
Winie Van den Bosch ◽  
Robert Schreuder ◽  
Mirjam Ernestus

Abstract Previous work has shown that novel morphologically complex words (henceforth neologisms) leave traces in memory after just one encounter. This study addressed the question whether these traces are abstract in nature or exemplars. In three experiments, neologisms were either primed by themselves or by their stems. The primes occurred in the visual modality whereas the targets were presented in the auditory modality (Experiment 1) or vice versa (Experiments 2 and 3). The primes were presented in sentences in a selfpaced reading task (Experiment 1) or in stories in a listening comprehension task (Experiments 2 and 3). The targets were incorporated in lexical decision tasks, auditory or visual (Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, respectively), or in stories in a self-paced reading task (Experiment 3). The experimental part containing the targets immediately followed the familiarization phase with the primes (Experiment 1), or after a one week delay (Experiments 2 and 3). In all experiments, participants recognized neologisms faster if they had encountered them before (identity priming) than if the familiarization phase only contained the neologisms’ stems (stem priming). These results show that the priming effects are robust despite substantial differences between the primes and the targets. This suggests that the traces novel morphologically complex words leave in memory after just one encounter are abstract in nature.


2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maura Casadio ◽  
Vittorio Sanguineti ◽  
Pietro Morasso ◽  
Claudio Solaro

In MS subjects with no clinical disability, we assessed sensorimotor organization and their ability to adapt to an unfamiliar dynamical environment. Eleven MS subjects performed reaching movements while a robot generated a speed-dependent force field. Control and adaptation performance were compared with that of an equal number of control subjects. During a familiarization phase, when the robot generated no forces, the movements of MS subjects were more curved, displayed greater and more variable directional errors and a longer deceleration phase. During the force field phase, both MS and control subjects gradually learned to predict the robot-generated forces. The rates of adaptation were similar, but MS subjects showed a greater variability in responding to the force field. These results suggest that MS subjects have a preserved capability of learning to predict the effects of the forces, but make greater errors when actually using such predictions to generate movements. Inaccurate motor commands are then compensated later in the movement through an extra amount of sensory-based corrections. This indicates that early in the disease MS subjects have intact adaptive capabilities, but impaired movement execution. Multiple Sclerosis 2008; 14: 330—342. http://msj.sagepub.com


2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 966-973 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleni Kotsoni ◽  
Denis Mareschal ◽  
Gergely Csibra ◽  
Mark H. Johnson

Common-onset visual masking (COVM) occurs when a mask and a target have common onset but delayed offset, with the mask persisting beyond the duration of the target [Di Lollo, V., Enns, J. T., & Rensink, R. A. Competition for consciousness among visual events: The psychophysics of reentrant visual events. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129, 481–507, 2000]. We report the first behavioral and electrophysiological evidence of COVM in infants. An initial behavioral study included a familiarization phase during which a visual pattern (the target) surrounded by four black dots (the mask) was flashed 15 times to the infant. In the “unmasked” condition, the mask disappeared with the target. In the “masked” condition, the mask remained on the screen after deletion of the target for a further 93 msec. During the test phase, the familiar target pattern was paired with a new pattern. Infants in the unmasked condition showed a significant familiarity preference, suggesting that they had encoded the target during familiarization, whereas those in the masked condition showed no preference, suggesting that they had not encoded the target during familiarization. In the second experiment, high-density event-related potentials were used to investigate the electrophysiological pattern of activity that accompanies COVM. Six-month-old infants viewed both masked and unmasked conditions. Electrophysiological data indicated that over posterior channels the masked condition elicited a larger amplitude positive wave around 300 msec after stimulus onset than trials in the unmasked condition.


2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Schiavio ◽  
Renee Timmers

The present study investigated the role of motor and audiovisual learning in the memorization of four tonally ambiguous melodies for piano. A total of one hundred and twenty participants divided into three groups — pianists, other musicians (i.e., not pianists), and nonmusicians — learned the melodies through either playing them on a keyboard (playing condition), through performing the melodies on a piano without auditory feedback (silent playing condition), through watching a video with a performer playing the melodies (seeing condition), or through listening to them (control condition). Participants were exposed to each melody four times during the learning phase (in additional to hearing it once during a familiarization phase). This exposure consisted of an alternation between hearing the melody and engaging with the melody in the way determined by the learning condition. Participants in the control group only received the auditory aspect of the learning phase and listened to each melody twice. Memory of the melodies was tested after a 10-minute break. Our results indicate a benefit of motor learning for all groups of participants, suggesting that active sensorimotor experience plays a key role in musical skill acquisition.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karima Mersad ◽  
Claire Kabdebon ◽  
Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz

AbstractBeing aware of the phonemes that compose syllables is difficult without having learned to read an alphabetic script, a skill generally acquired around 5 to 7 years of age. Nevertheless, preverbal infants are particularly good at discriminating syllables that differ by a single phoneme. Do they perceive syllables as a whole unit or can they become aware of the underlying phonemes if their attention is attracted to the relevant level of analysis? We trained 3-month-old infants to pair two consonants, co-articulated with different vowels, with two visual shapes. Using event-related potentials, we show that infants generalize the learned associations to new syllables with respect to a familiarization phase. The systematic pairing of a visual label with a phonetic category is thus easy to learn, suggesting that the main process underlying reading (i.e., grapheme-phoneme pairing) is grounded in the early faculties of the human linguistic system.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Brambilla Pisoni ◽  
Emma Munoz Moreno ◽  
Ianire Gallego Amaro ◽  
Rafael Maldonado ◽  
Antoni Ivorra ◽  
...  

Background: Brain electrical stimulation techniques take advantage of the intrinsic plasticity of the nervous system, opening a wide range of therapeutic applications. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is an approved adjuvant for drug-resistant epilepsy and depression. Its non-invasive form, auricular transcutaneous VNS (atVNS), is under investigation for applications, including cognitive improvement. Objective: We aimed to study the effects of atVNS on brain connectivity, under conditions that improved memory persistence in CD-1 male mice. Methods: Acute atVNS in the cymba conchae of the left ear was performed using a standard stimulation protocol under light isoflurane anesthesia, immediately or 3 h after the training/familiarization phase of the novel object-recognition memory test (NORT). Another cohort of mice was used for bilateral c-Fos analysis after atVNS administration. Spearman correlation of c-Fos density between each pair of the thirty brain regions analyzed allowed obtaining the network of significant functional connections in stimulated and non-stimulated control brains. Results: NORT performance was enhanced when atVNS was delivered just after, but not 3 h after, the familiarization phase of the task. No alterations in c-Fos density were associated to electrostimulation, but a significant effect of atVNS was observed on c-Fos- based functional connectivity. atVNS induced a clear reorganization of the network, increasing the inter-hemisphere connections and the connectivity of locus coeruleus. Conclusion: Our results provide new insights in the effects of atVNS on memory performance and brain connectivity extending our knowledge of the biological mechanisms of bioelectronics in medicine.


Author(s):  
Steven Kim ◽  
Christopher Essert

An accurate and reliable measurement is important in exercise science. The measurement tends to be less reliable when subjects are not professional athletes or are unfamiliar with a given task. These subjects need familiarization trials, but determination of the number of familiarization trials is challenging because it may be individual-specific and task-specific. Some participants may be eliminated because their results deviate from arbitrary ad hoc rules. We treat these challenges as a statistical problem, and we propose model-averaging to measure a subject’s familiarized performance without fixing the number of familiarization trials in advance. The method of model-averaging accounts for the uncertainty associated with the number of familiarization trials that a subject needs. Simulations show that model-averaging is useful when the familiarization phase is long or when the familiarization occurs at a fast rate relative to the amount of noise in the data. An applet is provided on the internet with a very brief User’s Guide included in the appendix to this article. Keywords: Familiarization; reliability; accuracy; model-averaging; Akaike Information Criterion


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Bianco ◽  
Alessandra Finisguerra ◽  
Sonia Betti ◽  
Giulia D’Argenio ◽  
Cosimo Urgesi

Autism is associated with difficulties in making predictions based on contextual cues. Here, we investigated whether the distribution of autistic traits in the general population, as measured through the Autistic Quotient (AQ), is associated with alterations of context-based predictions of social and non-social stimuli. Seventy-eight healthy participants performed a social task, requiring the prediction of the unfolding of an action as interpersonal (e.g., to give) or individual (e.g., to eat), and a non-social task, requiring the prediction of the appearance of a moving shape as a short (e.g., square) or a long (e.g., rectangle) figure. Both tasks consisted of (i) a familiarization phase, in which the association between each stimulus type and a contextual cue was manipulated with different probabilities of co-occurrence, and (ii) a testing phase, in which visual information was impoverished by early occlusion of video display, thus forcing participants to rely on previously learned context-based associations. Findings showed that the prediction of both social and non-social stimuli was facilitated when embedded in high-probability contexts. However, only the contextual modulation of non-social predictions was reduced in individuals with lower ‘Attention switching’ abilities. The results provide evidence for an association between weaker context-based expectations of non-social events and higher autistic traits.


2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 444-451
Author(s):  
Megan E. Hirsch ◽  
Kaitlin L. Lansford ◽  
Tyson S. Barrett ◽  
Stephanie A. Borrie

Purpose Perceptual training is a listener-targeted means for improving intelligibility of dysarthric speech. Recent work has shown that training with one talker generalizes to a novel talker of the same sex and that the magnitude of benefit is maximized when the talkers are perceptually similar. The current study expands previous findings by investigating whether perceptual training effects generalize between talkers of different sex. Method Forty new listeners were recruited for this study and completed a pretest, familiarization, and posttest perceptual training paradigm. Historical data collected using the same three-phase protocol were included in the data analysis. All listeners were exposed to the same talker with dysarthria during the pretest and posttest phases. For the familiarization phase, listeners were exposed to one of four talkers with dysarthria, differing in sex and level of perceptual similarity to the test talker or a control talker. During the testing phases, listener transcribed phrases produced by the test talker with dysarthria. Listener transcriptions were then used to calculate a percent words correct intelligibility score. Results Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that intelligibility at posttest was not predicted by sex of the training talker. Consistent with earlier work, the magnitude of intelligibility gain was greater when the familiarization and test talkers were perceptually similar. Additional analyses revealed greater between-listeners variability in the dissimilar conditions as compared to the similar conditions. Conclusions Learning as a result of perceptual training with one talker with dysarthria generalized to another talker regardless of sex. In addition, listeners trained with perceptually similar talkers had greater and more consistent intelligibility improvement. Together, these results add to previous evidence demonstrating that learning generalizes to novel talkers with dysarthria and that perceptual training is suitable for many listeners.


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