scholarly journals Enhanced Bottom-Up and Reduced Top-Down fMRI Activity Is Related to Long-Lasting Nonreinforced Behavioral Change

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 858-874 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rotem Botvinik-Nezer ◽  
Tom Salomon ◽  
Tom Schonberg

Abstract Behavioral change studies and interventions focus on self-control and external reinforcements to influence preferences. Cue-approach training (CAT) has been shown to induce preference changes lasting months by merely associating items with neutral cues and speeded responses. We utilized this paradigm to study neural representation of preferences and their modification without external reinforcements. We scanned 36 participants with fMRI during a novel passive viewing task before, after and 30 days following CAT. We preregistered the predictions that activity in memory, top-down attention, and value-processing regions will underlie preference modification. While most theories associate preferences with prefrontal regions, we found that “bottom-up” perceptual mechanisms were associated with immediate change, whereas reduced “top-down” parietal activity was related to long-term change. Activity in value-related prefrontal regions was enhanced immediately after CAT for trained items and 1 month after for all items. Our findings suggest a novel neural mechanism of preference representation and modification. We suggest that nonreinforced change of preferences occurs initially in perceptual representation of items, putatively leading to long-term changes in “top-down” processes. These findings offer implementation of bottom-up instead of top-down targeted interventions for long-lasting behavioral change.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rotem Botvinik-Nezer ◽  
Tom Salomon ◽  
Tom Schonberg

AbstractBehavioral change studies and interventions focus on self-control and external reinforcements as means to influence preferences. Cue-approach training (CAT) has been shown to induce preference changes lasting months following a mere association of items with a neutral cue and a speeded response, without external reinforcements. We utilized this paradigm to study preference representation and modification in the brain without external reinforcements. We scanned 36 participants with fMRI during a novel passive viewing task before, after and 30 days following CAT. We pre-registered the predictions that activity in regions related to memory, top-down attention and value processing underlie behavioral change. We found that bottom-up neural mechanisms, involving visual processing regions, were associated with immediate behavioral change, while reduced top-down parietal activity and enhanced hippocampal activity were related to the long-term change. Enhanced activity in value-related regions was found both immediately and in the long-term. Our findings suggest a novel neural mechanism of preference representation and modification. We suggest that non-reinforced change occurs initially in perceptual representation of items, which putatively lead to long-term changes in memory and top-down processes. These findings could lead to implementation of bottom-up instead of top-down targeted interventions to accomplish long-lasting behavioral change.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem L. Auping ◽  
Erik Pruyt ◽  
Jan H. Kwakkel

This paper introduces an approach to compare simulation runs from multiple System Dynamics simulation models. Three dynamic hypotheses regarding the uncertain evolutions of long-term copper availability are introduced and used to illustrate the new approach. They correspond to three different perspectives on the copper system (global top-down, global bottom-up, and regional top-down). Although each of these models allows to generate a wealth of behavioural patterns, the focus in this paper is on the differences in trajectories caused by different models for identical values of shared parameters and identical settings of other assumptions, not on differences in behavioural patterns caused by each of the models. Hence, differences in trajectories between the three models are identified, quantified, and classified based on a quantified measure of difference. For these models, small differences between the trajectories are only found in stable runs, while the alternative perspectives are largely responsible for medium to large differences. Hence, it is concluded that multiple dynamic hypotheses may have to be modelled when dealing with uncertain issues.


2016 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hancheng Dai ◽  
Diego Silva Herran ◽  
Shinichiro Fujimori ◽  
Toshihiko Masui

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-35
Author(s):  
Paul Brunton

Change is a constant in our profession, and we are familiar with this on a daily basis, as we constantly change how we practise. But consider how the way we learn and the very structure of our profession has changed in recent years. If I think back, I attended a traditional dental school and had, in my view, an excellent undergraduate education. Compare that top-down approach to the approach today, with its self-directed learning and student-led clinics – to give a couple of examples of a bottom-up model of providing effective dental education. The net result of this, in my view, is that today’s graduates are a little different in many respects, both when they graduate and in their long-term career ambitions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zuzana Cenkerová ◽  
Richard Parncutt

In theories of auditory scene analysis and melodic implication/realization, melodic expectation results from an interaction between top-down processes (assumed to be learned and schema-based) and bottom-up processes (assumed innate, based on Gestalt principles). If principles of melodic expectation are partly acquired, it should be possible to manipulate them – to condition listeners' expectations. In this study, the resistance of three bottom-up expectation principles to learning was tested experimentally. In Experiment 1, expectations for stepwise motion (pitch proximity) were manipulated by conditioning listeners to large melodic leaps; preference for small intervals was reduced after a brief exposure. In Experiment 2, expectations for leaps to rise and steps to fall (step declination) were manipulated by exposing listeners to melodies comprising rising steps and falling leaps; this reduced preferences for descending seconds and thirds. Experiment 3 did not find and hence failed to alter the expectation for small intervals to be followed by an interval in the same direction (step inertia). The results support the theory that bottom-up principles of melodic perception are partly learned from exposure to pitch patterns in music. The long-term learning process could be reinforced by exposure to speech based on similar organization principles.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Asiah Abd Ghani ◽  
Zakiah Mohamad Ashari

Learning is a natural ability that every individual has. Ormrod, Anderman and Anderman (2017) explained that learning is a long-term change in mental representation and association from experience. For students, either school students or university students, they do not necessarily spend all their time to study. Students should be able to arrange their study time and leisure time well. This will allow them to learn more effectively. Interference between study and leisure is associated with motivation conflict in which individuals want to do something but at the same time, they need to do something else (Riediger & Freund, 2008), Thus, this analysis is conducted to identify the relationship between self-control, study-leisure interference and student well-being. Previous studies were obtained through online databases such as ScienceDirect, Springer Link and EBSCOHost. The finding shows that there is a correlation between self-control, study-leisure interference with the well-being of students. This is common issue among university students in Malaysia because most students are having difficult to manage their time properly. This will lead students to have workload and tend to putting off their tasks until the last minute.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
G Salazar ◽  
S Szidat

ABSTRACT Since radiocarbon accelerator mass spectrometry (14C AMS) is considered a high-precision technique, reassessment of the measurement uncertainty has been a topic of interest. Scientists from analytical and metrological fields have developed the top-down and bottom-up measurement of uncertainty approaches. The 14C quoted error should approximate the uncertainty of long-term repetitions of the top-down approach in order to be realistic. The novelty of this paper is that the uncertainty of both approaches were approximated to each other. Furthermore, we apportioned the graphitization, instrumentation, and bias components in order to additively expand the quoted error. Our results are comparable to error multipliers and to long-term repeatability studies reported by other laboratories. Our laboratory was established in late 2012 with N2 as stripper gas and 7 years later, we changed to helium stripper. Thus, we were able to compare both gases, and demonstrate that helium is a better stripper gas. In absolute F14C units, the ranges of graphitization+bias combined uncertainties were (0.7 to 4.1) × 10–3 for N2 and (0.7–3.0) × 10–3 for He depending on the standard 14C content. The error multiplier for He defined as the expanded uncertainty over quoted error, in average, was 1.7; while without the bias, the multiplier was 1.3.


Author(s):  
Takeshi Ebashi ◽  
Katsuhiko Ishiguro ◽  
Keiichiro Wakasugi ◽  
Hideki Kawamura ◽  
Irina Gaus ◽  
...  

The development of scenarios for quantitative or qualitative analysis is a key element of the assessment of the safety of geological disposal systems. As an outcome of an international workshop attended by European and the Japanese implementers, a number of features common to current methodologies could be identified, as well as trends in their evolution over time. In the late nineties, scenario development was often described as a bottom-up process, whereby scenarios were said to be developed in essence from FEP databases. Nowadays, it is recognised that, in practice, the approaches actually adopted are better described as top-down or “hybrid”, taking as their starting point an integrated (top-down) understanding of the system under consideration including uncertainties in initial state, sometimes assisted by the development of “storyboards”. A bottom-up element remains (hence the term “hybrid”) to the extent that FEP databases or FEP catalogues (including interactions) are still used, but the focus is generally on completeness checking, which occurs parallel to the main assessment process. Recent advances focus on the consistent treatment of uncertainties throughout the safety assessment and on the integration of operational safety and long term safety.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 6196
Author(s):  
Jinrui Xi ◽  
Feng Wen

Government inspections are a typical approach that the Chinese government adopts in executing its policy agenda and propagating its ideological ideals. However, top-down administrative imperatives as such tend to be consuming in resources and less effective in actual governance. They are not necessarily the most sustainable means to ensure efficient governance in the long term. Bottom-up self-governance in rural China, on the other hand, provides the essential mechanism for sustainable governance. In this paper we study one of these bottom-up self-governance approaches in China—rural elections. We propose that, via three distinctive mechanisms, rural elections in China serve as a stabilizer for the entire state and fill the loopholes that top-down government inspections potentially allow. Specifically, we argue that individuals with electoral experiences are less likely to engage in protests, or other forms of collective actions, than those without. This effect holds in that, first, elections improve public goods provision in rural China; second, voters’ personal experience in elections changes their perception of the Chinese regime from being authoritarian to being benevolent and caring; third, elections expose the Chinese regime to emerging social dissent in a timely fashion that allows for self-correction. This theoretical prescription receives strong empirical, statistical analysis using the latest Asian Barometer Survey (ABS 2014) dataset.


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