scholarly journals Sensorimotor conflicts induce somatic passivity and louden quiet voices in healthy listeners

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavo Orepic ◽  
Giulio Rognini ◽  
Oliver Alan Kannape ◽  
Nathan Faivre ◽  
Olaf Blanke
Keyword(s):  
Sensorimotor Control ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Sensory Signals ◽  
Sensory Signaling ◽  
Comparator Model ◽  
Sensory Attenuation ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Healthy Participants

AbstractSensorimotor conflicts are known to alter the perception of accompanying sensory signals and deficits in sensory attenuation have been observed in schizophrenia. In the auditory domain, self-generated tones or voices (compared to tones or voices presented passively or with sensorimotor delays) have been associated with changes in loudness perception and attenuated neural responses. It has been argued that for sensory signals to be attenuated, predicted and sensory consequences must have a consistent spatiotemporal relationship, between button presses and reafferent tactile signals, via predictive sensory signaling, a process altered in schizophrenia. Here, we investigated auditory sensory attenuation for a series of morphed voices while healthy participants applied sensorimotor stimulations that had no spatiotemporal relationship to the voice stimuli and that have been shown to induce mild psychosis-like phenomena. In two independent groups of participants, we report a loudening of silent voices and found this effect only during maximal sensorimotor conflicts (versus several control conditions). Importantly, conflicting sensorimotor stimulation also induced a mild psychosis-like state in the form of somatic passivity and participants who experienced stronger passivity lacked the sensorimotor loudening effect. We argue that this conflict-related sensorimotor loudness amplification may represent a reduction of auditory self-attenuation that is lacking in participants experiencing a concomitant mild psychosis-like state. We interpret our results within the framework of the comparator model of sensorimotor control, and discuss the implications of our findings regarding passivity experiences and hallucinations in schizophrenia.

scholarly journals The Effects of Timbre on Neural Responses to Musical Emotion

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-146
Author(s):  
Weixia Zhang ◽  
Fang Liu ◽  
Linshu Zhou ◽  
Wanqi Wang ◽  
Hanyuan Jiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Affective Priming ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Human Voice ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Musical Emotion

Timbre is an important factor that affects the perception of emotion in music. To date, little is known about the effects of timbre on neural responses to musical emotion. To address this issue, we used ERPs to investigate whether there are different neural responses to musical emotion when the same melodies are presented in different timbres. With a cross-modal affective priming paradigm, target faces were primed by affectively congruent or incongruent melodies without lyrics presented in the violin, flute, and voice. Results showed a larger P3 and a larger left anterior distributed LPC in response to affectively incongruent versus congruent trials in the voice version. For the flute version, however, only the LPC effect was found, which was distributed over centro-parietal electrodes. Unlike the voice and flute versions, an N400 effect was observed in the violin version. These findings revealed different patterns of neural responses to musical emotion when the same melodies were presented in different timbres, and provide evidence for the hypothesis that there are specialized neural responses to the human voice.

scholarly journals The voice of emotion: an FMRI study of neural responses to angry and happy vocal expressions

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 242-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Johnstone ◽  
Carien M. van Reekum ◽  
Terrence R. Oakes ◽  
Richard J. Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Neural Responses ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Vocal Expressions

scholarly journals Association between COMT gene Val158Met heterozygote polymorphism and enhanced brain predicting processes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Bonetti ◽  
N.A. Sedghi ◽  
S.E.P. Bruzzone ◽  
N.T. Haumann ◽  
T. Paunio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Survival Function ◽  
Comt Gene ◽  
Genetic Mutations ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Nucleotide Polymorphism ◽  
Single Nucleotide ◽  
Middle Temporal ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Healthy Participants

AbstractPredicting events in the ever-changing environment is a fundamental survival function intrinsic to the physiology of sensory systems, whose efficiency varies among the population. Even though it is established that a major source of such variations is genetic heritage, there are no studies tracking down auditory predicting processes to genetic mutations. Thus, we examined the neurophysiological responses to deviant stimuli recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG) in 108 healthy participants carrying different variants of the Val158Met single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) within the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene, which is responsible for the majority of catecholamines degradation in the prefrontal cortex. Our results showed significant amplitude enhancement of neural responses localized within inferior frontal gyrus, superior and middle temporal cortices to deviant auditory stimuli in heterozygote genotype carriers (Val/Met) vs homozygote (Val/Val and Met/Met) carriers. Integrating neurophysiology and genetics, this study provided new and broader insights into the brain mechanisms underlying optimal deviant detection.

scholarly journals Postprint: "Temporal matching between interoception and exteroception: electrophysiological responses in a heartbeat discrimination task"

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hirokata Fukushima
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Cardiac Phase ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Electrophysiological Responses ◽  
Interoceptive Sensitivity ◽  
External Stimuli ◽  
Healthy Participants

Recent studies on interoception emphasize the importance of multisensory integration between interoception and exteroception. One of the methods frequently applied for assessing interoceptive sensitivity is the heartbeat discrimination task, where individuals judge whether the timing of external stimuli (e.g., tones) are synchronized to their own heartbeat. Despite its extensive use in research, the neural dynamics underlying the temporal matching between interoceptive and exteroceptive stimuli in this task have remained unclear. The present study used electroencephalography (EEG) to examine the neural responses of healthy participants who performed a heartbeat discrimination task. We analyzed the differences between EEG responses to tones, which were likely to be perceived as “heartbeat-synchronous” (200 ms delayed from the R-wave) or “heartbeat-asynchronous” (0 ms delayed). Possible associations of these neural differentiations with task performance were also investigated. Compared with the responses to heartbeat-asynchronous tones, heartbeat-synchronous tones caused a relative decrease in early gamma-band EEG response and an increase in later P2 event-related potential (ERP) amplitude. Condition differences in the EEG/ERP measures were not significantly correlated with the behavioral measures. The mechanisms underlying the observed neural responses and the possibility of electrophysiological measurement of interoceptive sensitivity are discussed in terms of two perspectives: the predictive coding framework and the cardiac-phase-dependent baroreceptor function.

scholarly journals Statistical learning attenuates visual activity only for attended stimuli

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Richter ◽  
Floris P. de Lange
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Visual Stream ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Human Volunteers ◽  
Statistical Regularities ◽  
Ventral Visual Stream ◽  
Sensory Attenuation ◽  
And Behavior

AbstractPerception and behavior can be guided by predictions, which are often based on learned statistical regularities. Neural responses to expected stimuli are frequently found to be attenuated after statistical learning. However, whether this sensory attenuation following statistical learning occurs automatically or depends on attention remains unknown. In the present fMRI study, we exposed human volunteers to sequentially presented object stimuli, in which the first object predicted the identity of the second object. We observed a strong attenuation of neural activity for expected compared to unexpected stimuli in the ventral visual stream. Crucially, this sensory attenuation was only apparent when stimuli were attended, and vanished when attention was directed away from the predictable objects. These results put important constraints on neurocomputational theories that cast perception as a process of probabilistic integration of prior knowledge and sensory information.

Temporal Matching Between Interoception and Exteroception

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 219-231
Author(s):  
Hirokata Fukushima ◽  
Yukari Tanaka ◽  
Masako Myowa
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Neural Dynamics ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Cardiac Phase ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Interoceptive Sensitivity ◽  
External Stimuli ◽  
Healthy Participants

Abstract. Recent studies on interoception emphasize the importance of multisensory integration between interoception and exteroception. One of the methods frequently applied for assessing interoceptive sensitivity is the heartbeat discrimination task, where individuals judge whether the timing of external stimuli (e.g., tones) are synchronized to their own heartbeat. Despite its extensive use in research, the neural dynamics underlying the temporal matching between interoceptive and exteroceptive stimuli in this task have remained unclear. The present study used electroencephalography (EEG) to examine the neural responses of healthy participants who performed a heartbeat discrimination task. We analyzed the differences between EEG responses to tones, which were likely to be perceived as “heartbeat-synchronous” (200 ms delayed from the R wave) or “heartbeat-asynchronous” (0 ms delayed). Possible associations of these neural differentiations with task performance were also investigated. Compared with the responses to heartbeat-asynchronous tones, heartbeat-synchronous tones caused a relative decrease in early gamma-band EEG response and an increase in later P2 event-related potential (ERP) amplitude. Condition differences in the EEG/ERP measures were not significantly correlated with the behavioral measures. The mechanisms underlying the observed neural responses and the possibility of electrophysiological measurement of interoceptive sensitivity are discussed in terms of two perspectives: the predictive coding framework and the cardiac-phase-dependent baroreceptor function.

scholarly journals Voice as a Mouse Click: Usability and Effectiveness of Simplified Hands-Free Gaze-Voice Selection

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (24) ◽  
pp. 8791
Author(s):  
Darisy G. Zhao ◽  
Nikita D. Karikov ◽  
Eugeny V. Melnichuk ◽  
Boris M. Velichkovsky ◽  
Sergei L. Shishkin
Keyword(s):  
Moving Objects ◽  
Human Machine Interaction ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Mouse Click ◽  
Computer Mouse ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Low Performance ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Machine Interaction ◽  
Healthy Participants

Voice- and gaze-based hands-free input are increasingly used in human-machine interaction. Attempts to combine them into a hybrid technology typically employ the voice channel as an information-rich channel. Voice seems to be “overqualified” to serve simply as a substitute of a computer mouse click, to confirm selections made by gaze. It could be expected that the user would feel discomfort if they had to frequently make “clicks” using their voice, or easily get bored, which also could lead to low performance. To test this, we asked 23 healthy participants to select moving objects with smooth pursuit eye movements. Manual confirmation of selection was faster and rated as more convenient than voice-based confirmation. However, the difference was not high, especially when voice was used to pronounce objects’ numbers (speech recognition was not applied): Score of convenience (M ± SD) was 9.2 ± 1.1 for manual and 8.0 ± 2.1 for voice confirmation, and time spent per object was 1269 ± 265 ms and 1626 ± 331 ms, respectively. We conclude that “voice-as-click” can be used to confirm selection in gaze-based interaction with computers as a substitute for the computer mouse click when manual confirmation cannot be used.

scholarly journals Statistical learning attenuates visual activity only for attended stimuli

eLife ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Richter ◽  
Floris P de Lange
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Visual Stream ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Human Volunteers ◽  
Statistical Regularities ◽  
Ventral Visual Stream ◽  
Sensory Attenuation ◽  
And Behavior

Perception and behavior can be guided by predictions, which are often based on learned statistical regularities. Neural responses to expected stimuli are frequently found to be attenuated after statistical learning. However, whether this sensory attenuation following statistical learning occurs automatically or depends on attention remains unknown. In the present fMRI study, we exposed human volunteers to sequentially presented object stimuli, in which the first object predicted the identity of the second object. We observed a reliable attenuation of neural activity for expected compared to unexpected stimuli in the ventral visual stream. Crucially, this sensory attenuation was only apparent when stimuli were attended, and vanished when attention was directed away from the predictable objects. These results put important constraints on neurocomputational theories that cast perception as a process of probabilistic integration of prior knowledge and sensory information.

scholarly journals Seeing pain and pleasure on self and others: behavioral and psychophysiological reactivity in immersive virtual reality

2016 ◽  
Vol 116 (6) ◽  
pp. 2656-2662 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Fusaro ◽  
G. Tieri ◽  
S. M. Aglioti
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Physiological Reactivity ◽  
Immersive Virtual Reality ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Subjective Ratings ◽  
Psychophysiological Reactivity ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Skin Conductance Responses ◽  
Physiological Indexes ◽  
Healthy Participants

Studies have explored behavioral and neural responses to the observation of pain in others. However, much less is known about how taking a physical perspective influences reactivity to the observation of others' pain and pleasure. To explore this issue we devised a novel paradigm in which 24 healthy participants immersed in a virtual reality scenario observed a virtual: needle penetrating (pain), caress (pleasure), or ball touching (neutral) the hand of an avatar seen from a first (1PP)- or a third (3PP)-person perspective. Subjective ratings and physiological responses [skin conductance responses (SCR) and heart rate (HR)] were collected in each trial. All participants reported strong feelings of ownership of the virtual hand only in 1PP. Subjective measures also showed that pain and pleasure were experienced as more salient than neutral. SCR analysis demonstrated higher reactivity in 1PP than in 3PP. Importantly, vicarious pain induced stronger responses with respect to the other conditions in both perspectives. HR analysis revealed equally lower activity during pain and pleasure with respect to neutral. SCR may reflect egocentric perspective, and HR may merely index general arousal. The results suggest that behavioral and physiological indexes of reactivity to seeing others' pain and pleasure were qualitatively similar in 1PP and 3PP. Our paradigm indicates that virtual reality can be used to study vicarious sensation of pain and pleasure without actually delivering any stimulus to participants' real body and to explore behavioral and physiological reactivity when they observe pain and pleasure from ego- and allocentric perspectives.

scholarly journals Thalamic state influences timing precision in the thalamocortical circuit

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clarissa J Whitmire ◽  
Yi Juin Liew ◽  
Garrett B Stanley
Keyword(s):  
White Noise ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Burst Firing ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Sensory Stimuli ◽  
Temporal Precision ◽  
Sensory Signals ◽  
Timing Precision ◽  
Sensory Signaling ◽  
The Impact

AbstractSensory signals from the outside world are transduced at the periphery, passing through thalamus before reaching cortex, ultimately giving rise to the sensory representations that enable us to perceive the world. The thalamocortical circuit is particularly sensitive to the temporal precision of thalamic spiking due to highly convergent synaptic connectivity. Thalamic neurons can exhibit burst and tonic modes of firing that strongly influence timing within the thalamus. The impact of these changes in thalamic state on sensory encoding in the cortex, however, remains unclear. Here, we investigated the role of thalamic state on timing in the thalamocortical circuit of the vibrissa pathway in the anesthetized rat. We optogenetically hyperpolarized thalamus while recording single unit activity in both thalamus and cortex. Tonic spike triggered analysis revealed temporally precise thalamic spiking that was locked to white-noise sensory stimuli, while thalamic burst spiking was associated with a loss in stimulus-locked temporal precision. These thalamic state dependent changes propagated to cortex such that the cortical timing precision was diminished during the hyperpolarized (burst biased) thalamic state. While still sensory driven, the cortical neurons became significantly less precisely locked to the white-noise stimulus. The results here suggest that tonic thalamic spiking is more temporally precise than burst firing, which leads to distinct differences in sensory information representation at the level of both the thalamus and the cortex, as assessed using spike triggered analysis. This difference in spike timing precision enables a dynamic encoding scheme for sensory information as a function of thalamic state.New and NoteworthyThe majority of sensory signals are transmitted through the thalamus. There is growing evidence of complex thalamic gating through coordinated firing modes that have a strong impact on cortical sensory representations. Optogenetic hyperpolarization of thalamus pushed it into burst firing that disrupted precise time-locked sensory signaling, with a direct impact on the downstream cortical encoding, setting the stage for a timing-based thalamic gate of sensory signaling.

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