scholarly journals The Evolution of Chunks in Sequence Learning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laure Tosatto ◽  
Joël Fagot ◽  
Dezso Nemeth ◽  
Arnaud Rey
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Sequence Learning ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Moving Target ◽  
Motor Tasks ◽  
Fixed Sequence ◽  
Extended Practice ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Papio Papio

AbstractChunking mechanisms are central to several cognitive processes and notably to the acquisition of visuo-motor sequences. Individuals segment sequences into chunks of items to perform visuo-motor tasks more fluidly, rapidly, and accurately. However, the exact dynamics of chunking processes in the case of extended practice remain unclear. Using an operant conditioning device, eighteen Guinea baboons (Papio papio) produced a fixed sequence of nine movements during 1,000 trials by pointing to a moving target on a touch screen. Response times analyses revealed a specific chunking pattern of the sequence for each baboon. More importantly, we found that these patterns evolved during the course of the experiment, with chunks becoming progressively fewer and longer. We identified two chunk reorganization mechanisms: the recombination of preexisting chunks and the concatenation of two distinct chunks into a single one. These results provide new evidence on chunking mechanisms in sequence learning and challenge current models of associative and statistical learning.

scholarly journals Deconstructing Procedural Memory: Different Learning Trajectories and Consolidation of Sequence and Statistical Learning

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Simor ◽  
Zsofia Zavecz ◽  
Kata Horváth ◽  
Noémi Éltető ◽  
Csenge Török ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Sequence Learning ◽  
Reaction Time Task ◽  
Procedural Memory ◽  
Procedural Learning ◽  
Cortical Oscillations ◽  
Statistical Knowledge ◽  
Practice Performance ◽  
Extended Practice ◽  
Efficient Processing

AbstractProcedural learning is a fundamental cognitive function that facilitates efficient processing of and automatic responses to complex environmental stimuli. Here, we examined training-dependent and off-line changes of two sub-processes of procedural learning: namely, sequence learning and statistical learning. Whereas sequence learning requires the acquisition of order-based relationships between the elements of a sequence, statistical learning is based on the acquisition of probabilistic associations between elements. Seventy-eight healthy young adults (58 females and 20 males) completed the modified version of the Alternating Serial Reaction Time task that was designed to measure Sequence and Statistical Learning simultaneously. After training, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: active wakefulness, quiet rest, or daytime sleep. We examined off-line changes in Sequence and Statistical Learning as well as further improvements after extended practice. Performance in Sequence Learning increased during training, while Statistical Learning plateaued relatively rapidly. After the off-line period, both the acquired sequence and statistical knowledge was preserved, irrespective of the vigilance state (awake, quiet rest or sleep). Sequence Learning further improved during extended practice, while Statistical Learning did not. Moreover, within the sleep group, cortical oscillations and sleep spindle parameters showed differential associations with Sequence and Statistical Learning. Our findings can contribute to a deeper understanding of the dynamic changes of multiple parallel learning and consolidation processes that occur during procedural memory formation.

Verbal statistical learning: Prior knowledge impacts word identification but not metacognition

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laetitia Zmuda ◽  
Charlotte Baey ◽  
Paolo Mairano ◽  
Anahita Basirat
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Bayesian Approach ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Artificial Languages ◽  
Transitional Probabilities ◽  
Fully Bayesian

It is well-known that individuals can identify novel words in a stream of an artificial language using statistical dependencies. While underlying computations are thought to be similar from one stream to another (e.g. transitional probabilities between syllables), performance are not similar. According to the “linguistic entrenchment” hypothesis, this would be due to the fact that individuals have some prior knowledge regarding co-occurrences of elements in speech which intervene during verbal statistical learning. The focus of previous studies was on task performance. The goal of the current study is to examine the extent to which prior knowledge impacts metacognition (i.e. ability to evaluate one’s own cognitive processes). Participants were exposed to two different artificial languages. Using a fully Bayesian approach, we estimated an unbiased measure of metacognitive efficiency and compared the two languages in terms of task performance and metacognition. While task performance was higher in one of the languages, the metacognitive efficiency was similar in both languages. In addition, a model assuming no correlation between the two languages better accounted for our results compared to a model where correlations were introduced. We discuss the implications of our findings regarding the computations which underlie the interaction between input and prior knowledge during verbal statistical learning.

scholarly journals Experiential and Strategic Emotional Intelligence Are Implicated When Inhibiting Affective and Non-Affective Distractors: Findings from Three Emotional Flanker N-Back Tasks

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Ming D. Lim ◽  
Damian P. Birney
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Low Load ◽  
Affective Information ◽  
Accuracy Rates

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to a set of competencies to process, understand, and reason with affective information. Recent studies suggest ability measures of experiential and strategic EI differentially predict performance on non-emotional and emotionally laden tasks. To explore cognitive processes underlying these abilities further, we varied the affective context of a traditional letter-based n-back working-memory task. In study 1, participants completed 0-, 2-, and 3-back tasks with flanking distractors that were either emotional (fearful or happy faces) or non-emotional (shapes or letters stimuli). Strategic EI, but not experiential EI, significantly influenced participants’ accuracy across all n-back levels, irrespective of flanker type. In Study 2, participants completed 1-, 2-, and 3-back levels. Experiential EI was positively associated with response times for emotional flankers at the 1-back level but not other levels or flanker types, suggesting those higher in experiential EI reacted slower on low-load trials with affective context. In Study 3, flankers were asynchronously presented either 300 ms or 1000 ms before probes. Results mirrored Study 1 for accuracy rates and Study 2 for response times. Our findings (a) provide experimental evidence for the distinctness of experiential and strategic EI and (b) suggest that each are related to different aspects of cognitive processes underlying working memory.

scholarly journals Motor Chunking in Internally Guided Sequencing

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krishn Bera ◽  
Anuj Shukla ◽  
Raju S. Bapi
Keyword(s):  
Response Times ◽  
Skill Learning ◽  
Motor Tasks ◽  
Performance Improvements ◽  
Sequence Production ◽  
Serial Reaction ◽  
Motor Movements ◽  
Motor Actions ◽  
Reaction Task ◽  
Or Task

Motor skill learning involves the acquisition of sequential motor movements with practice. Studies have shown that we learn to execute these sequences efficiently by chaining several elementary actions in sub-sequences called motor chunks. Several experimental paradigms, such as serial reaction task, discrete sequence production, and m × n task, have investigated motor chunking in externally specified sequencing where the environment or task paradigm provides the sequence of stimuli, i.e., the responses are stimulus driven. In this study, we examine motor chunking in a class of more realistic motor tasks that involve internally guided sequencing where the sequence of motor actions is self-generated or internally specified. We employ a grid-navigation task as an exemplar of internally guided sequencing to investigate practice-driven performance improvements due to motor chunking. The participants performed the grid-sailing task (GST) (Fermin et al., 2010), which required navigating (by executing sequential keypresses) a 10 × 10 grid from start to goal position while using a particular type of key mapping between the three cursor movement directions and the three keyboard buttons. We provide empirical evidence for motor chunking in grid-navigation tasks by showing the emergence of subject-specific, unique temporal patterns in response times. Our findings show spontaneous chunking without pre-specified or externally guided structures while replicating the earlier results with a less constrained, internally guided sequencing paradigm.

scholarly journals Should I stay or should I go? Evidence accumulation drives decision making in human drivers

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arkady Zgonnikov ◽  
David Abbink ◽  
Gustav Markkula
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Process ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Naturalistic Decision Making ◽  
Dynamic Constraints ◽  
Evidence Accumulation ◽  
Out Of Sample

Laboratory studies of abstract, highly controlled tasks point towards noisy evidence accumulation as a key mechanism governing decision making. Yet it is unclear whether the cognitive processes implicated in simple, isolated decisions in the lab are as paramount to decisions that are ingrained in more complex behaviors, such as driving. Here we aim to address the gap between modern cognitive models of decision making and studies of naturalistic decision making in drivers, which so far have provided only limited insight into the underlying cognitive processes. We investigate drivers' decision making during unprotected left turns, and model the cognitive process driving these decisions. Our model builds on the classical drift-diffusion model, and emphasizes, first, the drift rate linked to the relevant perceptual quantities dynamically sampled from the environment, and, second, collapsing decision boundaries reflecting the dynamic constraints imposed on the decision maker’s response by the environment. We show that the model explains the observed decision outcomes and response times, as well as substantial individual differences in those. Through cross-validation, we demonstrate that the model not only explains the data, but also generalizes to out-of-sample conditions, effectively providing a way to predict human drivers’ behavior in real time. Our results reveal the cognitive mechanisms of gap acceptance decisions in human drivers, and exemplify how simple cognitive process models can help us to understand human behavior in complex real-world tasks.

scholarly journals The effect of semantic relatedness on associative asymmetry in memory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vencislav Popov ◽  
Qiong Zhang ◽  
Griffin Koch ◽  
Regina Calloway ◽  
Marc N Coutanche
Keyword(s):  
Recall Test ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Semantic Relatedness ◽  
Cued Recall ◽  
Associative Symmetry ◽  
Single List ◽  
Symmetry Hypothesis ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Holistic Representation

We provide new evidence concerning two opposing views of episodic associations: The independent associations hypothesis (IAH) posits that associations are unidirectional and separately modifiable links (A→B and A←B); the associative symmetry hypothesis (ASH), to the contrary, considers the association to be a holistic conjunction of A and B representations. While existing literature focuses on tests that compare the equality and correlation of forward and backward associations and favors ASH over IAH, we provide the first direct evidence of IAH by showing that forward and backward associations are separately modifiable for semantically related pairs. In two experiments, participants studied 30 semantically unrelated and 30 semantically related pairs intermixed in a single list, and then performed a series of up to eight cued-recall test cycles. All pairs were tested in each cycle, and the testing direction (A-? or B-?) alternated between cycles. Consistent with prior research, unrelated pairs exhibited associative symmetry – accuracy and response times improved gradually on each test, suggesting that testing in both directions strengthened the same association. In contrast, semantically related pairs exhibited a stair-like pattern, where performance did not change from odd to even tests when the test direction changed; it only improved between tests of the same direction. We conclude that episodic associations can have either a holistic representation (ASH) or separate directional representations (IAH), depending on the semantic relatedness of their constituent items.

scholarly journals Different levels of statistical learning - Hidden potentials of sequence learning tasks

PLoS ONE ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. e0221966 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emese Szegedi-Hallgató ◽  
Karolina Janacsek ◽  
Dezso Nemeth
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Sequence Learning ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Different Levels

scholarly journals Right Hemisphere Advantage in Statistical Learning: Evidence From a Probabilistic Sequence Learning Task

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karolina Janacsek ◽  
Geza Gergely Ambrus ◽  
Walter Paulus ◽  
Andrea Antal ◽  
Dezso Nemeth
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Sequence Learning ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Learning Task

When Perception Trumps Reality

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 346-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Sand ◽  
Mats E. Nilsson
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Priming ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Chance Level ◽  
Subliminal Priming ◽  
Prime Stimulus ◽  
Objective Meaning ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Prime Target ◽  
Made In

Is semantic priming driven by the objective or perceived meaning of the priming stimulus? This question is relevant given that many studies suggest that the objective meaning of invisible stimuli can influence cognitive processes and behavior. In an experiment involving 66 participants, we tested how the perceived meaning of misperceived stimuli influenced response times. Stroop priming (i.e., longer response times for incongruent than for congruent prime-target pairs) was observed in trials in which the prime was correctly identified. However, reversed Stroop priming was observed when the prime stimulus was incorrectly identified. Even in trials in which participants reported no perception of the prime and identified the primes at close to chance level (i.e., trials that meet both subjective and objective definitions of being subliminal), Stroop priming corresponded to perceived congruency, not objective congruency. This result suggests that occasional weak percepts and mispercepts are intermixed with no percepts in conditions traditionally claimed to be subliminal, casting doubt on claims of subliminal priming made in previous reports.

scholarly journals Echolocating whales use ultra-fast echo-kinetic responses to track evasive prey.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather M Vance ◽  
Peter T Madsen ◽  
Natacha Aguilar de Soto ◽  
Danuta M Wisniewska ◽  
Michael Ladegaard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Information Flow ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Moving Target ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Predator Prey ◽  
Prey Escape ◽  
Escape Responses ◽  
Fast Acting

Visual predators rely on fast-acting optokinetic reflexes to track and capture agile prey. Most toothed whales, however, rely on echolocation for hunting and have converged on biosonar clicking rates reaching 500/s during prey pursuits. If echoes are processed on a click-by-click basis, as assumed, neural responses 100x faster than those in vision are required to keep pace with this information flow. Using high-resolution bio-logging of wild predator-prey interactions we show that toothed whales adjust clicking rates to track prey movement within 50-200ms of prey escape responses. Hypothesising that these stereotyped biosonar adjustments are elicited by sudden prey accelerations, we measured echo-kinetic responses from trained harbour porpoises to a moving target and found similar latencies. High biosonar sampling rates are, therefore, not supported by extreme speeds of neural processing and muscular responses. Instead, the neuro-kinetic response times in echolocation are similar to those of tracking reflexes in vision, suggesting a common neural underpinning.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document