scholarly journals Environmental consistency modulation of error sensitivity during motor adaptation is explicitly controlled

2020 ◽  
Vol 123 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Avraham ◽  
Matan Keizman ◽  
Lior Shmuelof
Keyword(s):  
Motor Adaptation ◽  
External Perturbation ◽  
Implicit Processes ◽  
Error Sensitivity ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Implicit System ◽  
Feedback Sensitivity ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
High Consistency

Motor adaptation, the adjustment of a motor output in face of changes in the environment, may operate at different rates. When human participants encounter repeated or consistent perturbations, their corrections for the experienced errors are larger compared with when the perturbations are new or inconsistent. Such modulations of error sensitivity were traditionally considered to be an implicit process that does not require attentional resources. In recent years, the implicit view of motor adaptation has been challenged by evidence showing a contribution of explicit strategies to learning. These findings raise a fundamental question regarding the nature of the error sensitivity modulation processes. We tested the effect of explicit control on error sensitivity in a series of experiments, in which participants controlled a screen cursor to virtual targets. We manipulated environmental consistency by presenting rotations in random (low consistency) or random walk (high consistency) sequences and illustrated that perturbation consistency affects the rate of adaptation, corroborating previous studies. When participants were instructed to ignore the cursor and move directly to the target, thus eliminating the contribution of explicit strategies, consistency-driven error sensitivity modulation was not detected. In addition, delaying the visual feedback, a manipulation that affects implicit learning, did not influence error sensitivity under consistent perturbations. These results suggest that increases of learning rate in consistent environments are attributable to an explicit rather than implicit process in sensorimotor adaptation. NEW & NOTEWORTHY The consistency of an external perturbation modulates error sensitivity and the motor response. The roles of explicit and implicit processes in this modulation are unknown. We show that when humans are asked to ignore the perturbation, they do not show increased error sensitivity in consistent environments. When the implicit system is manipulated by delaying feedback, sensitivity to a consistent perturbation does not change. Overall, our results suggest that consistency affects adaptation mainly through explicit control.

scholarly journals Environmental Consistency Modulation of Error Sensitivity During Motor Adaptation is Explicitly Controlled

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Avraham ◽  
Matan Keizman ◽  
Lior Shmuelof
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Motor Task ◽  
Motor Adaptation ◽  
Automatic Process ◽  
Error Sensitivity ◽  
Visuomotor Task ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
High Consistency ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

AbstractMotor adaptation, the adjustment of sensorimotor representations in face of changes in the environment, may operate at different rates. When human participants encounter repeated or consistent perturbations, their corrections for the experienced errors are larger compared to when the perturbations are new or inconsistent. Such modulations of error sensitivity were traditionally considered to be an implicit process that does not require attentional resources. In recent years, the implicit view of motor adaptation is challenged by evidence showing a contribution of explicit strategies to learning. These findings raise a fundamental question regarding the nature of the error sensitivity modulation processes. We tested the effect of explicit control on error sensitivity in a series of experiments, in which participants controlled a screen cursor to virtual targets. We manipulated environmental consistency by presenting rotations in random (low consistency) or random walk (high consistency) sequences, and illustrated that perturbation consistency affects the rate of adaptation, corroborating previous studies. When participants were instructed to ignore the cursor and move directly to the target, thus, eliminating the contribution of explicit strategies, consistency-driven error sensitivity modulation was abolished. In addition, delaying the visual feedback, a manipulation that affects implicit learning, did not influence error sensitivity under consistent perturbations. These results suggest that increases of learning rate in consistent environments are attributable to an explicit rather than implicit process in sensorimotor adaptation.Significant StatementWhen experiencing an error in a motor task (e.g., missing a basketball shot in a windy day), the motor system modifies its next action based on environmental consistency (how frequent the changes in wind’s direction and strength are). It is unknown whether this process is driven by an implicit and automatic process, or by an explicit process that employs cognitive strategies. We examined these possibilities in a simple visuomotor task by perturbing the feedback in each trial with different consistency levels, and manipulating the use of implicit and explicit processes. We found that participants increase their sensitivity to errors in consistent environments when employing explicit strategies, and do not change their behavior when the implicit process is operating alone.

scholarly journals An implicit memory of errors limits human sensorimotor adaptation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott T. Albert ◽  
Jihoon Jang ◽  
Hannah Sheahan ◽  
Lonneke Teunissen ◽  
Koenraad Vandevoorde ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Learning ◽  
Motor Adaptation ◽  
Learning System ◽  
Second Order Statistics ◽  
Error Sensitivity ◽  
Implicit System ◽  
Extended Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
Residual Errors ◽  
The Brain

AbstractAfter extended practice, motor adaptation reaches a limit in which learning appears to stop, despite the fact that residual errors persist. What prevents the brain from eliminating the residual errors? Here we found that the adaptation limit was causally dependent on the second order statistics of the perturbation; when variance was high, learning was impaired and large residual errors persisted. However, when learning relied solely on explicit strategy, both the adaptation limit and its dependence on perturbation variability disappeared. In contrast, when learning depended entirely, or in part on implicit learning, residual errors developed. Residual errors in implicit performance were caused by variance-dependent modifications to error sensitivity, not forgetting. These observations are consisted with a model of learning in which the implicit system becomes more sensitive to error when errors are consistent, but forgets this memory of errors over time. Thus, residual errors in motor adaptation are a signature of the implicit learning system, caused by an error sensitivity that depends on the history of past errors.

scholarly journals Mobile EEG identifies the re-allocation of attention during real-world activity

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Ladouce ◽  
David I. Donaldson ◽  
Paul A. Dudchenko ◽  
Magdalena Ietswaart
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Real World ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Processing Demands ◽  
Neural Marker ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Human Participants

Abstract The distribution of attention between competing processing demands can have dramatic real-world consequences, however little is known about how limited attentional resources are distributed during real-world behaviour. Here we employ mobile EEG to characterise the allocation of attention across multiple sensory-cognitive processing demands during naturalistic movement. We used a neural marker of attention, the Event-Related Potential (ERP) P300 effect, to show that attention to targets is reduced when human participants walk compared to when they stand still. In a second experiment, we show that this reduction in attention is not caused by the act of walking per se. A third experiment identified the independent processing demands driving reduced attention to target stimuli during motion. ERP data reveals that the reduction in attention seen during walking reflects the linear and additive sum of the processing demands produced by visual and inertial stimulation. The mobile cognition approach used here shows how limited resources are precisely re-allocated according to the sensory processing demands that occur during real-world behaviour.

scholarly journals Dynamic Interplay between Reward and Voluntary Attention Determines Stimulus Processing in Visual Cortex

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Ivan Grahek ◽  
Antonio Schettino ◽  
Ernst H. W. Koster ◽  
Søren K. Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Steady State ◽  
Motion Detection ◽  
Detection Task ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Voluntary Attention ◽  
Stimulus Processing ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Dynamic Interplay

Abstract Reward enhances stimulus processing in the visual cortex, but the mechanisms through which this effect occurs remain unclear. Reward prospect can both increase the deployment of voluntary attention and increase the salience of previously neutral stimuli. In this study, we orthogonally manipulated reward and voluntary attention while human participants performed a global motion detection task. We recorded steady-state visual evoked potentials to simultaneously measure the processing of attended and unattended stimuli linked to different reward probabilities, as they compete for attentional resources. The processing of the high rewarded feature was enhanced independently of voluntary attention, but this gain diminished once rewards were no longer available. Neither the voluntary attention nor the salience account alone can fully explain these results. Instead, we propose how these two accounts can be integrated to allow for the flexible balance between reward-driven increase in salience and voluntary attention.

Temporal Expectation Indexed by Pupillary Response

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 354-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Başak Akdoğan ◽  
Fuat Balcı ◽  
Hedderik van Rijn
Keyword(s):  
Pupil Size ◽  
Pupillary Response ◽  
Target Presence ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Trial Onset ◽  
Delay Duration ◽  
Temporal Predictability ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Goal Directed Behavior

Forming temporal expectations plays an instrumental role for the optimization of behavior and allocation of attentional resources. Although the effects of temporal expectations on visual attention are well-established, the question of whether temporal predictions modulate the behavioral outputs of the autonomic nervous system such as the pupillary response remains unanswered. Therefore, this study aimed to obtain an online measure of pupil size while human participants were asked to differentiate between visual targets presented after varying time intervals since trial onset. Specifically, we manipulated temporal predictability in the presentation of target stimuli consisting of letters which appeared after either a short or long delay duration (1.5 vs. 3 s) in the majority of trials (75%) within different test blocks. In the remaining trials (25%), no target stimulus was present to investigate the trajectory of preparatory pupillary response under a low level of temporal uncertainty. The results revealed that the rate of preparatory pupillary response was contingent upon the time of target appearance such that pupils dilated at a higher rate when the targets were expected to appear after a shorter as compared to a longer delay period irrespective of target presence. The finding that pupil size can track temporal regularities and exhibit differential preparatory response between different delay conditions points to the existence of a distributed neural network subserving temporal information processing which is crucial for cognitive functioning and goal-directed behavior.

scholarly journals Study of Neurocognitive Processes in a Paradigm of Information Concealment

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-39
Author(s):  
Yu.I. Kholodny ◽  
D.G. Malakhov ◽  
V.A. Orlov ◽  
S.I. Kartashov ◽  
Y.I. Alexandrov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Assessment ◽  
Physiological Data ◽  
Significant Information ◽  
Skin Reactions ◽  
Practice Test ◽  
Forensic Practice ◽  
Simultaneous Registration ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
High Consistency ◽  
Evaluation Of Data

The work contains a brief overview of the results of a series of experiments using the methods of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and simultaneous registration of vegetative reactions using MRI-compatible polygraph (MRIcP), reflects the next stage in the development of domestic applied — forensic — psychophysiology and states the formation of a new — neuro-forensic — direction of neurobiological research. The work announces the creation of a technology for complex fMRI-MRIcP neurocognitive researches, promising for use in the interests of fundamental science and for a number of branches of practice. Here are the results of testing the effectiveness of this technology of fMRI-MRIcP research, performed on students of a technical university (23 male participants aged 22-23 years old). The experiments used, borrowed from forensic practice, “test with a hidden name” and “test for knowing the guilty”, simulating the concealment of personally significant information (stored in a person’s memory for decades) and situation- ally significant information (entered into a person’s memory an hour before experiment). An analysis of galvanic skin reactions and reactions in photoplethysmogram was carried out using a system for quantitative assessment of physiological data recorded using MRIcP during the simultaneous registration of fMRI. The high consistency of expert scoring and automatic quantitative assessment of polygrams has been confirmed, and ways to improve the automatic evaluation of data have been identified. The usefulness of the application of the system for quantitative assessment of physiological data and the method of “specifying the sample” (carried out with the help of MRIcP) for studying the functional connectivity of the brain areas when hiding personally and situationally significant information in selected forensic tests is shown.

scholarly journals Formation of model-free motor memories during motor adaptation depends on perturbation schedule

2015 ◽  
Vol 113 (7) ◽  
pp. 2733-2741 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Jacques Orban de Xivry ◽  
Philippe Lefèvre
Keyword(s):  
Motor Adaptation ◽  
External Perturbation ◽  
Motor Memory ◽  
Visuomotor Rotation ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Model Free ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Adaptation State ◽  
Gradual Introduction ◽  
Dependent Learning

Motor adaptation to an external perturbation relies on several mechanisms such as model-based, model-free, strategic, or repetition-dependent learning. Depending on the experimental conditions, each of these mechanisms has more or less weight in the final adaptation state. Here we focused on the conditions that lead to the formation of a model-free motor memory (Huang VS, Haith AM, Mazzoni P, Krakauer JW. Neuron 70: 787–801, 2011), i.e., a memory that does not depend on an internal model or on the size or direction of the errors experienced during the learning. The formation of such model-free motor memory was hypothesized to depend on the schedule of the perturbation (Orban de Xivry JJ, Ahmadi-Pajouh MA, Harran MD, Salimpour Y, Shadmehr R. J Neurophysiol 109: 124–136, 2013). Here we built on this observation by directly testing the nature of the motor memory after abrupt or gradual introduction of a visuomotor rotation, in an experimental paradigm where the presence of model-free motor memory can be identified (Huang VS, Haith AM, Mazzoni P, Krakauer JW. Neuron 70: 787–801, 2011). We found that relearning was faster after abrupt than gradual perturbation, which suggests that model-free learning is reduced during gradual adaptation to a visuomotor rotation. In addition, the presence of savings after abrupt introduction of the perturbation but gradual extinction of the motor memory suggests that unexpected errors are necessary to induce a model-free motor memory. Overall, these data support the hypothesis that different perturbation schedules do not lead to a more or less stabilized motor memory but to distinct motor memories with different attributes and neural representations.

scholarly journals Invariant errors reveal limitations in motor correction rather than constraints on error sensitivity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyosub E. Kim ◽  
J. Ryan Morehead ◽  
Darius E. Parvin ◽  
Reza Moazzezi ◽  
Richard B. Ivry
Keyword(s):  
Error Correction ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Error Reduction ◽  
Sensorimotor Adaptation ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Error Sensitivity ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Learning Functions ◽  
Human Participants

Implicit sensorimotor adaptation is traditionally described as a process of error reduction, whereby a fraction of the error is corrected for with each movement. Here, in our study of healthy human participants, we characterize two constraints on this learning process: the size of adaptive corrections is only related to error size when errors are smaller than 6°, and learning functions converge to a similar level of asymptotic learning over a wide range of error sizes. These findings are problematic for current models of sensorimotor adaptation, and point to a new theoretical perspective in which learning is constrained by the size of the error correction, rather than sensitivity to error.

scholarly journals An Implicit Plan Still Overrides an Explicit Strategy During Visuomotor Adaptation Following Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of the Cerebellum

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah H. E. M. Voets ◽  
Muriel T. N. Panouilleres ◽  
Ned Jenkinson
Keyword(s):  
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Motor Adaptation ◽  
Visuomotor Adaptation ◽  
Visuomotor Rotation ◽  
Implicit Processes ◽  
Strategy Adaptation ◽  
Implicit Motor

AbstractMotor adaptation is a process by which the brain gradually reduces error induced by a predictable change in the environment, e.g., pointing while wearing prism glasses. It is thought to occur via largely implicit processes, though explicit strategies are also thought to contribute. Research suggests a role of the cerebellum in the implicit aspects of motor adaptation. Using non-invasive brain stimulation, we sought to investigate the involvement of the cerebellum in implicit motor adaptation in healthy participants. Inhibition of the cerebellum was attained through repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), after which participants performed a visuomotor-rotation task while using an explicit strategy. Adaptation and aftereffects of the TMS group showed no difference in behaviour compared to a Sham stimulation group, therefore this study did not provide any further evidence of a specific role of the cerebellum in implicit motor adaptation. However, our behavioral findings replicate those in the seminal study by Mazzoni and Krakauer (2006).

Automaticity and attentional control in spoken language processing

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yury Shtyrov
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Auditory Input ◽  
Spoken Language Processing ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Strongly Connected ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Types Of Information

A long-standing debate in the science of language is whether our capacity to process language draws on attentional resources, or whether some stages or types of this processing may be automatic. I review a series of experiments in which this issue was addressed by modulating the level of attention on the auditory input while recording event-related brain activity elicited by spoken linguistic stimuli. The overall results of these studies show that the language function does possess a certain degree of automaticity, which seems to apply to different types of information. It can be explained, at least in part, by robustness of strongly connected linguistic memory circuits in the brain that can activate fully even when attentional resources are low. At the same time, this automaticity is limited to the very first stages of linguistic processing (<200 ms from the point in time when the relevant information is available in the auditory input). Later processing steps are, in turn, more affected by attention modulation. These later steps, which possibly reflect a more in-depth, secondary processing or re-analysis and repair of incoming speech, therefore appear dependant on the amount of resources allocated to language. Full processing of spoken language may thus not be possible without allocating attentional resources to it; this allocation in itself may be triggered by the early automatic stages in the first place.

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