Response Differences in Monkey TE and Perirhinal Cortex: Stimulus Association Related to Reward Schedules

2000 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 1677-1692 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zheng Liu ◽  
Barry J. Richmond
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cues ◽  
Perirhinal Cortex ◽  
Reward Schedule ◽  
Behavioral Context ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Match To Sample ◽  
Behavioral Evidence ◽  
The One ◽  
Different Response ◽  
Visual Cortical

Anatomic and behavioral evidence shows that TE and perirhinal cortices are two directly connected but distinct inferior temporal areas. Despite this distinctness, physiological properties of neurons in these two areas generally have been similar with neurons in both areas showing selectivity for complex visual patterns and showing response modulations related to behavioral context in the sequential delayed match-to-sample (DMS) trials, attention, and stimulus familiarity. Here we identify physiological differences in the neuronal activity of these two areas. We recorded single neurons from area TE and perirhinal cortex while the monkeys performed a simple behavioral task using randomly interleaved visually cued reward schedules of one, two, or three DMS trials. The monkeys used the cue's relation to the reward schedule (indicated by the brightness) to adjust their behavioral performance. They performed most quickly and most accurately in trials in which reward was immediately forthcoming and progressively less well as more intermediate trials remained. Thus the monkeys appeared more motivated as they progressed through the trial schedule. Neurons in both TE and perirhinal cortex responded to both the visual cues related to the reward schedules and the stimulus patterns used in the DMS trials. As expected, neurons in both areas showed response selectivity to the DMS patterns, and significant, but small, modulations related to the behavioral context in the DMS trial. However, TE and perirhinal neurons showed strikingly different response properties. The latency distribution of perirhinal responses was centered 66 ms later than the distribution of TE responses, a larger difference than the 10–15 ms usually found in sequentially connected visual cortical areas. In TE, cue-related responses were related to the cue's brightness. In perirhinal cortex, cue-related responses were related to the trial schedules independently of the cue's brightness. For example, some perirhinal neurons responded in the first trial of any reward schedule including the one trial schedule, whereas other neurons failed to respond in the first trial but respond in the last trial of any schedule. The majority of perirhinal neurons had more complicated relations to the schedule. The cue-related activity of TE neurons is interpreted most parsimoniously as a response to the stimulus brightness, whereas the cue-related activity of perirhinal neurons is interpreted most parsimoniously as carrying associative information about the animal's progress through the reward schedule. Perirhinal cortex may be part of a system gauging the relation between work schedules and rewards.

scholarly journals Numerosity representations in crows obey the Weber–Fechner law

2016 ◽  
Vol 283 (1827) ◽  
pp. 20160083 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen M. Ditz ◽  
Andreas Nieder
Keyword(s):  
Weber Fraction ◽  
Discrimination Performance ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Number System ◽  
Number Line ◽  
Just Noticeable Difference ◽  
Match To Sample ◽  
Close Phylogenetic Relationship ◽  
The One ◽  
Numerical Representations

The ability to estimate number is widespread throughout the animal kingdom. Based on the relative close phylogenetic relationship (and thus equivalent brain structures), non-verbal numerical representations in human and non-human primates show almost identical behavioural signatures that obey the Weber–Fechner law. However, whether numerosity discriminations of vertebrates with a very different endbrain organization show the same behavioural signatures remains unknown. Therefore, we tested the numerical discrimination performance of two carrion crows ( Corvus corone ) to a broad range of numerosities from 1 to 30 in a delayed match-to-sample task similar to the one used previously with primates. The crows' discrimination was based on an analogue number system and showed the Weber-fraction signature (i.e. the ‘just noticeable difference’ between numerosity pairs increased in proportion to the numerical magnitudes). The detailed analysis of the performance indicates that numerosity representations in crows are scaled on a logarithmically compressed ‘number line’. Because the same psychophysical characteristics are found in primates, these findings suggest fundamentally similar number representations between primates and birds. This study helps to resolve a classical debate in psychophysics: the mental number line seems to be logarithmic rather than linear, and not just in primates, but across vertebrates.

The Influence of Method Factors on the Relation between Attitudes and Self-Reported Behaviors in the Assessment of Acculturation

2006 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judit Arends-Tóth ◽  
Fons J.R. van de Vijver ◽  
Ype H. Poortinga
Keyword(s):  
Measurement Methods ◽  
Measurement Unit ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
Response Scales ◽  
Structural Equivalence ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
Acculturation Attitudes ◽  
The One ◽  
Different Response ◽  
Method Factors

The role of variation in response scales and measurement methods in the often implicitly assumed attitude-behavior exchangeability in the assessment of acculturation was investigated. Three levels of equivalence of acculturation attitudes and self-reported behaviors were studied: structural equivalence (identity of the internal structure of attitude and behavior), metric equivalence (identity of measurement unit for the two), and scalar equivalence (identity of measurement unit and scale origin). In three studies involving Turkish-Dutch adults a high overall level of structural equivalence was found, implying that acculturation attitudes and behaviors can be conceptualized using a single underlying construct (i.e., acculturation). Metric and scalar equivalence varied across life domains, response scales, and measurement methods: They were higher for the private than for the public domain, for identical than for different response scales, and for the one-statement than for the two-statement measurement method. We concluded that in the assessment of acculturation attitudes and behaviors can only be interchanged in highly restricted conditions.

Picturing Scripts: A Combined Narrative, Social Semiotic and Cognitive Approach to Visual Narrativity

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cindie Maagaard
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Contextual Knowledge ◽  
Combined Approach ◽  
Future Tense ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
The One ◽  
Cognitive Perspectives

Abstract This article explores visual narrativity through the case of prospective, or future-tense, narratives realized through visual images. Addressing the challenges of representing narrative elements of temporality, events and experience in a single, static image, it proposes an analytical framework combining social semiotic, contextual and cognitive perspectives. In doing so, it argues that a combined approach enhances our ability to understand the interplay between on the one hand the image-internal visual cues of temporality and modality that activate the viewer’s imagination and narrative inferences, and on the other, the processes by which such inferences are made, including the influence of the viewer’s contextual knowledge and cognitive processes in guiding them. The article uses architectural renderings as material for analysis, because they are exemplary of how visual images invite viewers to imagine the kinds of activities and experiences that can unfold in a future setting and thus make inferences about temporality, event and experience beyond the image’s isolated moment.

scholarly journals ‘In This Interregnum’

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 716-734
Author(s):  
Henrique Carvalho ◽  
Alan Norrie
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
World Order ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Different Response ◽  
And Control

In this article, we offer a critical examination of the long and rich history of criminal justice scholarship in the pages of Social and Legal Studies. We do so by identifying and exploring a dialectical tension in such scholarship, between the recognition of the role of criminal justice as an instrument of violence, exclusion and control on the one hand and the effort to seek, through or perhaps beyond the critique of criminal justice, an emancipatory project. We explore this tension by examining four areas in scholarship: popular justice, social control and governmentality, gender and sexuality and transitional justice. Relating forms of critique to the historical development of a unipolar political world order from the time of the journal’s inception, we argue that the criminal justice scholarship in Social and Legal Studies positions it, like the world it describes, in a sort of ‘interregnum’. This is a place where the tension between the two poles of emancipation and control is evident but shows few signs of resolution. Each of the four themes displays a different critical perspective, one that reflects a different response to living in a world where legal, social and political emancipation struggles against the weight and direction of history. Critique nonetheless reflects on criminal justice to reaffirm the need for emancipatory change and consider how it may be achieved.

scholarly journals Sex differences in spatial cognition in an invertebrate: the cuttlefish

2008 ◽  
Vol 275 (1646) ◽  
pp. 2049-2054 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christelle Jozet-Alves ◽  
Julien Modéran ◽  
Ludovic Dickel
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Spatial Cognition ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Spatial Task ◽  
Range Size ◽  
Left Turn ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The One ◽  
First Time ◽  
Sexually Mature

Evidence of sex differences in spatial cognition have been reported in a wide range of vertebrate species. Several evolutionary hypotheses have been proposed to explain these differences. The one best supported is the range size hypothesis that links spatial ability to range size. Our study aimed to determine whether male cuttlefish ( Sepia officinalis ; cephalopod mollusc) range over a larger area than females and whether this difference is associated with a cognitive dimorphism in orientation abilities. First, we assessed the distance travelled by sexually immature and mature cuttlefish of both sexes when placed in an open field (test 1). Second, cuttlefish were trained to solve a spatial task in a T-maze, and the spatial strategy preferentially used (right/left turn or visual cues) was determined (test 2). Our results showed that sexually mature males travelled a longer distance in test 1, and were more likely to use visual cues to orient in test 2, compared with the other three groups. This paper demonstrates for the first time a cognitive dimorphism between sexes in an invertebrate. The data conform to the predictions of the range size hypothesis. Comparative studies with other invertebrate species might lead to a better understanding of the evolution of cognitive dimorphism.

scholarly journals A Fronto-Posterior Network Involved in Visual Dimension Changes

2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 480-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Pollmann ◽  
R. Weidner ◽  
H.J. Müller ◽  
D.Y. von Cramon
Keyword(s):  
Striate Cortex ◽  
Critical Dimension ◽  
Target Dimension ◽  
Frontopolar Cortex ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Visual Dimension ◽  
Behavioral Evidence ◽  
Feature Dimension ◽  
Visual Cortical

Objects characterized by a unique visual feature may pop out of their environment. When participants have to search for such “odd-one-out” targets, detection is facilitated when targets are consistently defined within the same feature dimension (e.g., color) compared with when the target dimension is uncertain (e.g., color or motion). Further, with dimensional uncertainty, there is a cost when a given target is defined in a different dimension to the preceding target, relative to when the critical dimension remains the same. Behavioral evidence suggests that a target dimension change involves a shift of attention to the new dimension. The present fMRI study revealed increased activation in the left frontopolar cortex, as well as in posterior visual areas of the dorsal and ventral streams, specific to changes in the target dimension. In contrast, activation in the striate cortex was decreased. This pattern suggests control of cross-dimensional attention shifts by the frontopolar cortex, modulating visual cortical processing by increased activation in higher-tier visual areas and suppression of activation in lower-tier areas.

scholarly journals Movement signaling in ventral pallidum and dopaminergic midbrain is gated by behavioral state in singing birds

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruidong Chen ◽  
Vikram Gadagkar ◽  
Andrea C. Roeser ◽  
Pavel A. Puzerey ◽  
Jesse H. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Ventral Tegmental Area ◽  
Single Neuron ◽  
Body Movement ◽  
Ventral Pallidum ◽  
Behavioral State ◽  
Behavioral Context ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Behavioral States ◽  
Ventral Tegmental ◽  
Behavioral Conditions

AbstractMovement-related neuronal discharge in ventral tegmental area (VTA) and ventral pallidum (VP) is inconsistently observed across studies. One possibility is that some neurons are movement-related and others are not. Another possibility is that the precise behavioral conditions matter - that a single neuron can be movement related under certain behavioral states but not others. We recorded single VTA and VP neurons in birds transitioning between singing and non-singing states, while monitoring body movement with microdrive-mounted accelerometers. Many VP and VTA neurons exhibited body movement-locked activity exclusively when the bird was not singing. During singing, VP and VTA neurons could switch off their tuning to body movement and become instead precisely time-locked to specific song syllables. These changes in neuronal tuning occurred rapidly at state boundaries. Our findings show that movement-related activity in limbic circuits can be gated by behavioral context.

scholarly journals Insect behavioral evidence of spatial memories during environmental reconfiguration

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diogo Santos-Pata ◽  
Alex Escuredo ◽  
Zenon Mathews ◽  
Paul F.M.J. Verschure
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Representation ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Mixed Reality ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Target Location ◽  
Insect Behavior ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Spatial Memories ◽  
Behavioral Evidence ◽  
Novel Target

ABSTRACTInsects are great explorers, able to navigate through long-distance trajectories and successfully find their way back. Their navigational routes cross dynamic environments suggesting adaptation to novel configurations. Arthropods and vertebrates share neural organizational principles and it has been shown that rodents modulate their neural spatial representation accordingly with environmental changes. However, it is unclear whether insects reflexively adapt to environmental changes or retain memory traces of previously explored situations. We sought to disambiguate between insect behavior at environmental novel situations and reconfiguration conditions. An immersive mixed-reality multi-sensory setup was built to replicate multi-sensory cues. We have designed an experimental setup where female crickets Gryllus Bimaculatus were trained to move towards paired auditory and visual cues during primarily phonotactic driven behavior. We hypothesized that insects were capable of identifying sensory modifications in known environments. Our results show that, regardless of the animals history, novel situation conditions did not compromise the animals performance and navigational directionality towards a novel target location. However, in trials where visual and auditory stimuli were spatially decoupled, the animals heading variability towards a previously known location significantly increased. Our findings showed that crickets are able to behaviorally manifest environmental reconfiguration, suggesting the encoding for spatial representation.

scholarly journals Task-related activity in human visual cortex

PLoS Biology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. e3000921
Author(s):  
Zvi N. Roth ◽  
Minyoung Ryoo ◽  
Elisha P. Merriam
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Optical Imaging ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Field Of View ◽  
Imaging Studies ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Temporal Precision ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Visual Cortical ◽  
The Brain

The brain exhibits widespread endogenous responses in the absence of visual stimuli, even at the earliest stages of visual cortical processing. Such responses have been studied in monkeys using optical imaging with a limited field of view over visual cortex. Here, we used functional MRI (fMRI) in human participants to study the link between arousal and endogenous responses in visual cortex. The response that we observed was tightly entrained to task timing, was spatially extensive, and was independent of visual stimulation. We found that this response follows dynamics similar to that of pupil size and heart rate, suggesting that task-related activity is related to arousal. Finally, we found that higher reward increased response amplitude while decreasing its trial-to-trial variability (i.e., the noise). Computational simulations suggest that increased temporal precision underlies both of these observations. Our findings are consistent with optical imaging studies in monkeys and support the notion that arousal increases precision of neural activity.

Thalamocortical Specificity and the Synthesis of Sensory Cortical Receptive Fields

2005 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose-Manuel Alonso ◽  
Harvey A. Swadlow
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Barrel Cortex ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
High Specificity ◽  
Inhibitory Neurons ◽  
Simple Cells ◽  
Layer 4 ◽  
Different Response ◽  
Cortical Receptive Fields ◽  
Visual Cortical

A persistent and fundamental question in sensory cortical physiology concerns the manner in which receptive fields of layer-4 neurons are synthesized from their thalamic inputs. According to a hierarchical model proposed more than 40 years ago, simple receptive fields in layer 4 of primary visual cortex originate from the convergence of highly specific thalamocortical inputs (e.g., geniculate inputs with on-center receptive fields overlap the on subregions of layer 4 simple cells). Here, we summarize studies in the visual cortex that provide support for this high specificity of thalamic input to visual cortical simple cells. In addition, we review studies of GABAergic interneurons in the somatosensory “barrel” cortex with receptive fields that are generated by a very different mechanism: the nonspecific convergence of thalamic inputs with different response properties. We hypothesize that these 2 modes of thalamocortical connectivity onto subpopulations of excitatory and inhibitory neurons constitute a general feature of sensory neocortex and account for much of the diversity seen in layer-4 receptive fields.

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