scholarly journals Metacognitive Awareness of Difficulty in Action Selection: The Role of the Cingulo-opercular Network

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Kobe Desender ◽  
Martyn Teuchies ◽  
Carlos Gonzalez Garcia ◽  
Wouter De Baene ◽  
Jelle Demanet ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Action Selection ◽  
Metacognitive Awareness ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Response Priming ◽  
Metacognitive Judgment ◽  
Cognitive States ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Metacognitive Experience

Abstract The question whether and how we are able to monitor our own cognitive states (metacognition) has been a matter of debate for decades. Do we have direct access to our cognitive processes, or can we only infer them indirectly based on their consequences? In the current study, we wanted to investigate the brain circuits that underlie the metacognitive experience of fluency in action selection. To manipulate action-selection fluency, we used a subliminal response priming paradigm. On each trial, both male and female human participants additionally engaged in the metacognitive process of rating how hard they felt it was to respond to the target stimulus. Despite having no conscious awareness of the prime, results showed that participants rated incompatible trials (during which subliminal primes interfered with the required response) to be more difficult than compatible trials (where primes facilitated the required response), reflecting metacognitive awareness of difficulty. This increased sense of subjective difficulty was mirrored by increased activity in the rostral cingulate zone and the anterior insula, two regions that are functionally closely connected. Importantly, this reflected activations that were unique to subjective difficulty ratings and were not explained by RTs or prime–response compatibility. We interpret these findings in light of a possible grounding of the metacognitive judgment of fluency in action selection in interoceptive signals resulting from increased effort.

scholarly journals Metacognitive awareness of difficulty in action selection: the role of the cingulo-opercular network

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martyn Teuchies ◽  
Kobe Desender ◽  
Wouter de Baene ◽  
Jelle Demanet ◽  
Marcel Brass
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Times ◽  
Action Selection ◽  
Metacognitive Awareness ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Response Priming ◽  
Cognitive States ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Metacognitive Experience ◽  
Increased Activity

AbstractThe question whether and how we are able to monitor our own cognitive states (metacognition) has been a matter of debate for decades. Do we have direct access to our cognitive processes or can we only infer them indirectly based on their consequences? In the current study, we wanted to investigate the brain circuits that underlie the metacognitive experience of fluency in action selection. To manipulate action-selection fluency we used a subliminal response priming paradigm. On each trial, participants additionally engaged in the metacognitive process of rating how hard they felt it was to respond to the target stimulus. Despite having no conscious awareness of the prime, results showed that participants rated incompatible trials (during which subliminal primes interfered with the required response) to be more difficult than compatible trials (where primes facilitated the required response) reflecting metacognitive awareness of difficulty. This increased sense of subjective difficulty was mirrored by increased activity in the rostral cingulate zone (RCZ) and the anterior insula, two regions that are functionally closely connected. Importantly, these reflected unique activations and were not explained by reaction times or prime-response compatibility. We interpret these findings in light of a possible grounding of the metacognitive judgement of fluency in action selection in interoceptive signals resulting from increased effort.

scholarly journals Induced Empathy Moderates Emotional Responses to Expressive Qualities in Music

2020 ◽  
pp. 102986492097472
Author(s):  
Katherine O’Neill ◽  
Hauke Egermann
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Validity ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Valence And Arousal ◽  
Experimental Group

Recent research has explored the role of empathy in the context of music listening. Here, through an empathy priming paradigm, situational empathy was shown to act as a causal mechanism in inducing emotion, although the way empathy was primed had low levels of ecological validity. We therefore conducted an online experiment to explore the extent to which information about a composer’s expressive intentions when writing a piece of music would significantly affect the degree to which participants reportedly empathise with the composer and in turn influence emotional responses to expressive music. A total of 229 participants were randomly assigned to three groups. The experimental group read short texts describing the emotions felt by the composer during the process of composition. To control for the effect of text regardless of its content, one control group read texts describing the characteristics of the music they were to hear, and a second control group was not given any textual information. Participants listened to 30-second excerpts of four pieces of music, selected to express emotions from the four quadrants of the circumplex theory of emotion. Having heard each music excerpt, participants rated the valence and arousal they experienced and completed a measure of situational empathy. Results show that situational empathy in response to music is significantly associated with trait empathy. As opposed to those in the control conditions, participants in the experimental group responded with significantly higher levels of situational empathy. Receiving this text significantly moderated the effect of the expressiveness of stimuli on induced emotion, indicating that it induced empathy. We conclude that empathy can be induced during music listening through the provision of information about the specific emotions of a person relating to the music. These findings contribute to an understanding of the psychological mechanisms that underlie emotional responses to music.

scholarly journals LPS Primes Brain Responsiveness to High Mobility Group Box-1 Protein

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 558
Author(s):  
Verena Peek ◽  
Lois M. Harden ◽  
Jelena Damm ◽  
Ferial Aslani ◽  
Stephan Leisengang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Inflammatory Responses ◽  
Area Postrema ◽  
High Mobility ◽  
High Mobility Group ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Significant Release ◽  
Factor Α ◽  
Culture Supernatants

High mobility group box (HMGB)1 action contributes to late phases of sepsis, but the effects of increased endogenous plasma HMGB1 levels on brain cells during inflammation are unclear. Here, we aimed to further investigate the role of HMGB1 in the brain during septic-like lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammation in rats (LPS, 10 mg/kg, i.p.). HMGB-1 mRNA expression and release were measured in the periphery/brain by RT-PCR, immunohistochemistry and ELISA. In vitro experiments with disulfide-HMGB1 in primary neuro-glial cell cultures of the area postrema (AP), a circumventricular organ with a leaky blood–brain barrier and direct access to circulating mediators like HMGB1 and LPS, were performed to determine the direct influence of HMGB1 on this pivotal brain structure for immune-to-brain communication. Indeed, HMGB1 plasma levels stayed elevated after LPS injection. Immunohistochemistry of brains and AP cultures confirmed LPS-stimulated cytoplasmatic translocation of HMGB1 indicative of local HMGB1 release. Moreover, disulfide-HMGB1 stimulation induced nuclear factor (NF)-κB activation and a significant release of interleukin-6, but not tumor necrosis factor α, into AP culture supernatants. However, only a few AP cells directly responded to HMGB1 with increased intracellular calcium concentration. Interestingly, priming with LPS induced a seven-fold higher percentage of responsive cells to HMGB1. We conclude that, as a humoral and local mediator, HMGB1 enhances brain inflammatory responses, after LPS priming, linked to sustained sepsis symptoms.

scholarly journals Successful Learning with Hypermedia: The Role of Epistemological Beliefs and Metacognitive Awareness

2003 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa D. Bendixen ◽  
Kendall Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Epistemological Beliefs ◽  
Metacognitive Awareness ◽  
Hierarchical Regression ◽  
Hypermedia Learning ◽  
Posttest Performance ◽  
Cognitive Awareness ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Relationship

This study examined the relationship between epistemological beliefs, meta-cognition, and student achievement in a hypermedia learning environment. Epistemological beliefs refer to beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing (see review by Hofer & Pintrich, 1997) and metacognition refers to the ability to reflect upon, understand, and control one's learning (Schraw & Dennison, 1994). We predicted that the epistemological beliefs and meta-cognitive awareness of 116 preservice teachers would be significantly related to achievement in a hypermedia tutorial. Achievement was measured by a posttest based on the tutorial content. Results from a forced-order, hierarchical regression analysis indicated that reading comprehension, GPA, and three of the five epistemological beliefs (i.e., fixed ability, omniscient authority, and quick learning) significantly predicted posttest performance. Belief in omniscient authority and fixed ability being related to lower achievement supports previous research. Contrary to our expectations, a belief in quick learning was positively correlated with achievement. Educational and instructional design implications are discussed.

scholarly journals Role of metacognitive awareness in developing a competitive physician

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 342-353
Author(s):  
Mergalyas M. Kashapov ◽  
◽  
Galina Yu. Bazanova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Metacognitive Awareness

Testing the automaticity of syntax using masked visual priming

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Pyatigorskaya ◽  
Matteo Maran ◽  
Emiliano Zaccarella
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Syntactic Priming ◽  
Visual Words ◽  
Visual Priming ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Fast Pace ◽  
Behavioural Experiments

Language comprehension proceeds at a very fast pace. It is argued that context influences the speed of language comprehension by providing informative cues for the correct processing of the incoming linguistic input. Priming studies investigating the role of context in language processing have shown that humans quickly recognise target words that share orthographic, morphological, or semantic information with their preceding primes. How syntactic information influences the processing of incoming words is however less known. Early syntactic priming studies reported faster recognition for noun and verb targets (e.g., apple or sing) following primes with which they form grammatical phrases or sentences (the apple, he sings). The studies however leave open a number of questions about the reported effect, including the degree of automaticity of syntactic priming, the facilitative versus inhibitory nature, and the specific mechanism underlying the priming effect—that is, the type of syntactic information primed on the target word. Here we employed a masked syntactic priming paradigm in four behavioural experiments in German language to test whether masked primes automatically facilitate the categorization of nouns and verbs presented as flashing visual words. Overall, we found robust syntactic priming effects with masked primes—thus suggesting high automaticity of the process—but only when verbs were morpho-syntactically marked (er kau-t; he chew-s). Furthermore, we found that, compared to baseline, primes slow down target categorisation when the relationship between prime and target is syntactically incorrect, rather than speeding it up when the prime-target relationship is syntactically correct. This argues in favour of an inhibitory nature of syntactic priming. Overall, the data indicate that humans automatically extract abstract syntactic features from word categories as flashing visual words, which has an impact on the speed of successful language processing during language comprehension.

10. EU Legislation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ed Beale ◽  
Libby Kurien ◽  
Eve Samson
Keyword(s):  
Direct Access ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Eu Legislation ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the ways in which the UK Parliament formally constrains the government and engages with European Union (EU) institutions. The House of Lords and the House of Commons both have processes to ensure that legislation proposed at the EU level has been properly reviewed before it takes effect in UK law. The ‘scrutiny reserve’, which stipulates that ministers should not agree to proposals under scrutiny, is used to elicit information about the government's negotiating position. Parliament also has a role in examining EU legislation and providing direct access to European institutions. The chapter first provides an overview of the EU legislative process, focusing on three principal EU institutions: member states, the European Parliament (EP), and the European Commission. It also considers the formal role of national parliaments in the EU legislative process, the UK Parliament's scrutiny of the EU legislation and its effectiveness, and parliamentary scrutiny after Brexit.

scholarly journals Anticipatory Defocusing of Attention and Contextual Response Priming but No Role of Aesthetic Appreciation in Simple Symmetry Judgments when Switching between Tasks

Symmetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 577
Author(s):  
Svantje T. Kähler ◽  
Thomas Jacobsen ◽  
Stina Klein ◽  
Mike Wendt
Keyword(s):  
Visual Attention ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Response Priming ◽  
Strong Response ◽  
Task Requirements ◽  
Anticipatory Adjustment ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Response Congruency

Visual attention can be adjusted to task requirements. We asked participants to switch between judging the symmetry of vertically presented three-letter strings and identifying the central stimulus (i.e., Eriksen task) to investigate anticipatory adjustment of attention. Our experiments provide evidence for anticipatory adjustment of visual attention, depending on the cued task (i.e., focusing and defocusing of attention after the Eriksen task cue and after the symmetry task cue, respectively). Although, symmetry judgments were, overall, considerably slower than the identification of the central letter, the effects of response congruency between tasks were comparable in the two tasks, which suggested strong response priming from concurrent symmetry judgment in Eriksen task trials. Symmetry judgment performance was best for homogeneous letter strings (e.g., HHH), worst for strings that were symmetrical and inhomogeneous (e.g., XHX), and intermediate for asymmetrical strings (e.g., HHX). The difficulty of categorizing symmetrical-inhomogeneous items markedly deviated from the aesthetic ratings of the stimuli, displaying a pronounced preference for symmetrical strings, but only little difference among the symmetrical items, and might be accounted by conflict with response priming based on inhomogeneity detection. Although our study provides little evidence for an effect of aesthetic appreciation in simple symmetry judgments, it demonstrates the strong role of contextual dependencies.

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