scholarly journals Age-related differences in processing task-irrelevant stimulus properties: a single-trial ERP study

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 204-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Wieczorek ◽  
C. Gaspar ◽  
C. Pernet ◽  
G. Rousselet
2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingmar H. A. Franken ◽  
Jan W. Van Strien ◽  
Bruno R. Bocanegra ◽  
Jorg Huijding

Watching motivationally relevant pictures modulates two types of event-related brain potentials (ERPs), the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the P3. Several studies show that the EPN and P3 to emotional stimuli are enhanced as compared to neutral stimuli. The goal of the present study was to investigate whether experimentally conditioned abstract stimuli (Gabor patches) that predict the occurrence of a subsequent emotional event are able to elicit an enhanced EPN and P3. This would confirm that these ERP components indeed reflect the motivational relevance of a stimulus, rather than other stimulus properties such as complexity. In a conditioning paradigm, abstract patches (conditioned stimuli; CS) were contingently paired with emotional or neutral pictures (unconditioned stimuli; UCS). Both EPN and P3 to these CS were measured in 80 healthy participants. The results demonstrate an enhanced P3 to CS predicting emotional stimuli as compared to CS predicting neutral stimuli. The EPN was not modulated by the CS. These results show that the P3 is a suitable index of acquired motivational relevance and is not, at least not completely, dependent on task-irrelevant stimulus properties such as complexity and contrast. The EPN seems less suitable as an index of recently acquired motivational relevance because, although the CS acquired emotional significance, this did not result in the typical EPN modulation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 829-844 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele T. Diaz ◽  
Micah A. Johnson ◽  
Deborah M. Burke ◽  
Trong-Kha Truong ◽  
David J. Madden

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 483-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Thelen ◽  
Micah M. Murray

This review article summarizes evidence that multisensory experiences at one point in time have long-lasting effects on subsequent unisensory visual and auditory object recognition. The efficacy of single-trial exposure to task-irrelevant multisensory events is its ability to modulate memory performance and brain activity to unisensory components of these events presented later in time. Object recognition (either visual or auditory) is enhanced if the initial multisensory experience had been semantically congruent and can be impaired if this multisensory pairing was either semantically incongruent or entailed meaningless information in the task-irrelevant modality, when compared to objects encountered exclusively in a unisensory context. Processes active during encoding cannot straightforwardly explain these effects; performance on all initial presentations was indistinguishable despite leading to opposing effects with stimulus repetitions. Brain responses to unisensory stimulus repetitions differ during early processing stages (∼100 ms post-stimulus onset) according to whether or not they had been initially paired in a multisensory context. Plus, the network exhibiting differential responses varies according to whether or not memory performance is enhanced or impaired. The collective findings we review indicate that multisensory associations formedviasingle-trial learning exert influences on later unisensory processing to promote distinct object representations that manifest as differentiable brain networks whose activity is correlated with memory performance. These influences occur incidentally, despite many intervening stimuli, and are distinguishable from the encoding/learning processes during the formation of the multisensory associations. The consequences of multisensory interactions thus persist over time to impact memory retrieval and object discrimination.


2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (12) ◽  
pp. 2189-2206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brittany R. Alperin ◽  
Anna E. Haring ◽  
Tatyana Y. Zhuravleva ◽  
Phillip J. Holcomb ◽  
Dorene M. Rentz ◽  
...  

Older adults exhibit a reduced ability to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli; however, it remains to be determined where along the information processing stream the most salient age-associated changes occur. In the current study, ERPs provided an opportunity to determine whether age-related differences in processing task-irrelevant stimuli were uniform across information processing stages or disproportionately affected either early or late selection. ERPs were measured in young and old adults during a color-selective attention task in which participants responded to target letters in a specified color (attend condition) while ignoring letters in a different color (ignore condition). Old participants were matched to two groups of young participants on the basis of neuropsychological test performance: one using age-appropriate norms and the other using test scores not adjusted for age. There were no age-associated differences in the magnitude of early selection (attend–ignore), as indexed by the size of the anterior selection positivity and posterior selection negativity. During late selection, as indexed by P3b amplitude, both groups of young participants generated neural responses to target letters under the attend versus ignore conditions that were highly differentiated. In striking contrast, old participants generated a P3b to target letters with no reliable differences between conditions. Individuals who were slow to initiate early selection appeared to be less successful at executing late selection. Despite relative preservation of the operations of early selection, processing delays may lead older participants to allocate excessive resources to task-irrelevant stimuli during late selection.


Neuroreport ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 328-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian Song ◽  
Chenglong Cao ◽  
Ming Yang ◽  
Shun Yao ◽  
Yan Yan ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Higenell ◽  
Brian J. White ◽  
Joshua R. Hwang ◽  
Douglas P. Munoz

The capture of covert spatial attention by salient visual events influences subsequent gaze behavior. A task irrelevant stimulus (cue) can reduce (Attention capture) or prolong (Inhi-bition of return) saccade reaction time to a subsequent target stimulus depending on the cue-target delay. Here we investigated the mechanisms that underlie the sensory-based account of AC/IOR by manipulating the visual processing stage where the cue and target interact. In Experiment 1, liquid crystal shutter goggles were used to test whether AC/IOR occur at a monocular versus binocular processing stage (before versus after signals from both eyes converge). In Experiment 2, we tested whether visual orientation selective mechanisms are critical for AC/IOR by using oriented “Gabor” stimuli. We found that the magnitude of AC and IOR was not different between monocular and interocular viewing conditions, or between iso- and ortho-oriented cue-target interactions. The results suggest that the visual mechanisms that contribute to AC/IOR arise at an orientation-independent binocular processing stage.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (0) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Samuel Couth ◽  
Ellen Poliakoff ◽  
Emma Gowen

Reaching and grasping requires integration of visual, proprioceptive and somatosensory inputs. Previous research has shown that manipulating the ‘graspabilty’ of a visual stimulus influences reaction times to that stimulus (e.g., Tucker and Ellis, 1998). Here we explored whether this same effect can be extended to the planning and online control of arm movements. Participants made a mimed reaching movement with their left or right hand depending on the colour of images of affordance (door handles) and control stimuli (a row of dots of similar size and orientation as the door handle). Stimulus onset was manipulated by changing when the grey stimulus changed colour. Stimuli either pointed towards (compatible) or pointed away from (incompatible) the responding hand. Spatially compatible affordance stimuli facilitated reach onset compared to other stimuli and compatibility combinations, replicating previous reaction time studies. This can be attributed to a priming of the motor system by spatially compatible affording items. Results also indicated a larger outwards deviation of reach trajectory for spatially incompatible control stimuli compared to spatially compatible control stimuli, which waned with stimulus onset delay. This reveals an immediate inhibitory effect on reach trajectory, such that outwards movement is over-compensated to negate this incompatible orientation. Overall, we observed that the effect of visual spatial compatibility on reach kinematics differs with the action relevance of the stimulus. We are currently exploring how this multisensory visuomotor effect changes with age.


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