scholarly journals The ubiquity of selective attention in the processing of feedback during category learning

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0259517
Author(s):  
Katerina Dolguikh ◽  
Tyrus Tracey ◽  
Mark R. Blair
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Category Learning ◽  
Complete Information ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Feedback Processing ◽  
Stimulus Features ◽  
Correct Category ◽  
Category Exemplars ◽  
Feedback Phase

Feedback is essential for many kinds of learning, but the cognitive processes involved in learning from feedback are unclear. Models of category learning incorporate selective attention to stimulus features while generating a response, but during the feedback phase of an experiment, it is assumed that participants receive complete information about stimulus features as well as the correct category. The present work looks at eye tracking data from six category learning datasets covering a variety of category complexities and types. We find that selective attention to task-relevant information is pervasive throughout feedback processing, suggesting a role for selective attention in memory encoding of category exemplars. We also find that error trials elicit additional stimulus processing during the feedback phase. Finally, our data reveal that participants increasingly skip the processing of feedback altogether. At the broadest level, these three findings reveal that selective attention is ubiquitous throughout the entire category learning task, functioning to emphasize the importance of certain stimulus features, the helpfulness of extra stimulus encoding during times of uncertainty, and the superfluousness of feedback once one has learned the task. We discuss the implications of our findings for modelling efforts in category learning from the perspective of researchers trying to capture the full dynamic interaction of selective attention and learning, as well as for researchers focused on other issues, such as category representation, whose work only requires simplifications that do a reasonable job of capturing learning.

scholarly journals An Examination of Strategy Implementation During Abstract Nonlinguistic Category Learning in Aphasia

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 1195-1209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia Vallila-Rohter ◽  
Swathi Kiran
Keyword(s):  
Category Learning ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Strategy Development ◽  
Random Pattern ◽  
Feedback Processing ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Single Feature

Purpose Our purpose was to study strategy use during nonlinguistic category learning in aphasia. Method Twelve control participants without aphasia and 53 participants with aphasia (PWA) completed a computerized feedback-based category learning task consisting of training and testing phases. Accuracy rates of categorization in testing phases were calculated. To evaluate strategy use, strategy analyses were conducted over training and testing phases. Participant data were compared with model data that simulated complex multi-cue, single feature, and random pattern strategies. Learning success and strategy use were evaluated within the context of standardized cognitive–linguistic assessments. Results Categorization accuracy was higher among control participants than among PWA. The majority of control participants implemented suboptimal or optimal multi-cue and single-feature strategies by testing phases of the experiment. In contrast, a large subgroup of PWA implemented random patterns, or no strategy, during both training and testing phases of the experiment. Conclusions Person-to-person variability arises not only in category learning ability but also in the strategies implemented to complete category learning tasks. PWA less frequently developed effective strategies during category learning tasks than control participants. Certain PWA may have impairments of strategy development or feedback processing not captured by language and currently probed cognitive abilities.

scholarly journals DRD4 Long Allele Carriers Show Heightened Attention to High-priority Items Relative to Low-priority Items

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marissa A. Gorlick ◽  
Darrell A. Worthy ◽  
Valerie S. Knopik ◽  
John E. McGeary ◽  
Christopher G. Beevers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Category Learning ◽  
Tandem Repeats ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Superior Performance ◽  
Clinical Effects ◽  
Attentional Deficits ◽  
Verbal Rules ◽  
Impaired Attention

Humans with seven or more repeats in exon III of the DRD4 gene (long DRD4 carriers) sometimes demonstrate impaired attention, as seen in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and at other times demonstrate heightened attention, as seen in addictive behavior. Although the clinical effects of DRD4 are the focus of much work, this gene may not necessarily serve as a “risk” gene for attentional deficits, but as a plasticity gene where attention is heightened for priority items in the environment and impaired for minor items. Here we examine the role of DRD4 in two tasks that benefit from selective attention to high-priority information. We examine a category learning task where performance is supported by focusing on features and updating verbal rules. Here, selective attention to the most salient features is associated with good performance. In addition, we examine the Operation Span (OSPAN) task, a working memory capacity task that relies on selective attention to update and maintain items in memory while also performing a secondary task. Long DRD4 carriers show superior performance relative to short DRD4 homozygotes (six or less tandem repeats) in both the category learning and OSPAN tasks. These results suggest that DRD4 may serve as a “plasticity” gene where individuals with the long allele show heightened selective attention to high-priority items in the environment, which can be beneficial in the appropriate context.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait: Enhancement in a Rule-Based Category Learning Task After Social-Evaluative Stress

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shawn Ell ◽  
Steve Hutchinson ◽  
Lauren Hawthorne ◽  
Lauren Szymula ◽  
Shannon K. McCoy
Keyword(s):  
Category Learning ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Rule Based

The Alerting and Orienting Systems of Attention Are Modified by Cannabis Dependence

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 520-532
Author(s):  
Ivett E. Ortega-Mora ◽  
Ulises Caballero-Sánchez ◽  
Talía V. Román-López ◽  
Cintia B. Rosas-Escobar ◽  
Mónica Méndez-Díaz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Selective Attention ◽  
Control Systems ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Age Of Onset ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Cannabis Use ◽  
Network Systems ◽  
Attention Network ◽  
Cannabis Dependence ◽  
Alerting System

AbstractAttention allows us to select relevant information from the background. Although several studies have described that cannabis use induces deleterious effects on attention, it remains unclear if cannabis dependence affects the attention network systems differently.Objectives:To evaluate whether customary consumption of cannabis or cannabis dependence impacts the alerting, orienting, and executive control systems in young adults; to find out whether it is related to tobacco or alcohol dependence and if cannabis use characteristics are associated with the attention network systems.Method:One-hundred and fifty-four healthy adults and 102 cannabis users performed the Attention Network Test (ANT) to evaluate the alerting, orienting, and executive control systems.Results:Cannabis use enhanced the alerting system but decreased the orienting system. Moreover, those effects seem to be associated with cannabis dependence. Out of all the cannabis-using variables, only the age of onset of cannabis use significantly predicted the efficiency of the orienting and executive control systems.Conclusion:Cannabis dependence favors tonic alertness but reduces selective attention ability; earlier use of cannabis worsens the efficiency of selective attention and resolution of conflicts.

scholarly journals Neuronal modulation in the mouse superior colliculus during covert visual selective attention

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lupeng Wang ◽  
James P. Herman ◽  
Richard J. Krauzlis
Keyword(s):  
Visual Attention ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Superior Colliculus ◽  
Firing Rate ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Uncued Location ◽  
Visual Selective Attention ◽  
Covert Visual Attention

AbstractCovert visual attention is accomplished by a cascade of mechanisms distributed across multiple brain regions. Recent studies in primates suggest a parcellation in which visual cortex is associated with enhanced representations of relevant stimuli, whereas subcortical circuits are associated with selection of visual targets and suppression of distractors. Here we identified how neuronal activity in the superior colliculus (SC) of head-fixed mice is modulated during covert visual attention. We found that spatial cues modulated both firing rate and spike-count correlations, and that the cue-related modulation in firing rate was due to enhancement of activity at the cued spatial location rather than suppression at the uncued location. This modulation improved the neuronal discriminability of visual-change-evoked activity between contralateral and ipsilateral SC neurons. Together, our findings indicate that neurons in the mouse SC contribute to covert visual selective attention by biasing processing in favor of locations expected to contain relevant information.

Conditioned cough and urge-to-cough in a category learning task

2017 ◽  
Vol 129 ◽  
pp. 377
Author(s):  
Thomas Janssens ◽  
Lieven Dupont ◽  
Omer Van den Bergh
Keyword(s):  
Category Learning ◽  
Learning Task

4. Adaptive Gaze Control in an Observational Learning Task

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Kim
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movement ◽  
Observational Learning ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Gaze Control ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Object Condition ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Different Types

The purpose of this study was to examine factors that influence how people look at objects they will have to act upon while watching others interact with them first. We investigated whether including different types of task-relevant information into an observational learning task would result in participants adapting their gaze towards an object with more task-relevant information. The participant watched an actor simultaneously lift and replace two objects with two hands then was cued to lift one of the two objects. The objects had the potential to change weight between each trial. In our cue condition, participants were cued to lift one of the objects every single time. In our object condition, the participants were cued equally to act on both objects; however, the weights of only one of the objects would have the potential to change. The hypothesis in the cue condition was that the participant would look significantly more at the object being cued. The hypothesis for the object condition was that the participant would look significantly more (i.e. adapt their gaze) at the object changing weight. The rationale behind this is that participants will learn to allocate their gaze significantly more towards that object so they can gain information about its properties (i.e. weight change). Pending results will indicate whether or not this occurred, and has implications for understanding eye movement sequences in visually guided behaviour tasks. The outcome of this study also has implications for the mechanisms of eye gaze with respect to social learning tasks. 

scholarly journals Neural signatures of reward and sensory error feedback processing in motor learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (4) ◽  
pp. 1561-1574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitrios J. Palidis ◽  
Joshua G. A. Cashaback ◽  
Paul L. Gribble
Keyword(s):  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Motor Adaptation ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Reward Learning ◽  
P300 Amplitude ◽  
Error Feedback ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Visuomotor Rotation ◽  
Feedback Processing ◽  
Motor Commands

At least two distinct processes have been identified by which motor commands are adapted according to movement-related feedback: reward-based learning and sensory error-based learning. In sensory error-based learning, mappings between sensory targets and motor commands are recalibrated according to sensory error feedback. In reward-based learning, motor commands are associated with subjective value, such that successful actions are reinforced. We designed two tasks to isolate reward- and sensory error-based motor adaptation, and we used electroencephalography in humans to identify and dissociate the neural correlates of reward and sensory error feedback processing. We designed a visuomotor rotation task to isolate sensory error-based learning that was induced by altered visual feedback of hand position. In a reward learning task, we isolated reward-based learning induced by binary reward feedback that was decoupled from the visual target. A fronto-central event-related potential called the feedback-related negativity (FRN) was elicited specifically by binary reward feedback but not sensory error feedback. A more posterior component called the P300 was evoked by feedback in both tasks. In the visuomotor rotation task, P300 amplitude was increased by sensory error induced by perturbed visual feedback and was correlated with learning rate. In the reward learning task, P300 amplitude was increased by reward relative to nonreward and by surprise regardless of feedback valence. We propose that during motor adaptation the FRN specifically reflects a reward-based learning signal whereas the P300 reflects feedback processing that is related to adaptation more generally. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We studied the event-related potentials evoked by feedback stimuli during motor adaptation tasks that isolate reward- and sensory error-based learning mechanisms. We found that the feedback-related negativity was specifically elicited by binary reward feedback, whereas the P300 was observed in both tasks. These results reveal neural processes associated with different learning mechanisms and elucidate which classes of errors, from a computational standpoint, elicit the feedback-related negativity and P300.

scholarly journals Early Auditory Evoked Potential Is Modulated by Selective Attention and Related to Individual Differences in Visual Working Memory Capacity

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (12) ◽  
pp. 2682-2690 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan J. Giuliano ◽  
Christina M. Karns ◽  
Helen J. Neville ◽  
Steven A. Hillyard
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Auditory Evoked Potential ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Auditory Selective Attention ◽  
Visual Change Detection ◽  
Listening Task

A growing body of research suggests that the predictive power of working memory (WM) capacity for measures of intellectual aptitude is due to the ability to control attention and select relevant information. Crucially, attentional mechanisms implicated in controlling access to WM are assumed to be domain-general, yet reports of enhanced attentional abilities in individuals with larger WM capacities are primarily within the visual domain. Here, we directly test the link between WM capacity and early attentional gating across sensory domains, hypothesizing that measures of visual WM capacity should predict an individual's capacity to allocate auditory selective attention. To address this question, auditory ERPs were recorded in a linguistic dichotic listening task, and individual differences in ERP modulations by attention were correlated with estimates of WM capacity obtained in a separate visual change detection task. Auditory selective attention enhanced ERP amplitudes at an early latency (ca. 70–90 msec), with larger P1 components elicited by linguistic probes embedded in an attended narrative. Moreover, this effect was associated with greater individual estimates of visual WM capacity. These findings support the view that domain-general attentional control mechanisms underlie the wide variation of WM capacity across individuals.

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