scholarly journals Prior context influences motor brain areas in an auditory oddball task and prefrontal cortex multitasking modelling

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos A. Mugruza-Vassallo ◽  
Douglas D. Potter ◽  
Stamatina Tsiora ◽  
Jennifer Macfarlane ◽  
Adele Maxwell

Abstract In this study, the relationship of orienting of attention, motor control and the Stimulus- (SDN) and Goal-Driven Network (GDN) was explored through an innovative method for fMRI analysis considering all voxels after every type condition. The task consisted of four conditions: standard target (G), novel (N), neutral (Z) and noisy target (NG). First running average reaction times of each condition was made. In the second level analysis, ‘distracted’ participants evoke brain activations and differences in both hemispheres neural network for selective attention as previously reported while the participants, as a whole, demonstrated mainly left cortical and subcortical activations. A context analysis was run in the behaviourally distracted participant group contrasting the trials immediately prior to the G trials, namely one of the Z, N or NG conditions. Results showed different prefrontal activations were evoked dependent on prior context in auditory modality with recruiting from 1 to 10 brain prefrontal areas. The more motor response and influence of the previous novel stimulus the more prefrontal areas, which extend hierarchical studies of prefrontal control of attention and explain better how the auditory processing interferes with movement. Also, it was addressed how subcortical loops and model of previous motor response affected the signal processing the novel stimulus, lateralized or simultaneously, with the Target. This model makes the first grasp to understand how auditory stimulus is changing motor responses in a kind of self-induced motor response. Moreover, current BCI works address some multimodal stimulus-driven systems.

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos A. Mugruza-Vassallo ◽  
Douglas D. Potter ◽  
Stamatina Tsiora ◽  
Jennifer A. Macfarlane ◽  
Adele Maxwell

AbstractIn this study, the relationship of orienting of attention, motor control and the Stimulus- (SDN) and Goal-Driven Networks (GDN) was explored through an innovative method for fMRI analysis considering all voxels in four experimental conditions: standard target (Goal; G), novel (N), neutral (Z) and noisy target (NG). First, average reaction times (RTs) for each condition were calculated. In the second-level analysis, ‘distracted’ participants, as indicated by slower RTs, evoked brain activations and differences in both hemispheres’ neural networks for selective attention, while the participants, as a whole, demonstrated mainly left cortical and subcortical activations. A context analysis was run in the behaviourally distracted participant group contrasting the trials immediately prior to the G trials, namely one of the Z, N or NG conditions, i.e. Z.G, N.G, NG.G. Results showed different prefrontal activations dependent on prior context in the auditory modality, recruiting between 1 to 10 prefrontal areas. The higher the motor response and influence of the previous novel stimulus, the more prefrontal areas were engaged, which extends the findings of hierarchical studies of prefrontal control of attention and better explains how auditory processing interferes with movement. Also, the current study addressed how subcortical loops and models of previous motor response affected the signal processing of the novel stimulus, when this was presented laterally or simultaneously with the target. This multitasking model could enhance our understanding on how an auditory stimulus is affecting motor responses in a way that is self-induced, by taking into account prior context, as demonstrated in the standard condition and as supported by Pulvinar activations complementing visual findings. Moreover, current BCI works address some multimodal stimulus-driven systems.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos A. Mugruza-Vassallo ◽  
Douglas D. Potter ◽  
Stamatina Tsiora ◽  
Jennifer Macfarlane ◽  
Adele Maxwell

Abstract In this study, the relationship of orienting of attention, motor control and the Stimulus- (SDN) and Goal-Driven Networks (GDN) was explored through an innovative method for fMRI analysis considering all voxels in four experimental conditions: standard target (Goal; G), novel (N), neutral (Z) and noisy target (NG). First, average reaction times (RTs) for each condition were calculated. In the second level analysis, ‘distracted’ participants, as indicated by slower RTs, evoked brain activations and differences in both hemispheres’ neural networks for selective attention, while the participants, as a whole, demonstrated mainly left cortical and subcortical activations. A context analysis was run in the behaviourally distracted participant group contrasting the trials immediately prior to the G trials, namely one of the Z, N or NG conditions, i.e. Z.G, N.G, NG.G. Results showed different prefrontal activations dependent on prior context in the auditory modality, recruiting between 1 to 10 prefrontal areas. The higher the motor response and influence of the previous novel stimulus, the more prefrontal areas were engaged, which extends the findings of hierarchical studies of prefrontal control of attention and better explains how auditory processing interferes with movement. Also, the current study addressed how subcortical loops and models of previous motor response affected the signal processing of the novel stimulus, when this was presented laterally or simultaneously with the target. This multitasking model could enhance our understanding on how an auditory stimulus is affecting motor responses in a way that is self-induced, by taking into account prior context, as demonstrated in the standard condition and as supported by Pulvinar activations complementing visual findings. Moreover, current BCI works address some multimodal stimulus-driven systems.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina Bonmassar ◽  
Florian Scharf ◽  
Andreas Widmann ◽  
Nicole Wetzel

Effects of attentional distraction by unexpected and task-irrelevant sounds on task performance are discussed to comprise costs due to orienting of attention toward a distracting event and benefits due to enhanced level of arousal evoked by the processing of such events. Highly arousing distractor sounds may facilitate information and task processing resulting in reduced distraction effects compared to moderately arousing distractor sounds. By measuring pupil dilation responses as a marker of arousal and task performance as a marker of distraction, we disentangled orienting costs and arousal level changes through variations of the emotional content of distractor sounds. While participants (N=60) performed a visual categorization task, an auditory oddball sequence including standard sounds, highly arousing emotional and moderately arousing neutral novel sounds was presented. Multilevel analyses revealed prolonged reaction times to novel sounds compared to standard sounds. Distraction effects decreased when emotional novel sounds were presented compared to neutral novel sounds. Pupil dilation responses were increased in response to novel sounds compared to standard sounds. This increase was larger for emotional than for neutral novel sounds. None of the considered models supported a correlation at trial level between reduced distraction effects and arousal increase reflected by the pupil in response to emotional novel sounds, indicating at least partly independent underlying mechanisms. An exploratory analysis revealed an impact of the baseline pupil size, that indicates tonic level of arousal, on performance and distraction effects. Moreover, a positive correlation between the negative affect scale in the Adult Temperament Questionnaire and RTs was observed.


2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dolors Girbau ◽  
Richard G. Schwartz

Although receptive priming has long been used as a way to examine lexical access in adults, few studies have applied this method to children and rarely in an auditory modality. We compared auditory associative priming in children and adults. A testing battery and a Lexical Decision (LD) task was administered to 42 adults and 27 children (8;1–10;11 years-old) from Spain. They listened to Spanish word pairs (semantically related/unrelated word pairs and word-pseudoword pairs), and tone pairs. Then participants pressed one key for word pairs, and another for pairs with a word and a pseudoword. They also had to press the two keys alternatively for tone pairs as a basic auditory control. Both groups of participants, children and adults, exhibited semantic priming, with significantly faster Reaction Times (RTs) to semantically related word pairs than to unrelated pairs and to the two word-pseudoword sets. The priming effect was twice as large in the adults compared to children, and the children (not the adults) were significantly slower in their response to word-pseudoword pairs than to the unrelated word pairs. Moreover, accuracy was somewhat higher in adults than children for each word pair type, but especially in the word-pseudoword pairs. As expected, children were significantly slower than adults in the RTs for all stimulus types, and their RTs decreased significantly from 8 to 10 years of age and they also decreased in relation to some of their language abilities development (e.g., relative clauses comprehension). In both age groups, the Reaction Time average for tone pairs was lower than for speech pairs, but only all adults obtained 100% accuracy (which was slightly lower in children). Auditory processing and semantic networks are still developing in 8-10 year old children.


Languages ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Daniel Vergara ◽  
Gilda Socarrás

Processing research on Spanish gender agreement has focused on L2 learners’ and—to a lesser extent—heritage speakers’ sensitivity to gender agreement violations. This research has been mostly carried out in the written modality, which places heritage speakers at a disadvantage as they are more frequently exposed to Spanish auditorily. This study contributes to the understanding of the differences between heritage and L2 grammars by examining the processing of gender agreement in the auditory modality and its impact on comprehension. Twenty Spanish heritage speakers and 20 intermediate L2 learners listened to stimuli containing two nouns with gender mismatches in the main clause, and an adjective in the relative clause that only agreed in gender with one of the nouns. We measured noun-adjective agreement accuracy through participants’ responses to an auditory task. Our results show that heritage speakers are more accurate than L2 learners in the auditory processing of gender agreement information for comprehension. Additionally, heritage speakers’ accuracy is modulated by their Spanish language proficiency and age of onset. Participants also exhibit higher accuracies in cases in which the adjective agrees with the first noun. We argue that this is an ambiguity resolution strategy influenced by the experimental task.


1970 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 583-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert V. Carron

The present report is based on reanalysis of data of Marisi (1969) in order to examine the relationship of consistency of motor response among the component responses of a single motor task. 120 high school Ss were tested on a special task, the rho. A single trial on this motor task can be logically separated into three component motor responses: reaction time, a short circular movement, and a short linear movement. The results indicated that consistency of motor response was moderately reliable within the response components but tended to be response-component specific. Further, both the reliability and specificity of motor-response consistency were independent of the size of the mean performance scores.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcela Perrone-Bertolotti ◽  
Lucile Meunier ◽  
Christine Bulteau ◽  
Anna Borne ◽  
Samuel El Bouzaïdi Tiali ◽  
...  

We present a computerize battery constructed to evaluate behavioral performances for language, declarative memory, executive functions and social cognition abilities. This battery was created to evaluate cognitive outcomes in adults who underwent hemispherotomy as a clinical treatment of Rasmussen Encephalitis (RE) in their childhood and have been tested in a group of healthy participants (n= 88). LEXTOMM battery can be used for cognitive assessment of any type of population and allow the collection of behavioral performances in terms of accuracy and reaction times. LEXTOMM battery is composed of six language tasks allowing to assess six different linguistic abilities such as lexical storage, semantics, phonology, syntax, prosody perception and production. Different input modalities are proposed for these tasks (picture, written and auditory modality). A specific task allowing the assessment of the language generation and declarative memory interaction is also proposed. The battery also included a visual control categorization task is proposed in order to assess decision-making baseline. Moreover, LEXTOMM also includes four tasks allowing the assessment of the executive functions. More specifically we included tasks allowing the evaluation of four executive processes: updating in working memory, switching/flexibility, sustained attention and inhibition. Finally, the battery includes a theory of mind abilities task. All tasks were developed using the E-Prime 3.0 software (E-Prime Psychology Software Tools Inc., Pittsburgh, USA), running on a PC. Before each task, a training session is included, with several stimuli that differ from those presented during the experiment. This training allows participants to understand the instructions and get familiarized with each task. Hereafter, we describe the procedures and tasks included in LEXTOMM, in the following order: low-level visual categorization, language, language in interaction with declarative memory, executive functions and social cognition/theory of mind.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Burra ◽  
Dirk Kerzel ◽  
David Munoz ◽  
Didier Grandjean ◽  
Leonardo Ceravolo

Salient vocalizations, especially aggressive voices, are believed to attract attention due to an automatic threat detection system. However, studies assessing the temporal dynamics of auditory spatial attention to aggressive voices are missing. Using event-related potential markers of auditory spatial attention (N2ac and LPCpc), we show that attentional processing of threatening vocal signals is enhanced at two different stages of auditory processing. As early as 200 ms post stimulus onset, attentional orienting/engagement is enhanced for threatening as compared to happy vocal signals. Subsequently, as early as 400 ms post stimulus onset, the reorienting of auditory attention to the center of the screen (or disengagement from the target) is enhanced. This latter effect is consistent with the need to optimize perception by balancing the intake of stimulation from left and right auditory space. Our results extend the scope of theories from the visual to the auditory modality by showing that threatening stimuli also bias early spatial attention in the auditory modality. Although not the focus of the present work, we observed that the attentional enhancement was more pronounced in female than male participants.


Author(s):  
Georg Northoff ◽  
Karl Erik Sandsten ◽  
Julie Nordgaard ◽  
Troels Wesenberg Kjaer ◽  
Josef Parnas

Abstract Schizophrenia (SCZ) can be characterized as a basic self-disorder that is featured by abnormal temporal integration on phenomenological (experience) and psychological (information processing) levels. Temporal integration on the neuronal level can be measured by the brain’s intrinsic neural timescale using the autocorrelation window (ACW) and power-law exponent (PLE). Our goal was to relate intrinsic neural timescales (ACW, PLE), as a proxy of temporal integration on the neuronal level, to temporal integration related to self-disorder on psychological (Enfacement illusion task in electroencephalography) and phenomenological (Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience [EASE]) levels. SCZ participants exhibited prolonged ACW and higher PLE during the self-referential task (Enfacement illusion), but not during the non-self-referential task (auditory oddball). The degree of ACW/PLE change during task relative to rest was significantly reduced in self-referential task in SCZ. A moderation model showed that low and high ACW/PLE exerted differential impact on the relationship of self-disorder (EASE) and negative symptoms (PANSS). In sum, we demonstrate abnormal prolongation in intrinsic neural timescale during self-reference in SCZ including its relation to basic self-disorder and negative symptoms. Our results point to abnormal relation of self and temporal integration at the core of SCZ constituting a “common currency” of neuronal, psychological, and phenomenological levels.


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