scholarly journals The Way of Learning Preserved in The Structure of Individual Experience Shapes Task-Switching: Implications for Neuroscience and Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 291-299
Author(s):  
Alexey A. Sozinov ◽  
Anastasiia V. Bakhchinaa ◽  
Yuri I. Alexandrov
Keyword(s):  
Task Switching ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Fundamental Field ◽  
History Of

Task switching is a behavioral phenomenon that serves as a tool for assessment of individual cognitive abilities that becomes especially essential in our multitasking milieu. Factors of task-switching include cognitive load and cognitive effort, mostly derived from task difficulty, as well as age and practice. The analysis of brain activity on the level of single neurons shows that the activations that contribute to task performance and switching differ with respect to the protocol of learning the alternated tasks. We argue that task switching is affected by the history of learning and in turn it changes the structure of individual experience. On this basis we outline perspectives of task switching studies in the fundamental field of long-term memory and applied field of education and therapy.

Timing, Storage, and Comparison of Stimulus Duration Engage Discrete Anatomical Components of a Perceptual Timing Network

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (12) ◽  
pp. 2185-2197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer T. Coull ◽  
Bruno Nazarian ◽  
Franck Vidal
Keyword(s):  
Stimulus Duration ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Temporal Discrimination ◽  
Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Motor Preparation ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Temporal Encoding ◽  
Perceptual Timing ◽  
The Right

The temporal discrimination paradigm requires subjects to compare the duration of a probe stimulus to that of a sample previously stored in working or long-term memory, thus providing an index of timing that is independent of a motor response. However, the estimation process itself comprises several component cognitive processes, including timing, storage, retrieval, and comparison of durations. Previous imaging studies have attempted to disentangle these components by simply measuring brain activity during early versus late scanning epochs. We aim to improve the temporal resolution and precision of this approach by using rapid event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to time-lock the hemodynamic response to presentation of the sample and probe stimuli themselves. Compared to a control (color-estimation) task, which was matched in terms of difficulty, sustained attention, and motor preparation requirements, we found selective activation of the left putamen for the storage (“encoding”) of stimulus duration into working memory (WM). Moreover, increased putamen activity was linked to enhanced timing performance, suggesting that the level of putamen activity may modulate the depth of temporal encoding. Retrieval and comparison of stimulus duration in WM selectively activated the right superior temporal gyrus. Finally, the supplementary motor area was equally active during both sample and probe stages of the task, suggesting a fundamental role in timing the duration of a stimulus that is currently unfolding in time.

scholarly journals Habitat and social context affect memory phenotype, exploration and covariance among these traits

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1756) ◽  
pp. 20170291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Dalesman
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Lymnaea Stagnalis ◽  
Memory Formation ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
Specific Trait ◽  
Context Specific

Individual differences in cognitive ability are predicted to covary with other behavioural traits such as exploration and boldness. Selection within different habitats may act to either enhance or break down covariance among traits; alternatively, changing the environmental context in which traits are assessed may result in plasticity that alters trait covariance. Pond snails, Lymnaea stagnalis , from two laboratory strains (more than 20 generations in captivity) and F1 laboratory reared from six wild populations were tested for long-term memory and exploration traits (speed and thigmotaxis) following maintenance in grouped and isolated conditions to determine if isolation: (i) alters memory and exploration; and (ii) alters covariance between memory and exploration. Populations that demonstrated strong memory formation (longer duration) under grouped conditions demonstrated weaker memory formation and reduced both speed and thigmotaxis following isolation. In wild populations, snails showed no relationship between memory and exploration in grouped conditions; however, following isolation, exploration behaviour was negatively correlated with memory, i.e. slow-explorers showing low levels of thigmotaxis formed stronger memories. Laboratory strains demonstrated no covariance among exploration traits and memory independent of context. Together these data demonstrate that the relationship between cognition and exploration traits can depend on both habitat and context-specific trait plasticity. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Causes and consequences of individual differences in cognitive abilities’.

How a Brain Makes a Mind

2021 ◽  
pp. 50-85
Author(s):  
Stephen Grossberg
Keyword(s):  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Interdisciplinary Work ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Brain Sciences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mind And Brain

A historical overview is given of interdisciplinary work in physics and psychology by some of the greatest nineteenth-century scientists, and why the fields split, leading to a century of ferment before the current scientific revolution in mind-brain sciences began to understand how we autonomously adapt to a changing world. New nonlinear, nonlocal, and nonstationary intuitions and laws are needed to understand how brains make minds. Work of Helmholtz on vision illustrates why he left psychology. His concept of unconscious inference presaged modern ideas about learning, expectation, and matching that this book scientifically explains. The fact that brains are designed to control behavioral success has profound implications for the methods and models that can unify mind and brain. Backward learning in time, and serial learning, illustrate why neural networks are a natural language for explaining brain dynamics, including the correct functional stimuli and laws for short-term memory (STM), medium-term memory (MTM), and long-term memory (LTM) traces. In particular, brains process spatial patterns of STM and LTM, not just individual traces. A thought experiment leads to universal laws for how neurons, and more generally all cellular tissues, process distributed STM patterns in cooperative-competitive networks without experiencing contamination by noise or pattern saturation. The chapter illustrates how thinking this way leads to unified and principled explanations of huge databases. A brief history of the advantages and disadvantages of the binary, linear, and continuous-nonlinear sources of neural models is described, and how models like Deep Learning and the author’s contributions fit into it.

scholarly journals Event-related Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of a Low Dose of Dexmedetomidine that Impairs Long-term Memory

2012 ◽  
Vol 117 (5) ◽  
pp. 981-995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroki R. Hayama ◽  
Kristin M. Drumheller ◽  
Mark Mastromonaco ◽  
Christopher Reist ◽  
Lawrence F. Cahill ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Memory Effect ◽  
Drug Exposure ◽  
Low Dose ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Statistical Parametric Mapping ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Picture Memory ◽  
Subsequent Memory Effect

Abstract Background Work suggests the amnesia from dexmedetomidine (an α2-adrenergic agonist) is caused by a failure of information to be encoded into long-term memory and that dexmedetomidine might differentially affect memory for emotionally arousing material. We investigated these issues in humans using event-related neuroimaging to reveal alterations in brain activity and subsequent memory effects associated with drug exposure. Methods Forty-eight healthy volunteers received a computer-controlled infusion of either placebo or low-dose dexmedetomidine (target = 0.15 ng/ml plasma) during neuroimaging while they viewed and rated 80 emotionally arousing (e.g., graphic war wound) and 80 nonarousing neutral (e.g., cup) pictures for emotional arousal content. Long-term picture memory was tested 4 days later without neuroimaging. Imaging data were analyzed for drug effects, emotional processing differences, and memory-related changes with statistical parametric mapping-8. Results Dexmedetomidine impaired overall (mean ± SEM) picture memory (placebo: 0.58 ± 0.03 vs. dexmedetomidine: 0.45 ± 0.03, P = 0.001), but did not differentially modulate memory as a function of item arousal. Arousing pictures were better remembered for both groups. Dexmedetomidine had regionally heterogeneous effects on brain activity, primarily decreasing it in the cortex and increasing it in thalamic and posterior hippocampal regions. Nevertheless, a single subsequent memory effect for item memory common to both groups was identified only in the left hippocampus/amygdala. Much of this effect was found to be larger for the placebo than dexmedetomidine group. Conclusion Dexmedetomidine impaired long-term picture memory, but did not disproportionately block memory for emotionally arousing items. The memory impairment on dexmedetomidine corresponds with a weakened hippocampal subsequent memory effect.

scholarly journals Context triggers the retrieval of long-term memories into working memory to guide attention

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sirawaj Itthipuripat ◽  
Geoffrey F Woodman
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Human Memory ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Behavioral Performance ◽  
Electrical Fields ◽  
Subject Variability ◽  
Transfer Of Information

SummaryHow do we know what we are looking for in familiar scenes and surroundings? Here we tested a novel hypothesis derived from theories of human memory that working memory (WM) buffers mnemonic contents retrieved from long-term memory (LTM) to control attention. To test this hypothesis, we measured the electrical fields recorded noninvasively from human subjects’ as they searched for specific sets of objects in learned contexts. We found that the subjects’ WM-indexing brain activity tracked the number of real-world objects people learned to search for in each context. Moreover, the level of this WM activity predicted the inter-subject variability in behavioral performance. Together, our results demonstrate that familiar contexts can trigger the transfer of information from LTM to WM to provide top-down attentional control.

scholarly journals A Complementary Cyber Swarm Algorithm

2015 ◽  
pp. 50-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng-Yeng Yin ◽  
Fred Glover ◽  
Manuel Laguna ◽  
Jia-Xian Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Scatter Search ◽  
Path Relinking ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Large Set ◽  
Swarm Optimization ◽  
Effective Form ◽  
History Of ◽  
Swarm Algorithm ◽  
Guidance Information

A recent study (Yin, et al., 2010) showed that combining Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) with the strategies of Scatter Search (SS) and Path Relinking (PR) produces a Cyber Swarm Algorithm that creates a more effective form of PSO than methods that do not incorporate such mechanisms. In this chapter, the authors propose a Complementary Cyber Swarm Algorithm (C/CyberSA) that performs in the same league as the original Cyber Swarm Algorithm but adopts different sets of ideas from the Tabu Search (TS) and the SS/PR template. The C/CyberSA exploits the guidance information and restriction information produced in the history of swarm search and the manipulation of adaptive memory. Responsive strategies using long-term memory and path relinking implementations are proposed that make use of critical events encountered in the search. Experimental results with a large set of challenging test functions show that the C/CyberSA outperforms two recently proposed swarm-based methods by finding more optimal solutions while simultaneously using a smaller number of function evaluations. The C/CyberSA approach further produces improvements comparable to those obtained by the original CyberSA in relation to the Standard PSO 2007 method (Clerc, 2008). These findings motivate future investigations of Cyber Swarm methods that combine features of both the original and complementary variants and incorporate additional strategic notions from the SS/PR template as a basis for creating a still more effective form of swarm optimization.

scholarly journals Active math and grammar learning engages overlapping brain networks

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (46) ◽  
pp. e2106520118
Author(s):  
Sara Stillesjö ◽  
Linnea Karlsson Wirebring ◽  
Micael Andersson ◽  
Carina Granberg ◽  
Johan Lithner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Active Learning ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Passive Learning ◽  
Term Retention ◽  
Learning Conditions ◽  
Long Term Retention ◽  
Broad Interest

We here demonstrate common neurocognitive long-term memory effects of active learning that generalize over course subjects (mathematics and vocabulary) by the use of fMRI. One week after active learning, relative to more passive learning, performance and fronto-parietal brain activity was significantly higher during retesting, possibly related to the formation and reactivation of semantic representations. These observations indicate that active learning conditions stimulate common processes that become part of the representations and can be reactivated during retrieval to support performance. Our findings are of broad interest and educational significance related to the emerging consensus of active learning as critical in promoting good long-term retention.

scholarly journals Neurofeedback Training Improves Long-Term Memory Performance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Hsuan Tseng ◽  
Kaori Tamura ◽  
Tsuyoshi Okamoto
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Theta Rhythm ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Beta Power

Abstract Understanding and improving memory is vital to enhance human life. Theta rhythm is associated with memory consolidation and coding, but the trainability and effects on long-term memory of theta rhythm are unknown. This study investigates the ability to improve long-term memory using a neurofeedback (NFB) technique reflecting the theta/low-beta power ratio on an electroencephalogram (EEG). Our study consisted of three stages: First, the long-term memory of participants was measured. In the second stage, the participants in the NFB group received three days of theta/low-beta NFB training. In the third stage, the long-term memory was measured again. The NFB group had better long-term memory than the control group and significant differences in brain activity between episodic and semantic memory during the recall tests were revealed. These findings suggest that it is possible to improve the long-term memory abilities through theta/low-beta NFB training, which also improves episodic and semantic memory.

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