Interaction between selective attention and response selection during motor decision making

In order to explore the decision-making processes of horses, we designed an impossible task paradigm aimed at causing an expectancy violation in horses. Our goals were to verify whether this paradigm is effective in horses by analyzing their motivation in trying to solve the task and the mode of the potential helping request in such a context. In the first experiment, 30 horses were subjected to three consecutive conditions: no food condition where two persons were positioned at either side of a table in front of the stall, solvable condition when a researcher placed a reachable reward on the table, and the impossible condition when the food was placed farther away and was unreachable by the horse. Eighteen horses were used in the second experiment with similar solvable and impossible conditions but in the absence of people. We measured the direction of the horse’s ear cup as an indicator of its visual attention in terms of visual selective attention (VSA) when both ears were directed at the same target and the visual differential attention (VDA) when the ears were directed differentially to the persons and to the table. We also included tactile interaction toward table and people, the olfactory exploration of the table, and the frustration behaviors in the ethogram. In the first experiment, the VDA was the most frequent behavior following the expectancy violation. In the second experiment, horses showed the VDA behavior mostly when people and the unreachable resource were present at the same time. We speculate that the VDA could be a referential gesture aimed to link the solution of the task to the people, as a request for help.

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Mycological rationality: Heuristics, perception and decision-making in mushroom foraging

10.31234/osf.io/7g8er ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Roope Oskari Kaaronen

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Selective Attention ◽

Ecological Rationality ◽

Hunter Gatherers ◽

Decisions Under Uncertainty ◽

Rules Of Thumb ◽

Intuitive Decision Making ◽

Human Foraging ◽

Simple Heuristics

How do mushroom foragers make safe and efficient decisions under uncertainty, or deal with the genuine risks of misiden-tification and poisoning? This article is an inquiry into ecological rationality, heuristics, perception, and decision-makingin mushroom foraging. By surveying 894 Finnish mushroom foragers, this article illustrates how socially learned rules of thumb and heuristics are used in mushroom foraging, and how simple heuristics are often complemented by more complex and intuitive decision-making. The results illustrate how traditional foraging cultures have evolved precautionary heuristics to deal with uncertainties and poisonous species, and how foragers develop selective attention through experience. The study invites us to consider whether other human foraging cultures might use heuristics similarly, how and why such traditions have culturally evolved, and whether early hunter-gatherers might have used simple heuristics to deal with uncertainty.

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Selective Attention Increases Choice Certainty in Human Decision Making

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0041136 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 7 (7) ◽

pp. e41136 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Leopold Zizlsperger ◽

Thomas Sauvigny ◽

Thomas Haarmeier

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Selective Attention ◽

Human Decision

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Probing the decision-making mechanisms underlying choice between drug and nondrug rewards in rats

eLife ◽

10.7554/elife.64993 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 ◽

Author(s):

Youna Vandaele ◽

Magalie Lenoir ◽

Caroline Vouillac-Mendoza ◽

Karine Guillem ◽

Serge H Ahmed

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Choice Behavior ◽

Response Selection ◽

Choice Model ◽

Response Competition ◽

Response Latencies ◽

Competition Mechanism ◽

Extended Training ◽

Sequential Choice Model ◽

Original Approach

Delineating the decision-making mechanisms underlying choice between drug and nondrug rewards remains a challenge. This study adopts an original approach to probe these mechanisms by comparing response latencies during sampling versus choice trials. While lengthening of latencies during choice is predicted in a deliberative choice model (DCM), the race-like response competition mechanism postulated by the Sequential choice model (SCM) predicts a shortening of latencies during choice compared to sampling. Here, we tested these predictions by conducting a retrospective analysis of cocaine-versus-saccharin choice experiments conducted in our laboratory. We found that rats engage deliberative decision-making mechanisms after limited training, but adopt a SCM-like response selection mechanism after more extended training, while their behavior is presumably habitual. Thus, the DCM and SCM may not be general models of choice, as initially formulated, but could be dynamically engaged to control choice behavior across early and extended training.

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Categorical encoding of speech sounds: beyond auditory cortices

10.1101/2021.10.08.463391 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Basil C Preisig ◽

Lars Riecke ◽

Alexis Hervais-Adelman

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Motor Cortex ◽

Categorical Perception ◽

Response Selection ◽

Activity Patterns ◽

Response Patterns ◽

Speech Sounds ◽

Acoustic Feature ◽

Auditory Cortices ◽

The Right

What processes lead to categorical perception of speech sounds? Investigation of this question is hampered by the fact that categorical speech perception is normally confounded by acoustic differences in the stimulus. By using ambiguous sounds, however, it is possible to dissociate acoustic from perceptual stimulus representations. We used a binaural integration task, where the inputs to the two ears were complementary so that phonemic identity emerged from their integration into a single percept. Twenty-seven normally hearing individuals took part in an fMRI study in which they were presented with an ambiguous syllable (intermediate between /da/ and /ga/) in one ear and with a meaning-differentiating acoustic feature (third formant) in the other ear. Multi-voxel pattern searchlight analysis was used to identify brain areas that consistently differentiated between response patterns associated with different syllable reports. By comparing responses to different stimuli with identical syllable reports and identical stimuli with different syllable reports, we disambiguated whether these regions primarily differentiated the acoustics of the stimuli or the syllable report. We found that BOLD activity patterns in the left anterior insula (AI), the left supplementary motor cortex, the left ventral motor cortex and the right motor and somatosensory cortex (M1/S1) represent listeners' syllable report irrespective of stimulus acoustics. The same areas have been previously implicated in decision-making (AI), response selection (SMA), and response initiation and feedback (M1/S1). Our results indicate that the emergence of categorical speech sounds implicates decision-making mechanisms and auditory-motor transformations acting on sensory inputs.

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Auditory Warning Signals Affect Mechanisms of Response Selection

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000012 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 57 (2) ◽

pp. 89-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Rico Fischer ◽

Franziska Plessow ◽

Andrea Kiesel

Keyword(s):

Selective Attention ◽

Response Selection ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Relevant Stimulus ◽

Attention Task ◽

Stimulus Response ◽

Spatial Stimulus ◽

Direct Route ◽

Stimulus Features ◽

Indirect Route

Irrelevant tone (accessory) stimuli facilitate performance in simple and choice reaction time tasks. In the present study, we combined accessory stimulation with a selective attention paradigm in order to investigate its influence on mechanisms of response selection. In the framework of a spatial stimulus-response compatibility task (Simon task), we tested whether accessory stimuli selectively affect bottom up triggered response activation processes (e.g., direct route processing), processing of task-relevant stimulus features (indirect route processing), or both/none. Results suggest a two-component effect of accessory stimuli within this selective attention task. First, accessory stimuli increased the Simon effect due to beneficial direct route processing. Second, accessory stimuli generally decreased reaction times indicating facilitation of indirect route processing.

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Anxiety and selective attention to threat in tactical decision-making

Personality and Individual Differences ◽

10.1016/j.paid.2010.09.005 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 50 (7) ◽

pp. 949-954 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Gerald Matthews ◽

April Rose Panganiban ◽

Eva Hudlicka

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Selective Attention ◽

Tactical Decision

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The influence of response grouping on free-choice decision making in a response selection task

Acta Psychologica ◽

10.1016/j.actpsy.2010.01.008 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 134 (2) ◽

pp. 175-181 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Michael A. Khan ◽

Stuart Mourton ◽

Eric Buckolz ◽

Jos J. Adam ◽

Amy E. Hayes

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Free Choice ◽

Response Selection ◽

Selection Task ◽

Choice Decision

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Cognitive, Perceptual, and Motor Abilities in Skilled Basketball Performance

Perceptual and Motor Skills ◽

10.2466/pms.1998.86.3.771 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 86 (3) ◽

pp. 771-786 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

Efthimis Kioumourtzoglou ◽

Vasiliki Derri ◽

George Tzetzls ◽

Yannis Theodorakis

Keyword(s):

Selective Attention ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Response Selection ◽

Dynamic Balance ◽

Whole Body ◽

Control Group ◽

Memory Retention ◽

Basketball Players ◽

National Team ◽

Perceptual Skills

The differences among athletes of differing skill should assist successful identification and selection of the best athletes in a specific sport. For the purpose of this study, a laboratory study was conducted with a group of 13 men on the elite male national team of basketball players, 22 to 23 years of age, and a control group of 15 men of equal age (physical education class) to assess differences in their scores on cognitive skills (memory-retention, memory-grouping analytic ability), perceptual skills (speed of perception, prediction, selective attention, response selection), and motor skills (dynamic balance, whole body coordination, wrist-finger dexterity, rhythmic ability). Analysis showed that elite male basketball players scored higher on hand coordination and lower on dynamic balance given their anthropometric measurements. Elite players were better on memory-retention, selective attention, and on prediction measures than the control group. The above skills are important in basketball performance. Researchers may examine whether other factors contribute more in the development of perceptual and cognitive skills.

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Stimulus and Response Set in Information Processing

Perceptual and Motor Skills ◽

10.2466/pms.1978.47.3.811 ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 47 (3) ◽

pp. 811-814

Author(s):

Ward O'Neill ◽

Hubert Gascon

Keyword(s):

Information Processing ◽

Selective Attention ◽

Response Selection ◽

Stimulus Selection ◽

Stimulus Set ◽

Response Set ◽

Before And After

Four French-English bilinguals were presented with brief displays of digits. The subjects were to report subsets of the displays based on either stimulus-set or response-set instructions presented either before or after the displays. Stimulus-set was defined as selection based on the color of the to-be-reported digits. Response-set was defined as the language in which the digits were to be reported. Stimulus-set instructions produced significantly more accurate reports when presented before the displays than when presented after. Response-set instructions resulted in no significant differences before and after displays. The results support the assertion that there are at least two forms of selective attention, one corresponding to stimulus selection and the second to response selection.

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