scholarly journals Trial and Error (-Related Negativity):An Odyssey of Integrating Different Experimental Paradigms

10.36850/e2 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliane Traxler ◽  
Roxane V. Philips ◽  
Andreas von Leupoldt ◽  
Johan W. S. Vlaeyen

Pain can be considered as a signal of “bodily error”: Errors – discrepancies between the actual and optimal/targeted state – can put organisms at danger and activate behavioral defensive systems. If the error relates to the body, pain is the warning signal that motivates protective action such as avoidance behavior to safeguard our body’s integrity. Hence, pain shares the functionality of errors. On the neural level, an important error processing component is the error-related negativity (ERN), a negative deflection in the electroencephalographic (EEG) signal generated primarily in the anterior cingulate cortex within 100 ms after error commission. Despite compelling evidence that the ERN plays an important role in the development of various psychopathologies and is implicated in learning and adjustment of behavior, its relation to pain-related avoidance has not yet been examined. Based on findings from anxiety research, it seems conceivable that individuals with elevated ERN amplitudes are more prone to engage in pain-related avoidance behavior, which may, under certain conditions, be a risk factor for developing chronic pain. Consequently, this new line of research promises to contribute to our understanding of human pain. As in most novel research areas, a first crucial step for integrating the scientific fields of ERN and pain is developing a paradigm suited to address the needs from both fields. The present manuscript presents the development and piloting of an experimental task measuring both ERN and avoidance behavior in response to painful mistakes, as well as the challenges encountered herein. A total of 12 participants underwent one of six different task versions. We describe in detail each of these versions, including their results, shortcomings, our solutions, and subsequent steps. Finally, we provide some advice for researchers aiming at developing novel paradigms.

10.36850/r2 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarten Derksen

‘Trial and Error (-related negativity)’ is a fascinating paper detailing the attempt to develop a new experimental paradigm to study the role of error-related negativity in the development of avoidance behavior. In my comments on this paper I will focus on the interaction between experimenters and participants as the former investigate various ways of designing the experiment, aiming to elicit the right kind of behavior from the participants. As in many psychological experiments, there is a fundamental tension here that experimenters must find a way to deal with: they must guide the subject to the proper performance, without the subject responding to the guidance as such. The performance must be natural, but within tight constraints. Recalcitrance or resistance of the subject must be prevented. Ultimately, the authors of ‘Trial and Error (-related negativity)’ failed in their attempt to do this. Their reflections on their failure are thorough and illuminating, but I will argue that they can be pushed slightly further.


2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 1181-1197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke van Herten ◽  
Dorothee J. Chwilla ◽  
Herman H. J. Kolk

Monitoring refers to a process of quality control designed to optimize behavioral outcome. Monitoring for action errors manifests itself in an error-related negativity in event-related potential (ERP) studies and in an increase in activity of the anterior cingulate in functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. Here we report evidence for a monitoring process in perception, in particular, language perception, manifesting itself in a late positivity in the ERP. This late positivity, the P600, appears to be triggered by a conflict between two interpretations, one delivered by the standard syntactic algorithm and one by a plausibility heuristic which combines individual word meanings in the most plausible way. To resolve this conflict, we propose that the brain reanalyzes the memory trace of the perceptual input to check for the possibility of a processing error. Thus, as in Experiment 1, when the reader is presented with semantically anomalous sentences such as, “The fox that shot the poacher…,” full syntactic analysis indicates a semantic anomaly, whereas the word-based heuristic leads to a plausible interpretation, that of a poacher shooting a fox. That readers actually pursue such a word-based analysis is indicated by the fact that the usual ERP index of semantic anomaly, the so-called N400 effect, was absent in this case. A P600 effect appeared instead. In Experiment 2, we found that even when the word-based heuristic indicated that only part of the sentence was plausible (e.g., “…that the elephants pruned the trees”), a P600 effect was observed and the N400 effect of semantic anomaly was absent. It thus seems that the plausibility of part of the sentence (e.g., that of pruning trees) was sufficient to create a conflict with the implausible meaning of the sentence as a whole, giving rise to a monitoring response.


Author(s):  
V.M. Yevtushenko

The article is devoted to the study of the state and trends of the publishing activity of Ukrainian scientists and leading countries in the field of life sciences («Life sciences»). The Web of Science Core Collection (WoS CC), Journal Citation Report (JSR) and InCites, as well as classifications of scientific fields designed to structure the publication flow of scientific papers and journals in these information resources, are used for the research base – Web of Science Categories and Research Areas. The article presents the results of the author’s research on the publication indices of scientists of Ukraine and the leading countries of the world for the period 2008-2018 in the field of “Life Sciences” according to the international science-computer database of Web of Science. Conclusions about the growth of indicators of publication activity of scientific works in the field of “Life Sciences” are made. The tendency of a significant increase in their number in Ukraine has been revealed, but domestic studies do not represent all the areas of «Life Sciences» most popular in foreign scientists


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arun Thirumalesh Madanaguli ◽  
Puneet Kaur ◽  
Stefano Bresciani ◽  
Amandeep Dhir

Purpose Entrepreneurship in the rural hospitality and tourism sector (RHT) has received wide attention in the past decade. However, a systematic review on this topic is currently lacking. This study aims to track the progress of the RHT and entrepreneurship literature by examining the various thematic research areas, identifying the research gaps and forecasting avenues of future research on the topic. Design/methodology/approach This paper catalogs and synthesizes the body of literature from the year 2000–2020 using a systematic literature review methodology. After discussing a brief history of RHT and entrepreneurship, the current study presents a review of 101 research articles. Findings The review highlights that RHT and entrepreneurship have received relatively limited attention from entrepreneurship journals. The content analysis revealed different gaps and limitations in the understanding of entrepreneurship in RHT, including a predominance of qualitative studies with limited theoretically-grounded and generalizable empirical studies. Furthermore, a high concentration of studies is from European countries. Six main thematic research areas were identified, namely, barriers and enablers, the roles of an entrepreneur, women in RHT, influencers of firm performance, innovation and value creation and methodological commonalities. The review also advances an RHT entrepreneurship ecosystem framework to summarize the findings. Originality/value Six promising research avenues are outlined based on the six themes identified. The suggested research questions draw from allied literature on small and medium businesses, innovation, women entrepreneurship and institutions to encourage the interdisciplinary cross-pollination of ideas. The findings are summarized in a novel research framework.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (02) ◽  
pp. 251-255
Author(s):  
Du Hyun Ro ◽  
Hyun Sik Gong

Homunculus is a term used to refer to any representation of a miniature human being. In scientific fields, the word homunculus has been used to refer to any scale model of the human body that represents physiological, psychological, or other human functions. The hand is thought as a homunculus of the body in Hand Acupuncture Therapy, a type of alternative medicine in Korea. Hand acupuncture therapists believe stimulating the hand can improve bodily health. Although there is a need for scientific evidence regarding this concept, those that perform hand acupuncture seem to recognize the importance of hand in our body.


Author(s):  
Hilary I Okagbue ◽  
Muminu O Adamu ◽  
Timothy A Anake

<p class="0abstract">Differential Evolution (DE) is an evolutionary computational method inspired by the biological processes of evolution and mutation. DE has been applied in numerous scientific fields. The paper presents a literature review of DE and its application in wireless communication. The detailed history, characteristics, strengths, variants and weaknesses of DE were presented. Seven broad areas were identified as different domains of application of DE in wireless communications. It was observed that coverage area maximisation and energy consumption minimisation are the two major areas where DE is applied. Others areas are quality of service, updating mechanism where candidate positions learn from a large diversified search region, security and related field applications. Problems in wireless communications are often modelled as multiobjective optimisation which can easily be tackled by the use of DE or hybrid of DE with other algorithms. Different research areas can be explored and DE will continue to be utilized in this context.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (23) ◽  
pp. 13084-13093 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mostafa Safaie ◽  
Maria-Teresa Jurado-Parras ◽  
Stefania Sarno ◽  
Jordane Louis ◽  
Corane Karoutchi ◽  
...  

How animals adapt their behavior according to regular time intervals between events is not well understood, especially when intervals last several seconds. One possibility is that animals use disembodied internal neuronal representations of time to decide when to initiate a given action at the end of an interval. However, animals rarely remain immobile during time intervals but tend to perform stereotyped behaviors, raising the possibility that motor routines improve timing accuracy. To test this possibility, we used a task in which rats, freely moving on a motorized treadmill, could obtain a reward if they approached it after a fixed interval. Most animals took advantage of the treadmill length and its moving direction to develop, by trial-and-error, the same motor routine whose execution resulted in the precise timing of their reward approaches. Noticeably, when proficient animals did not follow this routine, their temporal accuracy decreased. Then, naïve animals were trained in modified versions of the task designed to prevent the development of this routine. Compared to rats trained in the first protocol, these animals didn’t reach a comparable level of timing accuracy. Altogether, our results indicate that timing accuracy in rats is improved when the environment affords cues that animals can incorporate into motor routines.


Author(s):  
Deborah D. Thompson ◽  
Don B. Chaffin

Back and overexertion injuries are a costly and debilitating problem in industry. It has been suggested that the best protective action in the prevention of back injuries is to rely on a person's perception of the risks, and allow them to operate within them. However, this assumes that a person is aware of the sensory information from the body concerning unsafe levels of stress, particularly in the back. Unfortunately, there is some question as to whether this assumption is valid. The purpose of this study was to determine how well physical stress resulting from performing occasional lifting exertions could be perceived. This required an evaluation to determine how perception (psychophysical approach) relates to physical tolerances (biomechanical approach). The results showed that back stress resulting from occasional lifting exertions is not well perceived in general. The fact that the stress was not well perceived by some may indicate why low back injuries are so pervasive in the population, and why engineering and ergonomic changes are needed to reduce the exposure to conditions that would overstress the back.


1959 ◽  
Vol 196 (6) ◽  
pp. 1211-1213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sondra M. Kuskin ◽  
S. C. Wang ◽  
Roberts Rugh

Hypothermia induced by the use of neuroplegic drugs such as Hydergine, chlorpromazine or promethazine, followed by refrigeration, does not significantly enhance the protective action afforded by refrigeration alone against the lethal dose of whole body x-irradiation in CF1 male mice. The neuroplegic drugs, without refrigeration, provide a slight degree of protection, probably due to the slight reduction in the body temperature. It appears that the action of hypothermia as a protective mechanism depends not on depression of metabolism alone, but on a general depression of bodily processes. Urethane, in conjunction with refrigeration, appears to augment the lethal effect of x-irradiation in the CF1 strain of male mice.


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