Biasing In Anticipation Research Articles

Lateralized alpha activity and slow potential shifts over visual cortex track the time course of both endogenous and exogenous orienting of attention

Spatial attention can be oriented endogenously, based on current task goals, or exogenously, triggered by salient events in the environment. Based upon literature demonstrating differences in the time course and neural substrates of each type of orienting, these two attention systems are often treated as fundamentally distinct. However, recent studies suggest that rhythmic neural activity in the alpha band (8–13 Hz) and slow waves in the event-related potential (ERP) may emerge over parietal-occipital cortex following both endogenous and exogenous attention cues. To assess whether these neural changes index common processes of spatial attention, we conducted two within-subject experiments varying the two main dimensions over which endogenous and exogenous attention tasks typically differ: cue informativity (spatially predictive vs. non-predictive) and cue format (centrally vs. peripherally presented). This task design allowed us to tease apart neural changes related to top-down goals and those driven by the reflexive orienting of spatial attention, and examine their interactions in a novel hybrid cross-modal attention task. Our data demonstrate that both central and peripheral cues elicit lateralized ERPs over parietal-occipital cortex, though at different points in time, consistent with these ERPs reflecting the orienting of spatial attention. Lateralized alpha activity was also present across all tasks, emerging rapidly for peripheral cues and sustaining longer for spatially informative cues. Overall, these data indicate that distinct slow-wave ERPs index the spatial orienting of endogenous and exogenous attention, while lateralized alpha activity represents a common signature of visual-cortical biasing in anticipation of potential targets across both types of attention.

The value of CEOs' supply chain experience: Evidence from mergers and acquisitions

Acquirer CEOs with experience in the target's industry supply chain (‘supply chain CEOs’) are associated with wealth effects of first-order importance: they earn 1.5% higher merger announcement returns. Conversely, their targets get a lower share of the merger gains. Acquisitions by supply chain CEOs also exhibit higher synergies, better post-deal accounting performance, and less goodwill written off. These findings withstand checks for endogeneity, anticipation bias, and numerous robustness tests. In takeovers by supply chain CEOs, superior acquirer performance stems from both value creation and rents negotiated away from target shareholders.

Acquisitions by CEOS with Supply-Chain Expertise

Acquirer CEOs with experience in the target’s industry supply chain (‘supply chain CEOs’) are associated with wealth effects of first-order importance: they earn 1% higher merger announcement returns. Conversely, their targets get a lower share of the merger gains. Acquisitions by supply chain CEOs also exhibit higher synergies, better post-deal accounting performance, less goodwill written off, and a lower probability of target-payable termination fees. These findings withstand checks for endogeneity, selection, unobserved heterogeneity, anticipation bias, and numerous robustness tests. In takeovers by supply chain CEOs, superior acquirer performance stems from both value creation and rents bargained away from target shareholders.

Unanticipated Ankle Inversions Are Significantly Different From Anticipated Ankle Inversions During Drop Landings: Overcoming Anticipation Bias

Few ankle inversion studies have taken anticipation bias into account or collected data with an experimental design that mimics actual injury mechanisms. Twenty-three participants performed randomized single-leg vertical drop landings from 20 cm. Subjects were blinded to the landing surface (a flat force plate or 30° inversion wedge on the force plate). After each trial, participants reported whether they anticipated the landing surface. Participant responses were validated with EMG data. The protocol was repeated until four anticipated and four unanticipated landings onto the inversion wedge were recorded. Results revealed a significant main effect for landing condition. Normalized vertical ground reaction force (% body weights), maximum ankle inversion (degrees), inversion velocity (degrees/second), and time from contact to peak muscle activation (seconds) were significantly greater in unanticipated landings, and the time from peak muscle activation to maximum VGRF (second) was shorter. Unanticipated landings presented different muscle activation patterns than landings onto anticipated surfaces, which calls into question the usefulness of clinical studies that have not controlled for anticipation bias.

Going, going, gone: characterizing the time-course of congruency sequence effects

Performance on traditional selective attention tasks, like the Stroop and flanker protocols, is subject to modulation by trial history, whereby the magnitude of congruency (or conflict) effects is often found to decrease following an incongruent trial compared to a congruent one. These “congruency sequence effects” (CSEs) typically appear to reflect a mesh of memory- and attention-based processes. The current study aimed to shed new light on the nature of the attention-based contribution to CSEs, by characterizing the shape of the CSE time-course while controlling for mnemonic influences. Existing attention-based accounts of CSEs are either ambiguous in their predictions of CSE time-courses, or predict CSEs to persist or grow over the post-stimulus/response interval in anticipation of an upcoming stimulus. We gauged CSE time-courses by systematically varying inter-stimulus (Experiment 1) and response-to-stimulus (Experiment 2) intervals across a wide temporal range, in a face–word Stroop task. In spite of an exponential increase in the likelihood of stimulus appearance with increasing interval duration (i.e., an exponential hazard function), results from both experiments showed CSEs to be most pronounced at the shortest intervals, to quickly decay in magnitude with increasing interval length, and to be absent at longer intervals. These data refute the idea that attentional contributions to CSEs remain static over post-stimulus/response intervals and are incompatible with the notion that CSEs reflect expectation-guided preparatory biasing in anticipation of a forthcoming stimulus. The data are compatible, however, with the notion that attentional contributions to CSEs reflect a short-lived, phasic enhancement of attentional set in reaction to processing conflict.

Evaluation of Anticipation Bias for RPE During A Cycle Ergometer Perceptual Production Protocol

Anticipation bias (AB) may occur during perceptual production (self-regulated) exercise protocols if an individual uses a previously produced target rating of perceived exertion (RPE) as a cognitive reference to influence the production of subsequent target RPE's. PURPOSE: The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate AB for RPE during a load incremented cycle ergometer perceptual production protocol in men. METHODS: Twenty-two college age (20.3 ± 1.3 yrs), recreationally active males completed both a load-incremented (LI) and intermittent (I) cycle ergometer perceptual production protocol in counterbalanced order. The I protocol served as the criterion measure in order to evaluate AB in the LI protocol. Both protocols consisted of three, 4 minute stages and required self-regulation of exercise intensity in order to produce target RPE's of 3, 5, and 7 on the Adult OMNI-RPE Scale. The I protocol required subjects to self-regulate exercise intensity to produce target RPE's of 3, 5, and 7 in a counterbalanced order with 5 minute recovery periods between each production stage. VO2, HR and power output (PO) were measured during the last minute of each target RPE stage. RESULTS: No significant differences (p > 0.05) were found for VO2, HR, and PO between the LI and I cycle ergometer perceptual production protocols at target RPE's of 3, 5, and 7. CONCLUSIONS: The use of RPE to self-regulate exercise intensity is not influenced by anticipation bias during load-incremented cycle ergometer production protocols in recreationally active men. Furthermore, these results are in agreement with previous research that demonstrated an absence of anticipation bias during perceptual production protocols in young women (Fonzi, et al. 2007).Table: Caption not available

Anticipation Bias During A Cycle Ergometer Perceptual Production Protocol

Anticipation Bias During A Cycle Ergometer Perceptual Production Protocol

Evaluation of Anticipation Bias for RPE during Progressive Exercise Testing

This study evaluated a possible anticipation bias when ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) were obtained during submaximal progressive exercise testing. Perceptual estimates were obtained using the CR-10 category-ratio scale. 13 subjects, 7 men and 6 women (M age = 26.8 +/- 6.4 yr., height = 2.7 +/- .17 m, weight = 73.0 +/- 18.2 kg, VO2 peak = 46.7 +/- 5.6 ml x kg(-1) x min(-1) for men and 47.8 +/- 7.3 ml x kg(-1) x min(-1) for women) recruited from the university student population participated. Each subject underwent two submaximal progressive exercise tests separated by at least 48 hr. using the cycle as test mode and the YMCA protocol. Power outputs established during the first test were presented in random order during the second test. Differentiated RPE for the Peripheral, Respiratory-Metabolic, and the undifferentiated signals, and heart rate, were measured during the last 15 sec. of each of the four stages of exercise. In comparing responses between the two tests, significant differences were observed for both heart rate and the Respiratory-Metabolic signal during power output 4, using repeated-measures analysis of variance. However, a 95% limit of agreement test was significant only for heart rate as the 95% confidence interval for the Respiratory-Metabolic signal overlapped zero and thus was not significantly different. No significant differences were found for the undifferentiated or peripheral signals between the two tests. Results indicate that both undifferentiated and differentiated RPE are given without significant anticipation bias during submaximal progressive cycle exercise.