Classical Paradigm Research Articles

Extended scotogenic model of neutrino mass and proton decay

The current article presents an extension of the classical scotogenic neutrino mass paradigm, where the three issues in particle physics: dark matter, smallness of neutrino mass, and stability of the proton are interconnected. The scenario encompasses the neutrino mass as well as the proton decay as a consequence of an existence of the dark matter. The study successfully achieves the correlation between the naturally small neutrino masses and naturally long proton lifetime in the present paradigm. Furthermore, all relevant cosmological, collider, and flavor physics constraints are incorporated in the detailed analysis. The scotogenic fermionic dark matter with the mass in the range from 100 GeV to 10 TeV successfully satisfies all relevant constraints. The valid range of 2.51×10−5<λ<2×10−3 is obtained for the 2HDM λ coupling. We give a brief discussion, as well as outline some of the future prospects. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Unveiling the dynamic evolution of innovation networks in emerging economies: A complex network approach

AbstractThe innovation network of enterprises in emerging economies is a complex system, comprising numerous interconnected elements. In the context of a dynamic and volatile market, innovation entities evolve the evolution of the local world through collaborative innovation and interactions. To accurately replicate the actual dynamics of the enterprise innovation network, an in‐depth analysis is essential to delineate the growth and reduction mechanisms of diverse nodal entities. This research, based on the classical complex network paradigm, proposes a model that is based on preferential attachment and pruning mechanisms. This model reflects the evolutionary trajectory of enterprise innovation networks and was subjected to simulation analysis using MATLAB. The findings prove that simulation is an effective analytical tool for understanding the evolutionary mechanisms of innovation networks within emerging economies. The model clearly demonstrates the complex evolution of enterprise innovation networks, providing both theoretical foundations and practical guidance for strategic resource allocation and network governance within corporate environments.

Gateway to the study of the amygdala and emotion.

The study of the amygdala and its role in the processing of emotions has become a common focus in neuroscience. The modern expansion of research in this area is partly due to the discovery of a subcortical pathway for the transmission of emotional information and the experimental paradigm that was developed to study it. Groundbreaking experiments during the 90s utilized anatomical, neurophysiological, and behavioral lesion studies in a rodent animal model to uncover the neural circuitry of a simple emotional memory. These studies demonstrated the essential role of a specific monosynaptic pathway in emotional memory, using traditional tools and behavioral methods. The development of an animal model with a simple and appropriate classical conditioning paradigm made experimental investigations into the neural basis of emotion tenable and available to a generation of neuroscientists. These tools and a focus on the amygdala's neural connections and their essential role in emotional memory were a driving force in the explosion of research regarding the amygdala and emotion.

Classical Conditioning of Adult Drosophila.

Olfactory classical conditioning paradigms have been extensively used since the early 1970s to apply genetic approaches to the study of memory in Drosophila. Over the intervening years, advances in genetics have largely changed the focus of studies from the role of single genes in memory to investigation of memory-relevant neuronal circuits. However, the original behavioral paradigms have remained largely unaltered, besides investigators making a few useful tweaks to the training and testing apparatus and modifications to the operating procedures. In this protocol, we provide the reader with a detailed description of the manufacture and assembly of a typical T-maze apparatus, where populations of adult flies can be trained and their odor memory tested later, by giving them a binary choice between the two trained odors. We describe how variations of the training apparatus permit both aversive (odor-shock) and appetitive (odor-sugar) memories to be studied. In addition, we describe a recent modification of the apparatus and protocol that permits study of multisensory (color and odor) aversive and appetitive learning. Control assays for sensory acuity and locomotion are also included.

Chronic treatment with the antipsychotic lurasidone modulates the neuroinflammatory changes associated with the vulnerability to chronic mild stress exposure in female rats

Stress exposure is a key risk factor for the developmentof depressive-like conditions. However, despite the higher incidence of Major Depressive Disorder in the female population, classical stress-based experimental paradigms have primarily focused on males. In the present study, we used the well-established chronic mild stress (CMS) paradigm to investigate the development of anhedonia, a cardinal symptom of affective disorders, in the female animals and we also studied the potential effect of the antipsychotic drug lurasidone in normalizing the alterations brought about by stress exposure. We found that three weeks of CMS exposure produced a significant reduction of sucrose intake in 50% of the animals (vulnerable, CMS-V), whereas the others were resilient (CMS-R). The development of an anhedonic phenotype in CMS-V was associated with a significant elevation of different immune markers, such as Complement C3 and C4, and inflammatory cytokines, including INFß and Il1ß in dorsal and ventral hippocampus. Interestingly, sub-chronic treatment with the antipsychotic drug lurasidone was able to revert the anhedonic phenotype while normalizing most of the molecular alterations found in rats vulnerable to CMS exposure. This study extends the ability of lurasidone to normalize the anhedonic phenotype in CMS rats also to females. Moreover, we provide novel evidence on lurasidone’s potential effectiveness in treating mental disorders characterized by immune-inflammatory dysfunction.

Global Processing Deficit in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Visuo-perceptual and visuo-attentional disorders, such as global processing deficit and simultanagnosia, are not routinely investigated in prodromal forms of typical Alzheimer's disease, as amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI). This study evaluated global processing abilities through Navon's classical paradigm in individuals with amnestic MCI and investigated the related visuo-perceptual and attentional components involved in simultanagnosia. Sixteen consecutive patients with amnestic MCI (6 single-domain, 10 multiple-domain) and 16 matched controls were requested to identify global and local elements of hierarchical Navon letters, and to name large and small solid letters. While correctly identifying solid letters, patients with multiple-domain amnestic MCI were less accurate in processing the global level of hierarchical stimuli compared to controls. Single-case analyses suggested that global processing may also be impaired in single-domain amnestic MCI. In addition, patients with pathological performance in the Navon task showed perceptual and/or visual focal attention deficits. Early dysfunction of holistic processing can be detected in amnestic MCI. Visuo-perceptual and/or visual focal attention mechanisms, which have been shown to be damaged in Posterior Cortical Atrophy patients with simultanagnosia, may be impaired in individuals with amnestic MCI. Investigation and identification of global processing deficits in MCI could contribute to early diagnosis and longitudinal monitoring of the disease.

Modernisasi Pesantren Salaf Terhadap Transisi Kehidupan Sosial Dalam Tinjauan Filsafat Sosial

Salaf pesantren is one of the Islamic educational institutions that has a great influence and contribution to Indonesia in encouraging the progress of science and character education. So it is appropriate to study the renewal carried out by these salaf pesantrens. The renewal carried out by these salaf pesantren is a form of answering the needs of a dynamic society. So the review conducted in this paper is to look at the innovation of Hidayatut Thullab pesantren in the review of social philosophy, so the question in this paper is how the social inetarchy relationship between the characters produced between the community or the pesantren family and the educational innovations it makes to society as a whole. The method used is a combination of literature studies and field studies, using the domain analysis method, componen analysis, taxonomy analysis, and cultural theme analysis, the purpose of this method is to find the construction of social situations clearly. The results of the analysis of this paper are, that this semi-modern salaf pesantren has been able to build its social culture clearly, because it is assisted by a curriculum, adequate Islamic material and the environment of pesantren life based on salaf culture, so that the character of social interaction is clearly illustrated as a family or pesantren community that has a strong Islamic identity, a thick cultural culture and tak'dzim to the kiaiKiyai. However, because the innovation is only limited to the digitalisation of online mass media-based da'wah communication, the impact is only in the field of da'wah, and the social environment is also still limited to the relationship network environment, not yet to a more famous national level, as we know that the world of digital communication still needs something unique so that it goes viral and is widely known and captures more people. While the pesantren's relationship with the surrounding community as a form of social interaction has not been carried out optimally, because it is still confined to the salaf pesantren system with a traditional classical paradigm, thus making the salaf pesantren movement more limited than modern pesantren, such as the lack of cooperation between pesantren as a whole as educational institutions to the government and NGOs in order to obtain integrated activities, adequate facilities, teacher support and so on.

Cardiac afferent signals can facilitate visual dominance in binocular rivalry

Sensory signals from the body’s visceral organs (e.g. the heart) can robustly influence the perception of exteroceptive sensations. This interoceptive–exteroceptive interaction has been argued to underlie self-awareness by situating one’s perceptual awareness of exteroceptive stimuli in the context of one’s internal state, but studies probing cardiac influences on visual awareness have yielded conflicting findings. In this study, we presented separate grating stimuli to each of subjects’ eyes as in a classic binocular rivalry paradigm – measuring the duration for which each stimulus dominates in perception. However, we caused the gratings to ‘pulse’ at specific times relative to subjects’ real-time electrocardiogram, manipulating whether pulses occurred during cardiac systole, when baroreceptors signal to the brain that the heart has contracted, or in diastole when baroreceptors are silent. The influential ‘Baroreceptor Hypothesis’ predicts the effect of baroreceptive input on visual perception should be uniformly suppressive. In contrast, we observed that dominance durations increased for systole-entrained stimuli, inconsistent with the Baroreceptor Hypothesis. Furthermore, we show that this cardiac-dependent rivalry effect is preserved in subjects who are at-chance discriminating between systole-entrained and diastole-presented stimuli in a separate interoceptive awareness task, suggesting that our results are not dependent on conscious access to heartbeat sensations.

Stimulated Brillouin Scattering Gain of Waveguides Calculated with Acoustic Perturbation Method

Abstract Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) is a phenomenon of energy transfer from an optical pump beam to longer wavelengths of light through its interaction with the medium via acoustic phonons. Previous studies have reported a calculation of the SBS gain based on the optical force approach, where the gain is not only affected by the classical paradigm of intrinsic material’s nonlinear effects in the form of electrostriction but also due to radiation pressure. In this work, the acoustic perturbation approach is applied in analyzing the optical and mechanical response of the waveguide, wherein calculating the scattering process, the changes of the waveguide structure due to photoelasticity (PE), termed Moving Boundary (MB), are considered. This acoustic perturbation method avoids uncertainties related to optical force contributions. To validate its applicability, the present method is used to calculate the SBS gain of various waveguide structures, namely an unsuspended Silicon nano-waveguide, ridge Lithium Niobate (LiNBO3) nano-waveguide on Sapphire (Al2O3) substrate and buried Arsenic trisulfide (As2S3) in Silicon dioxide (SiO2). The forward and backward SBS gain obtained using the present method of acoustic perturbation are similar to the reported values obtained from other methods of calculation as well as experiments.

Using the Cocktail Party Effect to Add the Coding Dimension of Auditory Event Related Potential Brain-Computer Interface.

The auditory event-related potential based brain-computer interface (aERP-BCI) is a classical paradigm of brain-computer communication. To improve the coding efficiency of aERP-BCI, this study proposes a method using two parallel voice channels to add the coding dimension based on the cocktail party effect. The novel paradigm used male and female voices to establish two parallel oddball sound stimulus sequences. In comparison, the baseline paradigm only presented male or female stimulus sequences. Both the double voice condition (DVC) and the single voice condition (SVC) paradigms carried out offline experiments and the DVC also carried out online experiment. Subsequently, the EEG signal and BCI operation results were compared and analyzed. The cocktail party effect caused a significant difference in the EEG responses of non-target stimulus between the focused vocal channel and the ignored vocal channel under the DVC paradigm, and the focused and ignored channels achieved a recognition accuracy of 97.2%. The target recognition rate of DVC was 82.3%, with no significant difference compared with 85% of SVC while the information transfer rate (ITR) of DVC reaching 15.3 bits/min was significantly higher than that of SVC. The cocktail party effect improves the coding efficiency by adding parallel channels without reducing the target/non-target stimulus recognition in the focused vocal channel. This provides a novel direction for the performance improvement of aERP-BCI.

The impact of stimulus format and presentation order on social working memory updating.

Emotional faces and words have been extensively employed to examine cognitive emotional processing including social working memory, which plays a pivotal role in social interactions. However, it remains unclear which exact role these two stimulus formats play in updating specific emotional content, such as positive or negative information. Therefore, the current study examined the differences in working memory updating (WMU) of negative, neutral, and positive faces (Experiment 1) and words (Experiment 2), using a classic two-back paradigm with an event-related potential technique. In both experiments, emotional stimuli were presented in the same or different-valence order to further determine whether presentation order can also influence the WMU of specific emotional content. Our results showed that both stimulus format and presentation order play a role: (a) while faces showed an affective bias [larger P2 and late positive potential (LPP) for negative and positive faces than for neutral faces], words showed a negativity bias (larger LPP for negative words than both neutral and positive words); (b) While faces showed better performance with same-valence order, words showed better performance with different-valence order. Taken together, our findings indicate that, even if faces and words can contain the same emotional information, they impact social WMU differently.

On the significance of the different geometrical and dosimetric parameters in microbeam and minibeam radiation therapy a retrospective evaluation.

Spatially Fractionated Radiation Therapy (SFRT) is an unconventional therapeutic approach with the potential to disrupt the classical paradigms of conventional radiation therapy. The high spatial dose modulation in SFRT is believed to activate distinct radiobiological mechanisms which lead to remarkable increases in normal tissue tolerance. To make optimal use of SFRT and its benefits, a deeper understanding of the biological response and its relationship with the complex dosimetric and geometric components of SFRT is essential. A retrospective evaluation of preclinical studies was conducted to gain insight into the dosimetric and geometric parameters that are most correlated with normal tissue response. Current literature evaluates the response of tissue to MBRT and MRT according to various end points, e.g. the level of desquamation, degree of necrosis, or the amount of malcalcification. A set of metrics was developed to allow a quantitative comparison of these results. The strongest correlations were observed with the doses in both the peaks and valleys as well as the ratio of the area covered by the peak over the total area. This emphasises the geometry of the beam. MBRT challenged previous uniform dose-distribution paradigms by highlighting the critical role of Peak Dose alongside Valley Dose in tissue sparing whereas MRT underscores the significant influence of geometric beam parameters on tissue preservation. The data exhibits variability in the results obtained using different animal models and endpoints and additional research is warranted to explore the trends observed in this study under controlled conditions.

Continuous measures of decision-difficulty captured remotely: Mouse-tracking sensitivity extends to tablets and smartphones

As decisions require actions to have an effect on the world, measures derived from movements such as using a mouse to control a cursor on a screen provide powerful and dynamic indices of decision-making. By adapting classic reach-decision paradigms and deploying them across computers, tablets, and smartphones, we show that portable touch-devices can sensitively capture decision-difficulty. We see this in pre- and during-movement temporal and motoric measures across diverse decision domains. We found touchscreen interactions to more sensitively reflect decision-difficulty during movement compared to computer interactions, and the latter to be more sensitive before movement initiation. Paired with additional evidence for the flexibility and unique utility of pre- and during-movement measures, this substantiates the use of widely available touch-devices to massively extend the reach of decision science.

Revisiting the etiology and clinical characteristics of hemorrhagic polyps of the vocal fold.

Benign phonotraumatic lesions of the vocal folds (BVFLs) are typically seen in younger female patients with high vocal loads. Hemorrhagic polyps (HPs) do not fit the classic paradigm of most BVFLs, as they tend to occur in an older population, have a male predominance, and report to result from a vocal accident. We present one of the largest cohorts of HPs, to reexamine their etiology and clinical features. Retrospective cohort study, inclusive of all patients with HP managed by the senior authors between the years 2016 through 2023. Demographic data, management, phonotraumatic risk factors, pre- and post-treatment VHI-10 were reviewed. We examined patient videostroboscopy, categorized the size of the lesion, and identified any concurrent mucosal abnormality. One hundred and eleven patients had confirmed HP, 84 males (75.7%). Thirty-five patients were size category 1; pinpoint (28.9%), 57 were category 2; less than 1/3rd the vocal fold (45.5%), and 26 were category 3; greater than 1/3rd the vocal fold (21.5%). Ten patients (9%) had bilateral HPs. Thirty-five patients had an additional 40 mucosal lesions in addition to the HP(s). The onset of symptoms was gradual in 60% of patients. The mean pretreatment VHI-10 was 18.0 (SD 10.7), compared to 6.0 (SD 10.5) post-treatment, (p < .001). 57/111 patients reported high voice demand professions or recreational activities. The average self-reported talkative scale score was 7.6/10. Patients were managed with operative microdirect laryngoscopy and microflap excision (53.1%), in-office clinic potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) laser (24.3%), voice therapy alone (7.2%), and KTP in the operating room (6.3%). In our cohort, most patients were male, had high vocal demands, reported gradual symptom onset, and almost a third of patients had additional BVFLs. Level 3: Retrospective cohort study.

Exploring mismatch negativity in children with congenital Microtia-Atresia: A Preliminary study

BackgroundTo investigate the characteristics of mismatch negativity (MMN) in terms of latency and amplitude in children with bilateral congenital microtia using a Bone conduction implant (Bonebridge), and to explore the relationship between cortical level auditory discrimination, speech perception, and psychosocial well-being. MethodsThis descriptive, observational, cross-sectional study compared three groups: eight children with bilateral congenital microtia and Bonebridge implants (bilateral group), eight children with unilateral congenital microtia and no hearing aids (unilateral group), and eight children with normal hearing (NH group). Participants underwent MMN evaluation using a classic oddball paradigm with a pure tone burst stimulus, featuring a 1000 Hz standard stimulus and a 1200 Hz deviant stimulus, presented in a sound field at 65 dBHL. Additionally, speech perception tests, the Meaningful Use of Speech Scale (MUSS), and psychosocial status questionnaires, including the Social Anxiety Scale for Children (SASC) and the Children’s Loneliness Scale (CLS), were administered to all subjects. ResultsThe bilateral group’s average MMN latency was 241.23 ± 29.47 ms, and the unilateral group’s was 209.96 ± 54.32 ms, both significantly longer than the NH group’s 146.05 ± 15.73 ms (p < 0.0001, F=3.509, 95 % CI 68.09 to 122.3 and p = 0.0097, F=11.92, 95 % CI 18.07 to 109.8, respectively). However, no significant difference was found in MMN latency between the bilateral and unilateral groups (p = 0.202, F=3.397, 95 % CI −18.84 to 81.36). The unilateral group scored significantly higher on the MUSS (38.63 ± 1.41 vs. 30.75 ± 3.80, p = 0.0001, F=7.276, 95 % CI −11.16 to −4.590), had lower CLS scores (47.13 ± 8.13 vs. 58.25 ± 8.39, p = 0.024, F=1.065, 95 % CI 1.652 to 20.60), and lower SASC scores (4.13 ± 2.09 vs. 6.50 ± 2.25, p = 0.062, F=1.204, 95 % CI −0.138 to 4.89) compared to the bilateral group. MMN latency in the bilateral group correlated with SASC scores. ConclusionThe MMN latency in congenital microtia patients may serve as an indicator of central auditory discrimination capabilities. In children with bilateral congenital microtia and Bonebridge implants, MMN latency can reflect social anxiety conditions to a certain degree.

Heterotrophic nitrification by Alcaligenes faecalis links organic and inorganic nitrogen metabolism.

Heterotrophic nitrification remains a mystery for decades. It has been commonly hypothesized that heterotrophic nitrifiers oxidize ammonia to hydroxylamine and then to nitrite in a way similar to autotrophic AOA and AOB. Recently, heterotrophic nitrifiers from Alcaligenes were found to oxidize ammonia to hydroxylamine and then to N2 ("dirammox", direct ammonia oxidation) by the gene cluster dnfABC with a yet-to-be-reported mechanism. The role of a potential glutamine amidotransferase DnfC clues the heterotrophic ammonia oxidation might involving in glutamine. Here, we found Alcaligenes faecalis JQ135 could oxidize amino acids besides ammonia. We discovered that glutamine is an intermediate of the dirammox pathway and the glutamine synthetase gene glnA is essential for both A. faecalis JQ135 and the Escherichia coli cells harboring dnfABC gene cluster to oxidize amino acids and ammonia. Our study expands understanding of heterotrophic nitrifiers and challenges the classical paradigm of heterotrophic nitrification.

成年监护范式的反思与进路：从替代决定到协助决定

Substitution decision and assistance decision are the two classic paradigms of adult guardianship. Article 22 of the Civil Code points out the position of applying partial guardianship to adult wards based on the integration of Article 47 of the former Contract Law. Article 35, paragraph 3, of the same law expresses the new concept of guardianship in a textual sense, which is “based on independence, supplemented by safeguards and assistance”. Both articles make it clear that adult guardianship is not full guardianship, but there is a dispute as to whether it should be primarily independent and assisted guardianship or non-independent and substituted guardianship. The understanding of the adult guardianship paradigm should be based on the systematic interpretation of Chapter 2 of the General Provisions of the Civil Code, and the direct interpretation of Article 35(3) as assisted guardianship lacks the value support of other articles. This paper will start from the argumentation of the Civil Code’s legislative technology for the guardianship model and the paradigm it adopts, analyze the problems of the adult guardianship system under the substitute decision, such as the ill-defined scope, the re-marginalization of the elderly, and the emphasis on property rather than human beings, etc., and then finally, through the expansive interpretation of Articles 22 and 33, achieve the unity of the value concepts and scope of exercise with Article 35, paragraph 3, and construct the space of the law for the transformation of the assisted decision.

PsySuite: An android application designed to perform multimodal psychophysical testing.

In behavioral sciences, there is growing concern about the inflation of false-positive rates due to the amount of under-powered studies that have been shared in the past years. While problematic, having the possibility to recruit (lots of) participants (for a lot of time) is realistically not achievable for many research facilities. Factors that hinder the reaching of optimal sample sizes are, to name but a few, research costs, participants' availability and commitment, and logistics. We challenge these issues by introducing PsySuite, an Android app designed to foster a remote approach to multimodal behavioral testing. To validate PsySuite, we first evaluated its ability to generate stimuli appropriate to rigorous psychophysical testing, measuring both the app's accuracy (i.e., stimuli's onset, offset, and multimodal simultaneity) and precision (i.e., the stability of a given pattern across trials), using two different smartphone models. We then evaluated PsySuite's ability to replicate perceptual performances obtained using a classic psychophysical paradigm, comparing sample data collected with the app against those measured via a PC-based setup. Our results showed that PsySuite could accurately reproduce stimuli with a minimum duration of 7ms, 17ms, and 30ms for the auditory, visual, and tactile modalities, respectively, and that perceptual performances obtained with PsySuite were consistent with the perceptual behavior observed using the classical setup. Combined with the high accessibility inherently supported by PsySuite, here we ought to share the app to further boost psychophysical research, aiming at setting it to a cheap, user-friendly, and portable level.

Deep reinforcement learning as multiobjective optimization benchmarks: Problem formulation and performance assessment

The successful deployment of Deep learning in several challenging tasks has been translated into complex control problems from different domains through Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL). Although DRL has been extensively formulated and solved as single-objective problems, nearly all real-world RL problems often feature two or more conflicting objectives, where the goal is to obtain a high-quality and diverse set of optimal policies for different objective preferences. Consequently, the development of Multi-Objective Deep Reinforcement Learning (MODRL) algorithms has gained a lot of traction in the literature. Generally, Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) have been demonstrated to be scalable alternatives to the classical DRL paradigms when formulated as an optimization problem. Hence it is reasonable to employ Multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs) to handle MODRL tasks. However, there are several factors constraining the progress of research along this line: first, there is a lack of a general problem formulation of MODRL tasks from an optimization perspective; second, there exist several challenges in performing benchmark assessments of MOEAs for MODRL problems. To overcome these limitations: (i) we present a formulation of MODRL tasks as general multi-objective optimization problems and analyze their complex characteristics from an optimization perspective; (ii) we present an end-to-end framework, termed DRLXBench, to generate MODRL benchmark test problems for seamless running of MOEAs (iii) we propose a test suite comprising of 12 MODRL problems with different characteristics such as many-objectives, degenerated Pareto fronts, concave and convex optimization problems, etc. (iv) Finally, we present and discuss baseline results on the proposed test problems using seven representative MOEAs.

Presentation of multiple task instructional sets impacts auditory Stroop performance during dual task locomotion.

The auditory Stroop is a modification of the classic Stroop paradigm commonly used in dual-task research when the motor task requires the visual system. Despite its use, there are gaps in our understanding of this tool. For example, in visual/auditory Stroop paradigms, neutral cues irrelevant to the required response, which theoretically cause less interference/facilitation, are used to elucidate effects of visual/auditory demands on neural processes. Specifically, in auditory Stroop paradigms the use and choice of neutral cue words is inconsistent. To address these gaps, we instrumented participants with kinematic markers and a digital microphone and asked them to respond to auditory Stroop cues and neutral cue words consisting of either one or two syllables, while simultaneously performing an unobstructed locomotor task. Two blocks of trials were collected. In one block, participants had prior knowledge that either an auditory Stroop or a neutral word stimulus would be presented (Known); a second block presented both types of cognitive cues in a random order to participants (Mixed). We observed main effects of cognitive task (neutral, incongruent, congruent) and instructional set (Known, Mixed) on response times, but not on center of mass velocity. Also, more time was required to verbally respond to an incongruent compared to congruent or neutral task across all conditions, and neutral task words with one syllable resulted in longer response times compared to two syllable neutral words. We recommend that researchers include neutral cues when using the auditory Stroop test and to carefully consider their neutral word choice.