Cue Response Research Articles

Priming gestures with associated sounds

Hommel (1996) established that sounds artificially associated with key presses could prime key presses. The goal of the current study was to explore the nature of the link between auditory perception and manual actions by comparing the priming of manual actions by naturally and artificially associated sounds. We report three experiments. The procedure in each experiment consisted of cueing participants to perform manual gestures. Executing the gestures produced feedback sounds; those sounds were also used as primes before the response cues. Experiment One replicated Hommel’s procedure: participants lifted keys that triggered artificial sounds. Experiment Two used sounds naturally produced by tapping or scraping wooden dowels on a custom interface. Experiment Three replicated Experiment Two with the sounds of the dowels muffled. The priming effect was observed on reaction times in Experiments One and Two but not in Experiment Three. These results show that long-term associations between sounds and gestures created in memory by repeated experience throughout life are not sufficient to prime the gestures. Instead they suggest that auditory-motor priming may be mediated by associations between sounds and gestures that are created on-line by the experiment via associative learning, and which are short-lived and can be readily reconfigured.

Memory delay and haptic feedback influence the dissociation of tactile cues for perception and action

The somatosensory processing model (SPM) asserts that dissociable cortical processing streams mediate tactile perceptions and actions via relative and absolute cues, respectively (Dijkerman and de Haan, 2007). Accordingly, we sought to determine whether the introduction of a memory delay and/or physically touching a target object (i.e., haptic feedback) differentially influences the cues supporting tactile perceptions and actions. Participants used their right hand to manually estimate (i.e., perceptual task) or grasp (i.e., action task) differently sized objects placed on the palm of their left limb in conditions wherein the target object was available for the duration of the response (i.e., closed-loop condition), or was removed prior to response cuing (i.e., memory-guided condition). As well, trials were performed in conditions wherein the physical object was available (i.e., haptic feedback) or unavailable (i.e., no haptic feedback) to touch. Notably, we computed just-noticeable-difference (JND) scores to determine whether the aforementioned tasks and conditions adhered to – or violated - the relative properties of Weber's law. JNDs for manual estimations adhered to Weber's law across each condition – a finding supporting the SPM's contention that an immutable and relative percept supports tactile perceptions. In turn, JNDs for grasping violated Weber's law only when haptic feedback was available. Such a finding indicates that haptic feedback supports the absolute calibration between a tactile defined object and the required motor output. What is more, our study highlights that multiple somatosensory cues (i.e., tactile and haptic) support goal-directed grasping.

Cue generation: How learners flexibly support future retrieval.

The successful use of memory requires us to be sensitive to the cues that will be present during retrieval. In many situations, we have some control over the external cues that we will encounter. For instance, learners create shopping lists at home to help remember what items to later buy at the grocery store, and they generate computer file names to help remember the contents of those files. Generating cues in the service of later cognitive goals is a complex task that lies at the intersection of metacognition, communication, and memory. In this series of experiments, we investigated how and how well learners generate external mnemonic cues. Across 5 experiments, learners generated a cue for each target word in a to-be-remembered list and received these cues during a later cued recall test. Learners flexibly generated cues in response to different instructional demands and study list compositions. When generating mnemonic cues, as compared to descriptions of target items, learners produced cues that were more distinct than mere descriptions and consequently elicited greater cued recall performance than those descriptions. When learners were aware of competing targets in the study list, they generated mnemonic cues with smaller cue-to-target associative strength but that were even more distinct. These adaptations led to fewer confusions among competing targets and enhanced cued recall performance. These results provide another example of the metacognitively sophisticated tactics that learners use to effectively support future retrieval.

An intrinsic microRNA timer regulates progressive decline in shoot regenerative capacity in plants.

Plant cells are totipotent and competent to regenerate from differentiated organs. It has been shown that two phytohormones, auxin and cytokinin, play critical roles within this process. As in animals, the regenerative capacity declines with age in plants, but the molecular basis for this phenomenon remains elusive. Here, we demonstrate that an age-regulated microRNA, miR156, regulates shoot regenerative capacity. As a plant ages, the gradual increase in miR156-targeted SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE (SPL) transcription factors leads to the progressive decline in shoot regenerative capacity. In old plants, SPL reduces shoot regenerative capacity by attenuating the cytokinin response through binding with the B-type ARABIDOPSIS RESPONSE REGULATORs, which encode the transcriptional activators in the cytokinin signaling pathway. Consistently, the increased amount of exogenous cytokinin complements the reduced shoot regenerative capacity in old plants. Therefore, the recruitment of age cues in response to cytokinin contributes to shoot regenerative competence.

Acute ethanol withdrawal impairs contextual learning and enhances cued learning.

Alcohol affects many of the brain regions and neural processes that support learning and memory, and these effects are thought to underlie, at least in part, the development of addiction. Although much work has been done regarding the effects of alcohol intoxication on learning and memory, little is known about the effects of acute withdrawal from a single alcohol exposure. We assess the effects of acute ethanol withdrawal (6hours postinjection with 4g/kg ethanol) on 2 forms of fear conditioning (delay and trace fear conditioning) in C57BL/6J and DBA/2J mice. The influence of a number of experimental parameters (pre- and post training withdrawal exposure; foreground/background processing; training strength; and nonassociative effects) is also investigated. Acute ethanol withdrawal during training had a bidirectional effect on fear-conditioned responses, decreasing contextual responses and increasing cued responses. These effects were apparent for both trace and delay conditioning in DBA/2J mice and for trace conditioning in C57BL/6J mice; however, C57BL/6J mice were selectively resistant to the effects of acute withdrawal on delay cued responses. Our results show that acute withdrawal from a single, initial ethanol exposure is sufficient to alter long-term learning in mice. In addition, the differences between the strains and conditioning paradigms used suggest that specific learning processes can be differentially affected by acute withdrawal in a manner that is distinct from the reported effects of both alcohol intoxication and withdrawal following chronic alcohol exposure. Thus, our results suggest a unique effect of acute alcohol withdrawal on learning and memory processes.

Dissociable Frontoparietal Oscillatory Networks For Proactive and Reactive Control Characterised Using Complex Network Analyses

Theta oscillatory networks rapidly change structure in response cues and targets. Switch trials increase diameter early in cue-to-target interval. All networks increase diameter in anticipation for target onset. Transient increases in maximum degree (or more key nodes) occur around cue and target. Main effects for condition were present for diameter (F = 7.91, p <0.001), main effects for time were present for both diameter (F = 37.53, p <.001) and maximum degree (F = 20.48, p <.001). Cognitive control networks dynamically shift prior to and during key moments of control. Switch-to and switch-away networks have increased diameter, degree, leaf number and nodes early in cue-to-target interval. Switch-away and noninformative networks increase in diameter, leaf number and nodes prior to target onset and maintain these properties until response generation. F2 F4 F6

Cocaine-conditioned odor cues without chronic exposure: Implications for the development of addiction vulnerability.

Adolescents are highly vulnerable to addiction and are four times more likely to become addicted at first exposure than at any other age. The dopamine D1 receptor, which is typically overexpressed in the normal adolescent prefrontal cortex, is involved in drug cue responses and is associated with relapse in animal models. In human drug addicts, imaging methods have detected increased activation in response to drug cues in reward- and habit-associated brain regions. These same methods can be applied more quantitatively to rodent models. Here, changes in neuronal activation in response to cocaine-conditioned cues were observed using functional magnetic resonance imaging in juvenile rats that were made to over-express either D1 receptors or green fluorescent protein by viral-mediated transduction. Reduced activation was observed in the amygdala and dopamine cell body regions in the low cue-preferring/control juvenile rats in response to cocaine cues. In contrast, increased activation was observed in the dorsal striatum, nucleus accumbens, prefrontal cortex, and dopamine cell bodies in high cue-preferring/D1 juveniles. The increase in cue salience that is mediated by increased D1 receptor density, rather than excessive cocaine experience, appears to underlie the transition from aversion to reward in cue-induced neural response and may form the basis for habit-forming vulnerability.

Can time-based decay explain temporal distinctiveness effects in task switching?

In task switching, extending the response-cue interval (RCI) reduces the switch cost--the detriment to performance when switching compared to repeating tasks. This reduction has been used as evidence for the existence of task-set decay processes. Recently, this has been challenged by the observation of sequential dependencies on the RCI effect: switch cost is only reduced at longer RCIs when the previous trial had a short RCI. This trial-wise variation of RCI is thought to affect the temporal distinctiveness (TD) of a previous task's episodic trace, affecting the probability of its automatic retrieval on the current trial; importantly, TD is thought to be independent of the current trial's RCI. The present study highlights a dependency between the current RCI and TD, and demonstrates that a decay model can reproduce some patterns of data attributed to TD. Further, the decay account makes a strong prediction when TD is held constant: repetition response times should slow as the RCI increases, and switch response times should be facilitated. This prediction was tested via re-analysis of extant data and three experiments. The re-analysis provided some evidence for the decay account, but Experiments 1 and 2 report slowing for task repetition and switch trials, which cannot be explained by a task-set decay process. Experiment 3, which utilized tasks requiring perceptual judgements, showed small evidence for decay. We conclude that the data are largely consistent with the TD account and that the evidence for decay of higher-level task-sets is not convincing.

Inhibiting reactions to emotional versus non-emotional response cues in schizophrenia: Insights from a motor-process paradigm.

Recent models of schizophrenia suggest deficient use of contextual response cues when confronted with countermanding emotional cues. It is important to clinically validate these models by testing patients diagnosed with schizophrenia on tasks with competing emotional and contextual response determinants. Control and schizophrenia groups completed a novel task that elicited motor responses consistent with, or in opposition to, pre-potent emotional actions (i.e., approach vs. avoidance). An analogous non-emotional task was also used to examine cue-conflict impairment more generally. The groups demonstrated statistically equivalent performance decrements on incongruent versus congruent trials on both tasks. However, within the schizophrenia group, the incongruency effect was significantly greater in the emotional versus non-emotional task. These data suggest that, while patients with schizophrenia were able to employ contextual response cues to override competing emotional responses, they were slower to resolve emotional versus non-emotional response conflict. When patients were subdivided according to the presence or absence of disorganized symptoms, this effect was confined to patients with disorganized symptoms.

Response selection difficulty modulates the behavioral impact of rapidly learnt action effects.

It is well-established that we can pick up action effect associations when acting in a free-choice intentional mode. However, it is less clear whether and when action effect associations are learnt and actually affect behavior if we are acting in a forced-choice mode, applying a specific stimulus–response (S–R) rule. In the present study, we investigated whether response selection difficulty imposed by S–R rules influences the initial rapid learning and the behavioral expression of previously learnt but weakly practiced action effect associations when those are re-activated by effect exposure. Experiment 1 showed that the rapid learning of action effect associations is not directly influenced by response selection difficulty. By contrast, the behavioral expression of re-activated action effect associations is prevented when actions are directly activated by highly over-learnt response cues and thus response selection difficulty is low. However, all three experiments showed that if response selection difficulty is sufficiently high during re-activation, the same action effect associations do influence behavior. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that the effect of response selection difficulty cannot be fully reduced to giving action effects more time to prime an action, but seems to reflect competition during response selection. Finally, the present data suggest that when multiple novel rules are rapidly learnt in succession, which requires a lot of flexibility, action effect associations continue to influence behavior only if response selection difficulty is sufficiently high. Thus, response selection difficulty might modulate the impact of experiencing multiple learning episodes on action effect expression and learning, possibly via inducing different strategies.

What's easier: doing what you want, or being told what to do? Cued versus voluntary language and task switching.

The current study contrasted cued versus voluntary switching to investigate switching efficiency and possible sharing of control mechanisms across linguistic and nonlinguistic domains. Bilinguals switched between naming pictures in Spanish versus English or between reading numbers aloud versus adding their digits, either without or with repetition of stimuli and with fewer requirements as to when and how much they had to switch relative to previous instantiations of voluntary switching. Without repetition (Experiment 1), voluntary responses were faster than cued responses on both stay and switch trials (especially in the nonlinguistic switching task), whereas in previous studies the voluntary advantage was restricted to switch-cost reduction. Similarly, when targets were presented repeatedly (Experiment 2), voluntary responses were faster overall for both linguistic and nonlinguistic switching, although here the advantage tended to be larger on switch trials and cross-domain similarity appeared to reflect nonoverlapping switching strategies. Experiment 3 confirmed the overall voluntary speed advantage for the read-add task in monolinguals and revealed a reduction in switch costs only for a different nonlinguistic task (size-parity judgments). These results reveal greater overall advantages for voluntary over cued switching than previously reported but also that the precise manifestation of the voluntary advantage can vary with different tasks. In the linguistic domain, lexical inaccessibility introduces some unique control mechanisms, and repetition may magnify cross-domain overlap in control mechanisms. Finally, under some limited conditions, cost-free switches were found in both linguistic and nonlinguistic domains; however, suspension of top-down control may be restricted to language or highly automatic tasks.

Implementation intentions forge a strong cue–response link and boost prospective memory performance

Prospective memory (PM) performance (i.e., remembering to perform intentions) is often in the service of higher goals and thus could be improved through better self-regulation. We examined the effectiveness of three self-regulatory strategies in a laboratory event-based PM task: implementation intention (i.e., planning in an if/when–then format), rehearsal (i.e., planning not in an if/when–then format) and upward counterfactual (“if only…” thoughts about a past performance). The cue and response mentioned in all three strategies were held constant, such that only format and timing (past vs. future orientation) of the strategy varied. Results indicated that the implementation intention strategy strengthened the cue–response link and improved PM performance over baseline, relative to a control condition. Neither rehearsal nor counterfactual strategies had significant benefits, relative to a control condition. These findings suggest that the if/when–then plan format of implementation intentions may be a critical feature of their effectiveness in retrieving and executing intentions.

Working memory contents enhance perception under stimulus-driven competition.

It is well known that attention is biased toward a stimulus matching working memory contents. However, it has been debated at which processing stage this memory-driven attentional bias takes place. While some studies show that memory-driven attention affects the early, perceptual stage of information processing, others argue that the finding showing such an effect is the result of working memory contents reducing uncertainty regarding the location of a target stimulus, without affecting the perception of the target. The present study tested whether a previous finding showing the perceptual effect of memory-driven attention is solely due to reduced target location uncertainty. We found that attentional bias by working memory contents affected the perception of a target stimulus, especially when multiple stimuli were present, competing against each other. This perceptual effect was not due to reduced target location uncertainty because the target location was always indicated by a response cue. Similar results were found regardless of whether working memory contents predicted the target location or not. These findings suggest that automatic, involuntary orienting of attention by working memory contents affects perception by resolving stimulus-driven competition.

Relative contributions of CA3 and medial entorhinal cortex to memory in rats.

The hippocampal CA1 field processes spatial information, but the relative importance of intra- vs. extra-hippocampal sources of input into CA1 for spatial behavior is unclear. To characterize the relative roles of these two sources of input, originating in the hippocampal field CA3 and in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC), we studied effects of discrete neurotoxic lesions of CA3 or MEC on concurrent spatial and nonspatial navigation tasks, and on synaptic transmission in afferents to CA1. Lesions in CA3 or MEC regions that abolished CA3-CA1, or reduced MEC-CA1 synaptic transmission, respectively, impaired spatial navigation and unexpectedly interfered with cue response, suggesting that in certain conditions of training regimen, hippocampal activity may influence behavior otherwise supported by nonhippocampal neural networks. MEC lesions had milder and temporary behavioral effects, but also markedly amplified transmission in the CA3-CA1 pathway. Extensive behavioral training had a similar, but more modest effect on CA3-CA1 transmission. Thus, cortical input to the hippocampus modulates CA1 activity both directly and indirectly, through heterosynaptic interaction, to control information flow in the hippocampal loop. Following damage to hippocampal cortical input, the functional coupling of separate intra- and extra-hippocampal inputs to CA1 involved in normal learning may initiate processes that support recovery of behavioral function. Such a process may explain how CA3 lesions, which do not significantly modify the basic features of CA1 neural activity, nonetheless impair spatial recall, whereas lesions of EC input to CA1, which reduce the spatial selectivity of CA1 firing in foraging rats, have only mild effects on spatial navigation.

The antisaccade task: Sensory- and motor-related costs to oculomotor planning

Poster presented at Vision Sciences Society St. Pete Beach, FL, USA, 16 – 22 May, 2014 The concurrent presentation of a target and a remote (i.e., contralateral, foveal) distractor increases the planning times of stimulus-driven prosaccades (i.e., the remote distractor effect, RDE). Conversely, distractors presented within proximal (i.e., ipsilateral) relations with the target are refractory to planning costs and affect the accurate nature of saccade amplitudes (i.e., the global effect: Findlay, 1982). In the present investigation, we sought to determine whether antisaccade planning is similarly influenced by the presentation of a remote and proximal distractor. Indeed, the basis for this question stems from the fact that the non-standard mapping between stimulus and response in the antisaccade task provides a basis for determining whether the sensoryor motor-related features of a distractor influence oculomotor planning times. In Experiment 1, participants completed proand antisaccades in a condition that entailed a single and exogenously presented target (i.e., control condition) and conditions wherein the target was presented simultaneously with distractors at remote (i.e., contralateral, foveal) or ipsilateral locations relative to the target. Results for prosaccade latencies showed the aforementioned RDE, whereas antisaccade latencies for all distractor locations were increased compared to their control condition counterparts. Experiment 2 involved same basic methods as Experiment 1 with the exception that we precued distractor location to reduce the attentional demands associated with disentangling target and distractor locations at response cueing. Results confirmed the findings of Experiment 1 in that antisaccade latencies were increased across each distractor location. Moreover, the antisaccade latency cost was increased when the spatial properties of the distractor were congruent with motor-related task goals. Based on these findings, we propose that the nonstandard nature of antisaccades renders a general increase in oculomotor planning times regardless of the distractor’s spatial properties. Further, we propose the spatial relations between distractor and motor-related goals elicit an increased inhibition of oculomotor networks than the spatial relations between distractor and veridical stimulus location.

Oculomotor task switching: alternating from a nonstandard to a standard response yields the unidirectional prosaccade switch-cost.

The completion of an antisaccade (i.e., a nonstandard task) lengthens the reaction time (RT) of a subsequent prosaccade: a behavioral phenomenon termed the unidirectional prosaccade switch-cost. One explanation for the unidirectional prosaccade switch-cost is suppressing a stimulus-driven prosaccade during the preceding antisaccade trial engenders a residual inhibition of the oculomotor networks that support prosaccade planning (i.e., the oculomotor inhibition hypothesis). Alternatively, the unidirectional prosaccade switch-cost may reflect the persistent activation of the antisaccade's nonstandard task rules (i.e., task set), which delays the planning of the next prosaccade (i.e., task-set inertia hypothesis). To determine which hypothesis provides the most parsimonious account for the unidirectional prosaccade switch-cost, participants alternated between pro- and antisaccades wherein task instructions (i.e., pro- and antisaccade) were provided before (i.e., classic cuing) or concurrent (i.e., delayed cuing) with response cuing. Importantly, pro- and antisaccades elicited via the delayed cuing condition required the suppression of a stimulus-driven prosaccade at response cuing (i.e., response suppression) to discern the appropriate to-be-performed task. Results showed that classic and delayed antisaccades, but not delayed prosaccades, lengthened the RT of subsequent prosaccades. That delayed prosaccades, which require response suppression for their successful execution, did not lengthen the RT of subsequent prosaccades indicates that the oculomotor inhibition hypothesis does not account for the unidirectional prosaccade switch-cost. Instead, the current findings are in line with the assertion that the task set associated with a nonstandard antisaccade persists inertially and delays the planning of a subsequent prosaccade (i.e., task-set inertia hypothesis).

Effortful versus automatic emotional processing in schizophrenia: Insights from a face-vignette task

Adaptive emotional responding relies on dual automatic and effortful processing streams. Dual-stream models of schizophrenia (SCZ) posit a selective deficit in neural circuits that govern goal-directed, effortful processes versus reactive, automatic processes. This imbalance suggests that when patients are confronted with competing automatic and effortful emotional response cues, they will exhibit diminished effortful responding and intact, possibly elevated, automatic responding compared to controls. This prediction was evaluated using a modified version of the face-vignette task (FVT). Participants viewed emotional faces (automatic response cue) paired with vignettes (effortful response cue) that signalled a different emotion category and were instructed to discriminate the manifest emotion. Patients made less vignette and more face responses than controls. However, the relationship between group and FVT responding was moderated by IQ and reading comprehension ability. These results replicate and extend previous research and provide tentative support for abnormal conflict resolution between automatic and effortful emotional processing predicted by dual-stream models of SCZ.

Directive and incentive functions of affective action consequences: an ideomotor approach.

Five experiments examined whether affective consequences become associated with the responses producing them and whether anticipations of positive and negative action outcomes influence action control differently. In a learning phase, one response produced pleasant and another response unpleasant visual effects. In a subsequent test phase, the same actions were carried out in response to a neutral feature of affective stimuli. Results showed that responses were faster when the irrelevant valence of the response cue matched the valence of the response outcome, but only when the responses still produced outcomes. These results suggest that affective action consequences have a directive function in that they facilitate the selection of the associated response over other responses, even when the response outcome is unpleasant (Experiment 4A). Results of another experiment showed that affective action consequences can also have an incentive function in that responses with pleasant outcomes are generally facilitated relative to responses with unpleasant outcomes. However, this motivational effect was seen only in a free-choice test (Experiment 5). The results suggest that behavioral impulses induced by ideomotor processes are constrained by the motivational evaluation of the anticipated action outcome. A model that integrates motivational factors into ideomotor theory is presented.

Life after fire: smoke and ash as germination cues in ericads, herbs and graminoids of northern heathlands

AbstractQuestionWhat is the impact of the fire cues smoke and ash on seed germination of important functional groups in the heathland system, namely ericads, herbs and graminoids? We predict that if germination from heathland seed banks is in part regulated by fire cues, there should be stronger responses to fire cue treatments in seed bank samples taken from heath that has not been recently burned in comparison with samples taken from newly burned heath, where seed banks have been exposed to the same cues in situ.LocationLygra, Lindås commune, western Norway.MethodsThe efficacy of smoke, charred wood, ash and heat in promoting germination has been documented in a wide range of species and systems, but relatively little work has been done on fire‐related cues in northern European heathlands under anthropogenic fire regimes. We studied fire experimentally by testing the effects of aqueous smoke solution, ash and a combination of the two treatments, on the germination of graminoids, herbs and ericads. A greenhouse germination trial compared seed banks from old heath (28 yr since the last fire) with seed banks from newly burned heath (burned the previous year), where we expected that fire‐cued germination had already occurred.ResultsWe found that both ericads and graminoids responded to fire cues, whereas herbs did not. In line with our predictions, responses were stronger in the old heath than in the young heath. Further, the smoke treatment is a more effective cue than ash across all functional groups.ConclusionsThe prevalence of positive fire cue responses across functional groups underscores the importance of fire in the ecology of these heathlands, and hence of burning as a central tool for their management. The finding that the germination response is stronger in naïve seed banks than in seed banks that have already been exposed to recent fire cues through in situ fires further supports the role of fire in the successional dynamics of these heathlands.

MicroRNAs in axon guidance

Brain wiring is a highly intricate process in which trillions of neuronal connections are established. Its initial phase is particularly crucial in establishing the general framework of neuronal circuits. During this early step, differentiating neurons extend axons, which reach their target by navigating through a complex environment with extreme precision. Research in the past 20 years has unraveled a vast and complex array of chemotropic cues that guide the leading tip of axons, the growth cone, throughout its journey. Tight regulation of these cues, and of their receptors and signaling pathways, is necessary for the high degree of accuracy required during circuit formation. However, little is known about the nature of regulatory molecules or mechanisms fine-tuning axonal cue response. Here we review recent, and somewhat fragmented, research on the possibility that microRNAs (miRNAs) could be key fine-tuning regulatory molecules in axon guidance. miRNAs appear to shape long-range axon guidance, fasciculation and targeting. We also present several lines of evidence suggesting that miRNAs could have a compartmentalized and differential action at the cell soma, and within axons and growth cones.