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Experimental Brain Research Jan 2021The control of human movements is thought to automize with repetition, promoting consistent execution and reduced dual-task costs. However, contingencies such as illness...
The control of human movements is thought to automize with repetition, promoting consistent execution and reduced dual-task costs. However, contingencies such as illness or constraints to regular movement patterns can promote conscious motor control, which can reduce movement proficiency and make dual-task situations more difficult. This experiment evaluated whether electroencephalographic neurofeedback training can reduce the adverse effects of conscious motor control. Twenty-five participants completed the timed-up-and-go task while wearing a leg brace to de-automize their regular movement, under both single and dual-task (walking + serial sevens) conditions, both before and after 30-min of neurofeedback training. Three different types of neurofeedback were prescribed across three laboratory visits. We hypothesised that training to decrease central EEG alpha-power at scalp sites above the supplementary motor area would facilitate performance compared to opposite (increase central EEG alpha-power) or sham neurofeedback training. Results revealed a pre-test to post-test improvement in performance on the single-task and on both aspects of the dual-task when participants were trained to decrease central EEG alpha-power. There were no benefits of opposite or sham neurofeedback training. Mediation analyses revealed that the improvement in dual-task motor performance was mediated by the improvement in cognitive performance. This suggests that the neurofeedback protocol was beneficial because it helped to reduce conscious control of the motor task. The findings could have important implications for rehabilitation and high-performance (e.g., elite sport) domains; neurofeedback could be prescribed to help alleviate the problems that can arise when individuals exert conscious motor control.
Topics: Electroencephalography; Humans; Movement; Neurofeedback; Psychomotor Performance; Task Performance and Analysis
PubMed: 33165672
DOI: 10.1007/s00221-020-05935-3 -
Scientific Reports Sep 2022The more distant two consecutive stimuli are presented, the longer the temporal interstimulus interval (ISI) between their presentations is perceived (kappa effect). The...
The more distant two consecutive stimuli are presented, the longer the temporal interstimulus interval (ISI) between their presentations is perceived (kappa effect). The present study aimed at testing whether the kappa effect not only affects perceptual estimates of time, but also motor action, more specifically, interception. In a first step, the original kappa paradigm was adapted to assess the effect in temporal prediction. Second, the task was further modified to an interception task, requiring participants to spatially and temporally predict and act. In two online experiments, a white circle was successively presented at three locations moving from left to right with constant spatial and temporal ISIs in between. Participants were asked to either (i) indicate the time of appearance of the predicted fourth stimulus (Exp. 1) or to (ii) intercept the predicted fourth location at the correct time (Exp. 2). In both experiments the temporal response depended on the spatial intervals. In line with the kappa effect, participants predicted the final stimulus to appear later (Exp. 1) or intercepted it later (Exp. 2), the more distant the stimuli were presented. Together, these results suggest that perceptual biases such as the kappa effect impact motor interception performance.
Topics: Humans; Psychomotor Performance; Spatial Analysis
PubMed: 36138102
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-18789-2 -
Journal of Neurophysiology Jun 2021Faster movements are typically more variable-a speed-accuracy trade-off known as Fitts' law. Are movements that are initiated faster also more variable?...
Faster movements are typically more variable-a speed-accuracy trade-off known as Fitts' law. Are movements that are initiated faster also more variable? Neurophysiological work has associated larger neural variability during motor preparation with longer reaction time (RT) and larger movement variability, implying that movement variability decreases with increasing RT. Here, we recorded over 30,000 reaching movements in 11 human participants who moved to visually cued targets. Half of the visual cues were accompanied by a beep to evoke a wide RT range in each participant. Results show that initial reach variability decreases with increasing RT, for voluntarily produced RTs up to ∼300 ms, whereas other kinematic aspects and endpoint accuracy remained unaffected. We conclude that movement preparation time determines initial movement variability. We suggest that the chosen movement preparation time reflects a trade-off between movement initiation and precision. Fitts' law describes the speed-accuracy trade-off in the execution of human movements. We examined whether there is also a trade-off between movement planning time and initial movement precision. We show that shorter reaction times result in higher initial movement variability. In other words, movement preparation time determines movement variability.
Topics: Adult; Female; Humans; Male; Motor Activity; Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time; Time Factors; Young Adult
PubMed: 34038240
DOI: 10.1152/jn.00087.2020 -
Croatian Medical Journal Apr 2020To assess age- and gender-associated differences in cognitive and psychomotor abilities measured by the Complex Reactionmeter Drenovac (CRD-series) tests.
AIM
To assess age- and gender-associated differences in cognitive and psychomotor abilities measured by the Complex Reactionmeter Drenovac (CRD-series) tests.
METHODS
This cross-sectional study, conducted between 2009 and 2019, enrolled 3420 participants (2012 women) in the age ranging from 18 to 88 years. The participants solved three CRD-series chronometric tests: discrimination of the light signal position (CRD311), complex psychomotor coordination (CRD411), and simple arithmetic operations (CRD11). We analyzed total test solving time (TTST), minimum single task solving time (MinT), number of errors, initial dissociation, and start, end, and total ballasts as measures of wasted time in the first half of the test, second half of the test, and total test time, respectively.
RESULTS
Age was positively associated with MinT and TTST in all used tests (P<0.001), while initial dissociation, start ballast, and end ballast significantly increased with age (P<0.001). On the CRD11 test, men had shorter TTST than women (P=0.012), shorter start, end, and total ballasts (P<0.001), and made fewer errors than women (P<0.001). On the CRD311 test, women had shorter start (P=0.002), end, and total ballast (P<0.001) than men. On the CRD411 test, men performed better than women on all variables (P<0.001).
CONCLUSION
Decreased cognitive and psychomotor abilities measured by the CRD-series tests were associated with advanced age. Men performed better than women on simple arithmetic and complex psychomotor coordination tests, whereas women lost less time on the test of light signal position discrimination.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Age Factors; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Cognition; Cross-Sectional Studies; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Neuropsychological Tests; Psychomotor Performance; Sex Factors; Young Adult
PubMed: 32378374
DOI: 10.3325/cmj.2020.61.82 -
Acta Psychologica Oct 2022
Topics: Humans; Cognition; Psychomotor Performance
PubMed: 35918195
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103692 -
Nature Communications Apr 2020Perceptual decisions are accompanied by feelings of confidence that reflect the likelihood that the decision was correct. Here we aim to clarify the relationship between...
Perceptual decisions are accompanied by feelings of confidence that reflect the likelihood that the decision was correct. Here we aim to clarify the relationship between perception and confidence by studying the same perceptual task across three different confidence contexts. Human observers were asked to categorize the source of sequentially presented visual stimuli. Each additional stimulus provided evidence for making more accurate perceptual decisions, and better confidence judgements. We show that observers' ability to set appropriate evidence accumulation bounds for perceptual decisions is strongly predictive of their ability to make accurate confidence judgements. When observers were not permitted to control their exposure to evidence, they imposed covert bounds on their perceptual decisions but not on their confidence decisions. This partial dissociation between decision processes is reflected in behaviour and pupil dilation. Together, these findings suggest a confidence-regulated accumulation-to-bound process that controls perceptual decision-making even in the absence of explicit speed-accuracy trade-offs.
Topics: Adult; Algorithms; Computer Simulation; Decision Making; Female; Humans; Male; Models, Psychological; Photic Stimulation; Psychomotor Performance; Visual Perception
PubMed: 32273500
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15561-w -
Nature Communications Jul 2020How does the brain control an effector as complex and versatile as the hand? One possibility is that neural control is simplified by limiting the space of hand...
How does the brain control an effector as complex and versatile as the hand? One possibility is that neural control is simplified by limiting the space of hand movements. Indeed, hand kinematics can be largely described within 8 to 10 dimensions. This oft replicated finding has been construed as evidence that hand postures are confined to this subspace. A prediction from this hypothesis is that dimensions outside of this subspace reflect noise. To address this question, we track the hand of human participants as they perform two tasks-grasping and signing in American Sign Language. We apply multiple dimension reduction techniques and replicate the finding that most postural variance falls within a reduced subspace. However, we show that dimensions outside of this subspace are highly structured and task dependent, suggesting they too are under volitional control. We propose that hand control occupies a higher dimensional space than previously considered.
Topics: Adult; Biomechanical Phenomena; Hand; Humans; Motor Activity; Posture; Principal Component Analysis; Psychomotor Performance; Volition; Young Adult
PubMed: 32678102
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17404-0 -
Topics in Cognitive Science Oct 2022Most computational theories of cognition lack a representation of physiology. Understanding the cognitive effects of compounds present in the environment is important...
Most computational theories of cognition lack a representation of physiology. Understanding the cognitive effects of compounds present in the environment is important for explaining and predicting changes in cognition and behavior given exposure to toxins, pharmaceuticals, or the deprivation of critical compounds like oxygen. This research integrates physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model predictions of caffeine concentrations in blood and tissues with ACT-R's fatigue module to predict the effects of caffeine on fatigue. Mapping between the PBPK model parameters and ACT-R model parameters is informed by the neurophysiological literature and established associations between ACT-R modules and brain regions. The results from three such parameter mappings are explored to explain observed data from sleep-deprived participants performing the psychomotor vigilance test with and without caffeine. Predicted caffeine concentrations in the brain are used to modulate procedural parameters in the fatigue module to explain caffeine's effects on multiple performance metrics.
Topics: Humans; Caffeine; Sleep Deprivation; Psychomotor Performance; Fatigue; Oxygen; Pharmaceutical Preparations
PubMed: 35634901
DOI: 10.1111/tops.12615 -
Cell Reports May 2020To understand the neural basis of behavior, it is important to reveal how movements are planned, executed, and refined by networks of neurons distributed throughout the...
To understand the neural basis of behavior, it is important to reveal how movements are planned, executed, and refined by networks of neurons distributed throughout the nervous system. Here, we report the neuroanatomical organization and behavioral roles of cerebellospinal (CeS) neurons. Using intersectional genetic techniques, we find that CeS neurons constitute a small minority of excitatory neurons in the fastigial and interpositus deep cerebellar nuclei, target pre-motor circuits in the ventral spinal cord and the brain, and control distinct aspects of movement. CeS neurons that project to the ipsilateral cervical cord are required for skilled forelimb performance, while CeS neurons that project to the contralateral cervical cord are involved in skilled locomotor learning. Together, this work establishes CeS neurons as a critical component of the neural circuitry for skilled movements and provides insights into the organizational logic of motor networks.
Topics: Animals; Cerebellar Nuclei; Mice; Neurons; Psychomotor Performance
PubMed: 32402292
DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107595 -
Biological Psychiatry. Cognitive... Sep 2019The strategy of integrating motor signals with sensory information during voluntary behavior is a general feature of sensory processing. It is required to distinguish... (Review)
Review
The strategy of integrating motor signals with sensory information during voluntary behavior is a general feature of sensory processing. It is required to distinguish externally applied (exafferent) from self-generated (reafferent) sensory inputs. This distinction, in turn, underlies our ability to achieve both perceptual stability and accurate motor control during everyday activities. In this review, we consider the results of recent experiments that have provided circuit-level insight into how motor-related inputs to sensory areas selectively cancel self-generated sensory inputs during active behaviors. These studies have revealed both common strategies and important differences across systems. Sensory reafference is suppressed at the earliest stages of central processing in the somatosensory, vestibular, and auditory systems, with the cerebellum and cerebellum-like structures playing key roles. Furthermore, motor-related inputs can also suppress reafferent responses at higher levels of processing such as the cortex-a strategy preferentially used in visual processing. These recent findings have important implications for understanding how the brain achieves the flexibility required to continuously calibrate relationships between motor signals and the resultant sensory feedback, a computation necessary for our subjective awareness that we control both our actions and their sensory consequences.
Topics: Brain; Cerebellum; Feedback, Sensory; Humans; Models, Neurological; Perception; Psychomotor Performance
PubMed: 31401034
DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2019.06.003