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Psychological Research Sep 2023Backward inhibition is posited to aid task switching by counteracting the tendency to repeat a recent task. Evidence that factors such as cue transparency affect...
Backward inhibition is posited to aid task switching by counteracting the tendency to repeat a recent task. Evidence that factors such as cue transparency affect backward inhibition seems to imply that it is generated during task preparation, making its absence following trials on which a prepared task was not performed (nogo trials) surprising. However, the nogo method used in previous studies might have prevented detection of preparation-driven effects. We used a truncated-trial method instead, omitting stages of a trial with no need for a nogo signal. In Experiment 1, an n - 2 repetition cost (suggested to indicate backward inhibition) followed trials truncated after response selection, indicating that response execution is not necessary to trigger backward inhibition. In Experiments 2 and 3, no n - 2 repetition cost was obtained following trials truncated after cue presentation. To ensure some task preparation on cue-only trials, Experiment 4 used a double-registration procedure where participants responded to the task cue and the target on each trial. In contrast to Experiments 2 and 3, a small n - 2 repetition cost followed trials truncated after cue responses, affecting cue responses on the current trial. In addition, the n - 2 repetition cost was increased at cue responses and became evident at target responses when the preceding trial also involved a target response. These results imply that backward inhibition might be generated by processes occurring up to and including a cue response, affecting subsequent cue responses, as well as during task performance itself, affecting subsequent cue and target responses.
Topics: Humans; Task Performance and Analysis; Reaction Time; Cues; Inhibition, Psychological; Personality Inventory; Psychomotor Performance
PubMed: 36571593
DOI: 10.1007/s00426-022-01780-x -
Alcohol (Fayetteville, N.Y.) Sep 2017Humans with histories of prolonged heavy alcohol use exhibit poorer performance on cognitive tasks associated with problem solving, short-term memory, and visuospatial...
Humans with histories of prolonged heavy alcohol use exhibit poorer performance on cognitive tasks associated with problem solving, short-term memory, and visuospatial reasoning, even following the cessation of drinking, when compared with healthy controls. It is unclear, however, whether the cognitive problems are a consequence of alcohol exposure or a contributing factor to alcohol-use disorders. Here, we examined the relationship between performance on a novel object recognition (NOR) task and total alcohol consumption (TAC) in adult male rhesus macaques (n = 12; ETH group; trained to self-administer alcohol). NOR performance in this group was assessed prior to induction of alcohol drinking ("pre") and, again, after a 1-year abstinence period ("post") and was compared to the performance of a second group (n = 6; Control group), which was alcohol-naïve. In the NOR task, difficulty was manipulated across three phases by varying specific object features and/or by varying duration of access to objects. For each monkey, we measured aspects of novelty-related behavior including novelty detection, novelty reactivity, and perseverative behavior. TAC during induction and a "free" access period in which the monkey could choose between water and a 4% w/v ethanol solution also was determined. We found that performance deficits in the NOR task were a consequence of high total alcohol intake instead of a predictor of subsequent high intake. Poor NOR performance in drinkers with the highest intakes was characterized by increased perseverative behavior rather than an inability to detect or react to novelty. Finally, the observed deficits are long-lasting - persisting even after a year of abstinence. Given the prevalent and persistent nature of alcohol-induced cognitive deficits in patients in treatment settings, understanding the nature of the deficit and its neural basis could ultimately offer novel treatment approaches based on the reversal of alcohol-induced impairment.
Topics: Alcohol Drinking; Animals; Ethanol; Exploratory Behavior; Macaca mulatta; Male; Psychomotor Performance; Self Administration
PubMed: 28847378
DOI: 10.1016/j.alcohol.2017.03.002 -
Nature Apr 2022Looking and reaching are controlled by different brain regions and are coordinated during natural behaviour. Understanding how flexible, natural behaviours such as...
Looking and reaching are controlled by different brain regions and are coordinated during natural behaviour. Understanding how flexible, natural behaviours such as coordinated looking and reaching are controlled depends on understanding how neurons in different regions of the brain communicate. Neural coherence in a gamma-frequency (40-90 Hz) band has been implicated in excitatory multiregional communication. Inhibitory control mechanisms are also required to flexibly control behaviour, but little is known about how neurons in one region transiently suppress individual neurons in another to support behaviour. How neuronal firing in a sender region transiently suppresses firing in a receiver region remains poorly understood. Here we study inhibitory communication during a flexible, natural behaviour, termed gaze anchoring, in which saccades are transiently inhibited by coordinated reaches. During gaze anchoring, we found that neurons in the reach region of the posterior parietal cortex can inhibit neuronal firing in the parietal saccade region to suppress eye movements and improve reach accuracy. Suppression is transient, only present around the coordinated reach, and greatest when reach neurons fire spikes with respect to beta-frequency (15-25 Hz) activity, not gamma-frequency activity. Our work provides evidence in the activity of single neurons for a novel mechanism of inhibitory communication in which beta-frequency neural coherence transiently inhibits multiregional communication to flexibly coordinate natural behaviour.
Topics: Animals; Eye Movements; Fixation, Ocular; Macaca mulatta; Motor Skills; Neurons; Parietal Lobe; Psychomotor Performance; Saccades
PubMed: 35444285
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04631-2 -
Perception Apr 2020People have a good intuition of how to move a computer mouse to place a cursor at a desired position on a screen. This is surprising because the hand and the mouse are...
People have a good intuition of how to move a computer mouse to place a cursor at a desired position on a screen. This is surprising because the hand and the mouse are at different locations and they generally move in different directions and over different distances. But using a computer mouse is not always intuitive: try positioning a cursor after turning the mouse by 90° in your hand. To examine when using a computer mouse is intuitive, we asked participants to move a cursor to targets on a screen by moving a mouse along a surface. We varied the orientation of this surface in space and that of the mouse in the hand. Participants performed best when the mapping between hand and cursor motion was close to what we are accustomed to, either in space or relative to the forearm.
Topics: Computer Peripherals; Humans; Intuition; Psychomotor Performance
PubMed: 32237966
DOI: 10.1177/0301006620915152 -
Psychopharmacology Feb 2014There is a substantial body of literature documenting the deleterious effects of both alcohol consumption and age on driving performance. There is, however, limited work...
RATIONALE
There is a substantial body of literature documenting the deleterious effects of both alcohol consumption and age on driving performance. There is, however, limited work examining the interaction of age and acute alcohol consumption.
OBJECTIVES
The current study was conducted to determine if moderate alcohol doses differentially affect the driving performance of older and younger adults.
METHODS
Healthy older (55-70) and younger (25-35) adults were tested during a baseline session and again following consumption of one of three beverages [0.0 % (placebo), 0.04 % or 0.065 % target breath alcohol concentration]. Measures of driving precision and average speed were recorded.
RESULTS
Older adults performed more poorly on precision driving measures and drove more slowly than younger adults at baseline. After controlling for baseline performance, interactions between alcohol and age were observed following beverage consumption on two measures of driving precision with older adults exhibiting greater impairment as a result of alcohol consumption.
CONCLUSIONS
These data provide evidence that older adults may be more susceptible to the effects of alcohol on certain measures of driving performance. An investigation of mechanisms accounting for alcohol's effects on driving in older and younger adults is required. Further evaluation using more complex driving environments is needed to assess the real-world implication of this interaction.
Topics: Adult; Aged; Aging; Alcohol Drinking; Alcoholic Intoxication; Automobile Driving; Breath Tests; Central Nervous System Depressants; Computer Simulation; Ethanol; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Psychomotor Performance; Task Performance and Analysis; User-Computer Interface; Young Adult
PubMed: 24030469
DOI: 10.1007/s00213-013-3269-4 -
Scientific Reports Jun 2023In ensembles, people synchronize the timings of their movements with those of others. Players sometimes take on preceding and trailing roles, whereby one's beat is...
In ensembles, people synchronize the timings of their movements with those of others. Players sometimes take on preceding and trailing roles, whereby one's beat is either slightly earlier or slightly later than that of another. In this study, we aimed to clarify whether the division of preceding and trailing roles occurs in simple rhythmic coordination among non-musicians. Additionally, we investigated the temporal dependencies between these roles. We conducted a synchronous-continuous tapping task involving pairs of people, whereby pairs of participants first tapped to synchronize with a metronome. After the metronome stopped, the participants synchronized their taps to their partners' tap timings, which were presented as auditory stimuli. Except in one trial, the pairs involved participants taking on preceding and trailing roles. Compared to the participants taking on the trailing role, those taking on the preceding role demonstrated enhanced phase-correction responses, while those taking on the trailing role significantly adapted their tempos to match those of their partners. As a result, people spontaneously divided into preceding and trailing roles. The preceding participants tended to reduce asynchronies, while the trailing participants tended to match their tempo to their partners'.
Topics: Humans; Movement; Psychomotor Performance
PubMed: 37332049
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-36880-0 -
Experimental and Clinical... Feb 2010Benzodiazepines and alcohol are widely used psychoactive substances that have performance-impairing effects. Research suggests that the impairment profiles for... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
Benzodiazepines and alcohol are widely used psychoactive substances that have performance-impairing effects. Research suggests that the impairment profiles for benzodiazepines and alcohol differ, although few cognitive psychopharmacological studies have directly compared these drugs. This double-blind, double-dummy, placebo-controlled, repeated measures study directly compared the acute dose effects of triazolam (0.125, 0.25 mg/70 kg) and alcohol (0.40, 0.80 g/kg) in 20 social drinkers. At doses that produced comparable psychomotor impairment, triazolam was more likely to impair several objective measures of cognitive performance (e.g., episodic memory, divided attention) and to slow performance across several measures. However, only alcohol impaired accuracy on the digit symbol substitution and semantic memory tasks. In addition to objective measures, both drugs impaired awareness of performance impairments (i.e., metacognition) such that participants overestimated impairment, and the magnitude of this effect was generally larger for alcohol. Only triazolam impaired other measures of metacognition (e.g., error detection on a choice reaction time task). Future research might examine the clinical implications of the performance impairments reported here given the widespread use of benzodiazepines and alcohol.
Topics: Adult; Cognition; Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; Double-Blind Method; Ethanol; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time; Triazolam; Young Adult
PubMed: 20158290
DOI: 10.1037/a0018407 -
Neuroscience Letters Sep 2020Exposure to light, particularly blue-wavelength light, has been shown to acutely increase brain activation, alertness, and some elementary aspects of cognitive...
Exposure to light, particularly blue-wavelength light, has been shown to acutely increase brain activation, alertness, and some elementary aspects of cognitive performance such as working memory and emotional anticipation. Whether blue light exposure can have effects on brain activation and performance during more complex cognitive control tasks up to 30 min after light cessation is unknown. In a sample of 32 healthy adults, we examined the effects of a 30 min exposure to either blue (n = 16) or amber control (n = 16) light on subsequent brain activation and performance during the Multi-Source Interference Task (MSIT) measured a half-hour after light exposure. Performance on the MSIT did not differ between the blue and amber conditions. However, brain activation within the task positive network (TPN) to the interference condition was significantly lower in the blue relative to the amber condition, while no group differences were observed for suppression of the default mode network (DMN). These findings suggest that, compared to control, a single exposure to blue light was associated with enhanced neural efficiency, as demonstrated by reduced TPN activation to achieve the same level of performance. Blue light may be an effective method for optimizing neurocognitive performance under some conditions.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Attention; Brain; Cognition; Female; Humans; Light; Male; Memory, Short-Term; Nerve Net; Psychomotor Performance; Young Adult
PubMed: 32652208
DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2020.135242 -
Current Opinion in Neurobiology Dec 2010The roles of the basal ganglia (BG) in motor control are much debated. Many influential hypotheses have grown from studies in which output signals of the BG were not... (Review)
Review
The roles of the basal ganglia (BG) in motor control are much debated. Many influential hypotheses have grown from studies in which output signals of the BG were not blocked, but pathologically disturbed. A weakness of that approach is that the resulting behavioral impairments reflect degraded function of the BG per se mixed together with secondary dysfunctions of BG-recipient brain areas. To overcome that limitation, several studies have focused on the main skeletomotor output region of the BG, the globus pallidus internus (GPi). Using single-cell recording and inactivation protocols these studies provide consistent support for two hypotheses: the BG modulates movement performance ('vigor') according to motivational factors (i.e. context-specific cost/reward functions) and the BG contributes to motor learning. Results from these studies also add to the problems that confront theories positing that the BG selects movement, inhibits unwanted motor responses, corrects errors on-line, or stores and produces well-learned motor skills.
Topics: Animals; Basal Ganglia; Humans; Motivation; Motor Skills; Nerve Net; Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time
PubMed: 20850966
DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2010.08.022 -
PloS One 2018We investigated the effects of a single instance of caffeine intake on neurocognitive functions and driving performance in healthy subjects using an established... (Randomized Controlled Trial)
Randomized Controlled Trial
OBJECTIVE
We investigated the effects of a single instance of caffeine intake on neurocognitive functions and driving performance in healthy subjects using an established cognitive battery and a driving simulator system.
METHODS
This study was conducted in a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled manner from February 19, 2016 to August 6, 2016. Caffeine intake was discontinued 3 days prior to the study. Participants were randomly assigned to receive 200-mg doses of caffeine or a placebo. Thirty minutes after administration, cognitive functions were evaluated via the Symbol Digit Coding Test (SDC), the Stroop Test (ST), the Shifting Attention Test (SAT) and the Four Part Continuous Performance Test (FPCPT). After the cognitive function tests were conducted, driving performance was evaluated using a driving simulator. We measured the brake reaction time (BRT) in the Harsh-braking test and the standard deviation of the lateral position (SDLP) in the Road-tracking test.
RESULTS
Of 100 randomized subjects, 50 (50%) of 100 in the caffeine group and 50 (50%) of 100 in the placebo group completed the study. Participants in the caffeine group had more correct responses than participants in the placebo group on the SAT (P = 0.03) and made fewer errors (P = 0.02). Participants in the caffeine group exhibited shorter times in the Harsh-braking test than participants in the placebo group (P = 0.048).
CONCLUSIONS
A single instance of caffeine intake changed some neurocognitive functions and driving performance in healthy volunteers.
TRIAL REGISTRATION
UMIN000023576.
Topics: Adult; Attention; Caffeine; Cognition; Double-Blind Method; Female; Healthy Volunteers; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Neuropsychology; Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time
PubMed: 30379815
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0202247