Experience with Event Timing Does not Alter Emergent Timing: Further Evidence for Robustness of Event and Emergent Timing

Although, event and emergent timings are thought of as mutually exclusive, significant correlations between tapping and circle drawing (Baer, Thibodeau, Gralnick, Li, &; Penhune, 2013 Baer, L. H., Thibodeau, J. L. N., Gralnick, T. M., Li, K. Z. H., &; Penhune, V. B. (2013). The role of musical training in emergent and event-based timing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7(191), 1–10. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00191.[Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]; Studenka, Zelaznik, &; Balasubramaniam, 2012 Studenka, B. E., Zelaznik, H. N., &; Balasubramaniam, R. (2012). The distinction between tapping and circle drawing with and without tactile feedback: An examination of the sources of timing variance. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(6), 1086–1100. doi:10.1080/17470218.2011.640404.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Zelaznik &; Rosenbaum, 2010 Zelaznik, H. N., &; Rosenbaum, D. A. (2010). Timing processes are correlated when tasks share a salient event. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 36(6), 1565–1575. doi:10.1037/a0020380.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) suggest that emergent timing may not be as robust as once thought. We aimed to test this hypothesis in both a younger (18–25) and older (55–100) population. Participants performed one block of circle drawing as a baseline, then six blocks of tapping, followed by circle drawing. We examined the use of event timing. Our hypothesis that acute experience with event timing would bias an individual to use event timing during an emergent task was not supported. We, instead, support the robustness of event and emergent timing as independent timing modes.     

Event Timing and Age Deficits in Higher-Order Sequence Learning

ABSTRACT

Recent studies have reported age deficits in learning sequences that contain subtle sequential regularities [e.g., Curran (1997) Curran, T. 1997. Effects of aging on implicit sequence learning: Accounting for sequence structure and explicit knowledge. Psychological Research, 60(1–2): 24–41.  [Google Scholar] Psychological Research, 60(1–2), 24; D. V. Howard et al. (2004) Howard, D. V., Howard, J. H. Jr, Japikse, K., DiYanni, C., Thompson, A. and Somberg, R. 2004. Implicit sequence learning: Effects of level of structure, adult age, and extended practice. Psychology and Aging, 19(1): 79–92. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] Psychology and Aging, 19(1), 79; Howard, J. H. Jr, & Howard, D. V. (1997) Howard, J. H. Jr and Howard, D. V. 1997. Age differences in implicit learning of higher order dependencies in serial patterns. Psychololgy and Aging, 12(4): 634–656. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. Psychololgy and Aging, 12(4), 634]. This finding is of potential theoretical interest, but the contribution of sequence event timing to this deficit has not been investigated. This study used an alternating serial reaction time task to examine implicit sequence learning in young adults when event timing mimicked that experienced by older adults in previous research. We varied the response-to-stimulus interval directly in Experiment 1 and indirectly by degrading the stimuli to influence response time in Experiment 2. Results indicate that these “aged” young adults learned the higher-order sequence structure implicitly, but they learned less than young controls and more than old adults on some measures of implicit learning in both experiments. In addition, these two different experimental manipulations produced distinct patterns of deficits despite having nearly identical effects on event sequence timing. These findings suggest that event timing alone cannot explain the age deficits observed in high-order implicit sequence learning.     

Reading deficits in learning disabled children

The purpose of this study was to determine whether LD children exhibited problems in the processes of attention, memory, or syntactical awareness when decoding written prose. Eighteen LD children and 18 normal controls were matched for initial word recognition skills. Subjects were then trained to read a list of individual words to criterion. Subsequently, they were tested on their ability to decode the same words in paragraph form, presented both immediately after training, and then again one week later. Half the children read paragraphs following standard English syntax, while the other half read a syntactically scrambled version of the same paragraph. The results indicated that a major contributing factor in the reading (decoding) difficulties demonstrated by the LD children derived from problems of acquisition and retrieval from long-term memory storage. The results were discussed in terms of their implications for the developmental lag theory of learning disabilities.     

Effects of age simulation and age on motor sequence learning: Interaction of age-related cognitive and motor decline

Aging is known to lead to decrements in sensory and cognitive functioning and motor performance. The purpose of the present experiment was twofold: a) We assessed the influence of wearing an age simulation suit on motor sequence learning, cognitive speed tasks and far visual acuity in healthy, younger adults. b) We evaluated the interaction of cognitive aging and declining motor sequence learning in older adults. In a between-subjects design we tested 11 younger adults (M_age = 23.6 years) without the age suit, 12 younger adults wearing the age suit (M_age = 23.2 years), and 23 older adults (M_age = 72.6 years). All participants learned a simple, spatial-temporal movement sequence on two consecutive days, and we assessed perceptual processing speed (Digit Symbol Substitution test and Figural Speed test) and far visual acuity. Wearing an age simulation suit neither affected the learning of the simple motor sequence nor the performance at the cognitive speed tasks in younger adults. However, far visual acuity suffered from wearing the suit. Younger adults with and without the suit showed better motor sequence learning compared to older adults. The significant correlations between the cognitive speed tests and the motor learning performance in older adults indicated that cognitive aging partially explains some of the variance in age-related motor learning deficits.     

Timing and force components in bilateral transfer of learning

Bilateral transfer of perceptual and motor components in movement control was investigated through two experiments. In Experiment 1 a simple anticipatory timing task was practiced with either the preferred or the nonpreferred hand. After a short resting interval an additional set of trials was performed with the contralateral hand. In Experiment 2, the same experimental design was used to investigate bilateral transfer of fine force control in a wrist-flexion movement. Analysis of the results showed that bilateral transfer of learning took place for both anticipatory timing and force control, with more noticeable transfer of training for the former. Asymmetry in transfer was found for force control, with significant transfer only in the preferred-to-nonpreferred direction. Transfer of anticipatory timing occurred similarly in both directions. These results indicated anticipatory timing as a powerful component for bilateral transfer, while force control showed to be more dependent on practice with the specific muscular system.     

Spatial and visual learning deficits in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease

Experimental paradigms adopted from animal models were used to compare the neuropsychological mechanisms underlying the dementias of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Two tasks were selected because characteristic profiles of impairment in nonhuman primates are seen following selective lesions of frontal cortex, temporal cortex, and fornix. The tasks consisted of a spatial and a visual learning problem, each with two components: (1) original learning and (2) reversal of the original learning. The Alzheimer's patients were significantly impaired on original learning and reversal learning in the visual modality compared with demented Parkinson's patients, even though both groups were equated for severity of dementia. On the spatial tasks, both the Alzheimer's and the demented Parkinson's patients were impaired on reversal learning but not on original learning. The profile of deficits on the visual tasks may serve to differentiate Alzheimer's from Parkinson's dementia and may reflect selective orbitofrontal system lesions in the former.     

Age-related differences in sequence learning: Findings from two visuo-motor sequence learning tasks

The Serial Reaction Time Task (SRTT) is thought to assess implicit learning, which seems to be preserved with age. However, the reaction time (RT) measures employed on implicit-like tasks might be too unreliable to detect individual differences. We investigated whether RT-based measures mask age effects by comparing the performance of 43 younger and 35 older adults on SRTT and an explicit-like Predictive Sequence Learning Task (PSLT). RT-based measures (difference scores and a ratio) were collected for both tasks, and accuracy was additionally measured for PSLT. We also measured fluid abilities. The RT-difference scores indicated preserved SRTT and PSLT performance with age and did not correlate with fluid abilities, while ratio RT and the accuracy-based measures indicated age-related decline and correlated with fluid abilities. Therefore, RT-difference scores might mask individual differences, which compromises the interpretation of previous studies using SRTT.     

Negative priming and sequence learning

Three experiments used a novel sequence learning task, in which participants responded to changes in location of one visual stimulus whilst ignoring another. Experiment 1 demonstrated negative priming effects in this task, in that responses to individual sequence elements were disrupted when the attended stimulus (e.g., red asterisk) appeared at the location taken by the unattended stimulus (e.g., blue asterisk) on the immediately preceding trial. Experiments 2 and 3 found that negative priming effects extended beyond sensitivity to individual items, suggesting that people may be able to learn about sequential features of ignored events as well as about single events in isolation. The results are discussed in relation to current theories of negative priming.     

Attention and probabilistic sequence learning

Limitations of using fixed sequences of events in studies of learning in the sequential reaction-time task led us to develop a probabilistic version of the task. When sequences occur probabilistically, transitions usually follow a sequence, but with some small probability, events occur out of sequence. This variation on the paradigm provides new evidence associated with manipulations of attentional load. Most notably, single-task learning leads to particularly high error rates on improbable transitions, suggesting anticipation of the sequence. Dual-task learning shows sensitivity to the sequence (by reaction-time differences to probable and improbable transitions), but without inflated errors on improbable transitions. Sensitivity to the sequence and anticipatory errors disappeared when participants transferred from single-task learning to dual-task conditions, suggesting that what is learned with single-task practice cannot be applied under conditions of limited attention. When learners transferred from dual- to single-task conditions, sensitivity of RT to the sequence increased but anticipation errors remained the same, suggesting that attentional load limits performance, but not learning. Qualitative differences in performance result from variations in attentional resources, which may reflect different learning processes. Received: 17 February 1997 / Accepted: 5 January 1998     

Associative sequence learning in humans

In a series of experiments using the serial reaction time paradigm, the authors compared the predictions of a powerful associative model of sequence learning (the simple recurrent network; J. L. Elman, 1990) with human performance on the problem devised by A. Maskara and W. Noetzel (1993). Even though the predictions made by the simple recurrent network for variants of this problem are often counterintuitive, they matched human performance closely, suggesting that performance was associatively based rather than rule based. Simple associative chaining models of sequence learning, however, have difficulty in accommodating these results. The authors' conclusion is that, under the conditions of the experiments, human sequence learning is associatively driven, as long as this is understood to mean that a sufficiently powerful means of extracting the statistical regularities in the sequences is in play.     

Implicit sequence learning: effects of level of structure, adult age, and extended practice

The influence of structure and age on sequence learning was investigated by testing 24 young and 24 older participants for 10 sessions in an alternating serial response time task in which pattern trials alternated with random trials. Individuals encountered lag-2 or lag-3 structure, and learning was measured by the difference (in response time and accuracy) between pattern and random trials. Both ages learned lag-2 structure, but the young learned more than the older participants. Only the young people learned lag-3 structure, and they did so more slowly and to a lesser degree than they learned lag-2 structure. These age deficits in higher order sequence learning after extended practice are consistent with simultaneity theory and with theories positing that age-related deficits in neuromodulation lead to less distinctive representations.     

Explicit and implicit motor sequence learning in children and adults; the role of age and visual working memory

This study investigated explicit and implicit motor learning, and the influence of visual working memory (VWM) and age. Sixty children and 28 adults learned a nine-button sequence task explicitly and implicitly. Performance in explicit and implicit learning improved with age. Learning curves were similar across ages for implicit learning. In explicit learning, learning curves differed across ages: younger children started slower, but their learning rate was higher compared to older children. Learning curves were similar across VWM scores, but performance in explicit learning was positively influenced by VWM scores. Further research and implications for education and rehabilitation are discussed.     

Correlation and response relevance in sequence learning

We tested the effects of introducing a secondary sequence into the serial reaction time task. Specifically, we examined the role of correlated streams of information and response relevance. In the first experiment, the order of stimulus locations was correlated with the order of key press responses in the conventional way. A symbol-identity sequence, of a different length, was also present but no manual responses were made to it, and it was not correlated with any other stream of information. In the second experiment, two concurrent streams of location-based stimuli were presented. Both were sequenced but only one sequence required responses. Importantly, the sequences were either correlated with one another or not (same vs. different lengths). In the third experiment, the same design was used but with one sequence visual and the other auditory. In all three experiments, participants became sensitive to the sequence that required responses, and resultant knowledge was largely explicit. They were also sensitive to the sequence that did not require responses but only when it was correlated with the sequence that did, and here resultant knowledge was implicit. The findings suggest that the presence of a secondary sequence can affect learning, but only when stimuli in that sequence are integrated, through correlation, with responses made to the primary sequence.     

Ordinality and novel sequence learning in jackdaws

A hallmark of higher cognition is the flexible use of information. This requires an abstract representation of the information. In sequence learning, ordinal position knowledge is seen as a more versatile representation when compared to chaining. Here, we assessed which of these mental representations is the most natural and most dominant in jackdaws. Two jackdaws (Corvus monedula) were trained on 14 separate three-item sequences (triplets), made up of abstract images. On each trial, the three items of one triplet were presented in fixed order. The images represented either the first, second or third ordinal position. Test stimuli consisted of the three images and a distractor image that was chosen randomly from the remaining sequences. We rewarded pecking in the correct order to the images belonging to the same sequence. The most common error the birds made was to peck at a distractor item from the same ordinal position. To look at how versatile the jackdaws' ordinal knowledge was, we replaced a familiar item with a novel item in some sequences. We then created novel sequences with these items, which the birds completed correctly. It appears, then, that jackdaws have a concept of ordinal position.     

Inhibition and shifting in children with learning deficits in arithmetic and reading

The executive functions of inhibition and shifting were studied in arithmetic-disabled children, reading-disabled children, reading plus arithmetic-disabled children, and controls (N = 74). Measures involved the rapid naming of objects, digits, letters, or quantities with or without additional task requirements that reflected inhibition or shifting. Also, the Making Trails task, reflecting shifting, was administered. For tasks without executive demands, arithmetic-disabled children were slower in the naming of digits and quantities, whereas reading-disabled children were slower in the naming of digits and letters. For the executive tasks, arithmetic-disabled children as well as reading plus arithmetic-disabled children were impaired on the Making Trails task and on an object naming task that required both inhibition and shifting. Reading-disabled children exhibited no problems in executive functioning. Furthermore, it was shown that reading plus arithmetic-disabled children experienced the combination of problems that characterize children with a single learning deficit.     

Pure perceptual-based sequence learning

Learning a sequence of target locations when the sequence is uncorrelated with a sequence of responses and target location is not the response dimension (pure perceptual-based sequence learning) was examined. Using probabilistic sequences of target locations, the author shows that such learning can be implicit, is unaffected by distance between target locations, and is mostly limited to first-order transition probabilities. Moreover, the mechanism underlying learning affords processing of information at anticipated target locations and appears to be attention based. Implications for hypotheses of implicit sequence learning are discussed.