Contextual interference processing during fast categorisations of facial expressions

We examined interference effects of emotionally associated background colours during fast valence categorisations of negative, neutral and positive expressions. According to implicitly learned colour–emotion associations, facial expressions were presented with colours that either matched the valence of these expressions or not. Experiment 1 included infrequent non-matching trials and Experiment 2 a balanced ratio of matching and non-matching trials. Besides general modulatory effects of contextual features on the processing of facial expressions, we found differential effects depending on the valance of target facial expressions. Whereas performance accuracy was mainly affected for neutral expressions, performance speed was specifically modulated by emotional expressions indicating some susceptibility of emotional expressions to contextual features. Experiment 3 used two further colour–emotion combinations, but revealed only marginal interference effects most likely due to missing colour–emotion associations. The results are discussed with respect to inherent processing demands of emotional and neutral expressions and their susceptibility to contextual interference.     

Affective states leak into movement execution: Automatic avoidance of threatening stimuli in fear of spider is visible in reach trajectories

Several studies have shown that the attentional blink (AB; Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, 1992) is diminished for highly arousing T2 stimuli (e.g., Anderson, 2005). Whereas this effect is most often interpreted as evidence for a more efficient processing of arousing information, it could be due also to a bias to report more arousing stimuli than neutral stimuli. We introduce a paradigm that allows one to control for such a response bias. Using this paradigm, we obtained evidence that the diminished AB for taboo words cannot be explained by a response bias. This supports the idea that the emotional modulation of the AB is caused by attentional processes.     

前摄干扰对工作记忆的作用——大脑如何解决前摄干扰?

前摄干扰(PI)对工作记忆有决定性影响.注意加工理论认为处于工作记忆“注意焦点”的信息不受PI影响,偏向-竞争理论则提出个体对熟悉信息和情景信息代码做出权重评估,解决工作记忆PI效应.研究者从工作记忆编码和提取加工的PI效应、内容相关和情景相关的PI效应、PI消除的脑成像特征等角度进行了验证,多数结果支持偏向-竞争理论.未来研究应使用脑成像技术探讨PI效应与工作记忆子系统、子功能之间的关系等主题.     

Contextual Interference Effect: Elaborative Processing or Forgetting—Reconstruction? A Post Hoc Analysis of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation—Induced Effects on Motor Learning

The elaborative-processing and forgetting-reconstruction hypotheses are the 2 principal explanations for the contextual interference (CI) effect. The present authors' purpose was to identify which of these 2 hypotheses better accounts for the CI effect. They synchronized single transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulses to each intertrial interval to modulate information processing during Blocked and Random Practice conditions. Participants practiced 3 arm tasks with either a Blocked or Random Practice order. The 3 stimulation conditions (No TMS, TMS, Sham TMS) by 2-practice order (Blocked, Random) between-participant design resulted in 6 experimental groups. Without TMS, motor learning increased under Random Practice. With TMS, this learning benefit diminished. These results support the elaborative-processing hypothesis by showing that perturbing information processing, evoked by Random Practice, deteriorates the learning benefit. Unlike the prediction of the forgetting—reconstruction hypothesis, adding perturbation during Blocked Practice did not significantly enhance motor learning.     

Rapid Error Correction During Human Arm Movements

Studies were made of rapid error correction movements in eight subjects performing a visually guided tracking task involving flexion-extension movements about the elbow. Subjects were required to minimize reaction times in this two-choice task. Errors in initial movement direction occurred in about 3% of the trials. Error correction times (time from initiation to reversal of movement in incorrect direction) ranged from 30-150 ms. The first sign of correction of the error movement was a suppression of the electromyographic (EMG) activity in the muscle producing the error movement. This suppression started as early as 20-40 ms after the initiation of the error-related EMG activity and as much as 50 ms before any overt sign of limb movement. The correction of the error movement was also accompanied by an increase in the drive to the muscle which moved the arm in the correct direction. This increased activity always occurred after the initiation of the error movement. It is concluded that the first step in the error correction, suppression of drive to the muscle producing the error movement, cannot be based on information from the moving limb. It is thus suggested that this earliest response to the error movement is based on central monitoring of the commands for movement.     

The Effect of Delayed Responding on Stroop-Like Task Performance Among Preschoolers

Forty-four preschoolers completed 2 conditions of a Stroop-like procedure (e.g., saying “boat” for car and “car” for boat) that differed in whether a 3-s delay was imposed before responding. The test card was visible during the delay period for half of the children and occluded for the other children. Preschoolers’ interference control was significantly improved in the delay condition. There was no difference between the two delay variants (test card visible or occluded). Children were more prone to interference as testing progressed regardless of whether the delay was present. These results suggest that delays effectively reduce interference by reducing the potency of the competing response during test trials, although memory demands may moderate the effectiveness of delays.     

Interference Effects from Observed Movement in Parkinson's Disease

Previous research has demonstrated that Parkinson's disease patients have an increased susceptibility to response conflict. In the present study, the authors investigate whether Parkinson's patients have a similar sensitivity to interference from observed movements. In all, 10 patients and 10 controls performed horizontal and vertical arm movements while watching a video of either a person performing similar movements or a moving dot. Movements were performed in the same plane (congruent) and orthogonal to the observed movement (incongruent). The off-axis variance of movements was our index of interference. Although patients tended to exhibit more off-axis variability than did controls, both groups demonstrated similar congruence effects, with greater variance in incongruent conditions. These results indicated that increased susceptibility to interference in Parkinson's disease does not extend to interference from observed movements.     

The Boston Naming Test and Swedish children: Normative Data and response analysis

The present study concerns responses to the Boston Naming Test (BNT) in a sample of native Swedish-speaking children between the ages of 6 and 15. Normative data are presented not only for the number of correct responses but also for the frequency of types of substitutive responses on the BNT. The study involved 152 children and adolescents from four different grades (kindergarten, third grade, sixth grade, and ninth grade). For the sample, a normal distribution of test subjects was sought, including both linguistically weaker and stronger students from school classes in representative areas. The results for the Swedish children and adolescents were slightly lower than the American norms for the BNT. A classification was undertaken of the non-target-word responses, which showed that there were significant differences in the use of the various semantic response categories among the grades. As expected, the younger children gave more unspecific responses and also omitted more responses than the older children. Based on the results of this study, it can be maintained that despite cultural and linguistic differences, the BNT is applicable for examining the vocabulary and word retrieval abilities of native Swedish-speaking children and adolescents.     

Inhibition of irrelevant category–response mappings

When switching tasks, performance tends to be worse for n – 2 repetitions than with n – 2 switches. This n – 2 repetition cost has been hypothesized to reflect task-set inhibition: specifically, inhibition of irrelevant category–response mappings involved in response selection. This hypothesis leads to divergent predictions for situations in which all tasks involve the same stimulus categories: An n – 2 repetition cost is predicted when response sets differ across tasks, but not when the response set stays the same. The authors tested these predictions by having subjects perform relative judgements with different reference points. In Experiment 1, the stimulus categories were the same across reference points, but the response set either differed or stayed the same (the multiple- and single-mapping conditions, respectively). An n – 2 repetition cost was found in the multiple-mapping condition but not in the single-mapping condition. Experiment 2 provided evidence against the possibility that these divergent effects reflected differences in memory load. These findings confirm predictions that link n – 2 repetition costs to inhibition of irrelevant category–response mappings.     

Updating of working memory: Lingering bindings

Three experiments investigated proactive interference and proactive facilitation in a memory-updating paradigm. Participants remembered several letters or spatial patterns, distinguished by their spatial positions, and updated them by new stimuli up to 20 times per trial. Self-paced updating times were shorter when an item previously remembered and then replaced reappeared in the same location than when it reappeared in a different location. This effect demonstrates residual memory for no-longer-relevant bindings of items to locations. The effect increased with the number of items to be remembered. With one exception, updating times did not increase, and recall of final values did not decrease, over successive updating steps, thus providing little evidence for proactive interference building up cumulatively.