Temporal predictive mechanisms modulate motor reaction time during initiation and inhibition of speech and hand movement

Skilled movement is mediated by motor commands executed with extremely fine temporal precision. The question of how the brain incorporates temporal information to perform motor actions has remained unanswered. This study investigated the effect of stimulus temporal predictability on response timing of speech and hand movement. Subjects performed a randomized vowel vocalization or button press task in two counterbalanced blocks in response to temporally-predictable and unpredictable visual cues. Results indicated that speech and hand reaction time was decreased for predictable compared with unpredictable stimuli. This finding suggests that a temporal predictive code is established to capture temporal dynamics of sensory cues in order to produce faster movements in responses to predictable stimuli. In addition, results revealed a main effect of modality, indicating faster hand movement compared with speech. We suggest that this effect is accounted for by the inherent complexity of speech production compared with hand movement. Lastly, we found that movement inhibition was faster than initiation for both hand and speech, suggesting that movement initiation requires a longer processing time to coordinate activities across multiple regions in the brain. These findings provide new insights into the mechanisms of temporal information processing during initiation and inhibition of speech and hand movement.     

Neural correlates of temporal auditory processing in developmental dyslexia during German vowel length discrimination: an fMRI study

This fMRI study investigated phonological vs. auditory temporal processing in developmental dyslexia by means of a German vowel length discrimination paradigm (Groth, Lachmann, Riecker, Muthmann, & Steinbrink, 2011). Behavioral and fMRI data were collected from dyslexics and controls while performing same-different judgments of vowel duration in two experimental conditions. In the temporal, but not in the phonological condition, hemodynamic brain activation was observed bilaterally within the anterior insular cortices in both groups and within the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in controls, indicating that the left IFG and the anterior insular cortices are part of a neural network involved in temporal auditory processing. Group subtraction analyses did not demonstrate significant effects. However, in a subgroup analysis, participants performing low in the temporal condition (all dyslexic) showed decreased activation of the insular cortices and the left IFG, suggesting that this processing network might form the neural basis of temporal auditory processing deficits in dyslexia.     

Attentional bias to pain-relevant body locations: New methods,new challenges

In a recent issue of Consciousness and Cognition, Filbrich, Torta, Vanderclausen, Azanon, and Legrain (2016) commented on a paper in which we used a tactile Temporal Order Judgment (TOJ) task to show that expecting pain on a specific body location biased attention to that location (Vanden Bulcke, Crombez, Durnez, & Van Damme, 2015). Their main criticism is that the effects are likely to reflect response bias rather than genuine attentional bias. We agree that the TOJ task used may be susceptible to response bias, and welcome the authors’ methodological suggestions to control for such bias. However, we feel that certain aspects of our work are misrepresented in their paper. Most importantly, we contest their argument that our instructions made the threat location task-relevant, thereby increasing risk of response bias. Further, we reply to other methodological and theoretical issues raised by these authors.     

Hold the future,let the past go: Attention prefers the features of future targets

Previous studies have shown that attention can be captured by task-irrelevant distractors under the guidance of attentional control settings. However, it is unknown whether people can establish an attentional control setting (ACS) for a sequence of distinct events. The present study tested that question by asking observers to expect a sequence of two colored targets in a specific order. The results show that irrelevant distractors that matched either the color of the first expected target or that of the second target captured attention. Thus observers are unable to temporarily suppress the color of the future target in their ACS. However, the temporal order of targets is still useful for guiding attention: Observers were able to abandon the color of the first target and maintain an ACS for the second one as long as there was a sufficient time interval between the two targets.     

Functional dissociations in temporal preparation: Evidence from dual-task performance

Implicit preparation over time is a complex cognitive capacity important to optimize behavioral responses to a target occurring after a temporal interval, the so-called foreperiod (FP). If the FP occurs randomly and with the same a priori probability, shorter response times are usually observed with longer FPs than with shorter ones (FP effect). Moreover, responses are slower when the preceding FP was longer than the current one (sequential effects). It is still a matter of debate how different processes influence these temporal preparation phenomena. The present study used a dual-task procedure to understand how different processes, along the automatic-controlled continuum, may contribute to these temporal preparation phenomena. Dual-task demands were manipulated in two experiments using a subtraction task during the FP. This secondary task was administered in blocks (Experiment 1) or was embedded together with a baseline single-task in the same experimental session (Experiment 2). The results consistently showed that the size of the FP effect, but not that of sequential effects, is sensitive to dual-task manipulations. This functional dissociation unveils the multi-faceted nature of implicit temporal preparation: while the FP effect is due to a controlled, resource-consuming preparatory mechanism, a more automatic mechanism underlies sequential effects.     

When Language Gives Out: Conceptualization,and Aspect‐Seeing as a Form of Judgment

This article characterizes aspect‐perception as a distinct form of judgment in Kant's sense: a distinct way in which the mind contacts world and applies concepts. First, aspect‐perception involves a mode of thinking about things apart from any established routine of conceptualizing them. It is thus a form of concept application that is essentially reflection about language. Second, this mode of reflection has an experiential, sometimes perceptual, element: in aspect‐perception, that is, we experience meanings—bodies of norms. Third, aspect‐perception can be “preparatory”: it may help us to decide what linguistic norms to develop and how to conceptualize—make the world thinkable. Fourth, the article discusses the forms of justification for which aspect‐perception allows—the necessity and normativity involved in employing this form of judgment.     

Temporal texture of associative encoding modulates recall processes

Binding aspects of an experience that are distributed over time is an important element of episodic memory. In the current study, we examined how the temporal complexity of an experience may govern the processes required for its retrieval. We recorded event-related potentials during episodic cued recall following pair associate learning of concurrently and sequentially presented object-picture pairs. Cued recall success effects over anterior and posterior areas were apparent in several time windows. In anterior locations, these recall success effects were similar for concurrently and sequentially encoded pairs. However, in posterior sites clustered over parietal scalp the effect was larger for the retrieval of sequentially encoded pairs. We suggest that anterior aspects of the mid-latency recall success effects may reflect working-with-memory operations or direct access recall processes, while more posterior aspects reflect recollective processes which are required for retrieval of episodes of greater temporal complexity.