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The current article examines the limitations of perceptual judgment for the transcription of pause occurrence and duration. This investigation extends Kowal and O’Connell’s (2000) previous research, which examined pause occurrence and duration notated by perceptual judgment with measurements from acoustic instruments for three corpora. Kowal and O’Connell found that, across corpora, there were a notable number of errors in perceptual detection of pauses, including both failure to notate pauses measurable with instrumentation (misses) and notation of pauses that were not measurable (false positives). In this study we focus on pause transcription in a uniquely English-language database, examining four excerpts from the London-Lund Corpus (LLC). Pauses which had been notated perceptually in LLC were compared with pause measurements from a Siemens Oscillomink L. As in the previous research, it was found that a notable number of pauses detectable with the acoustic instruments were not notated in LLC, which relied on only perceptual judgment. Errors in pause detection, both false positives and misses, accounted for 86 cases over 257 perceptually notated pauses, an error rate of one in three. We also examined two assumptions of LLC: (1) The assumption that perceptually notated pauses would adhere to interval scaling was not substantiated by instrumental measurement. (2) The assumption (Crystal and Quirk 1964: 49) that “impressionistic relative length varies with the tempo norm of a given speaker” was also not substantiated insofar as all correlations of tempo (operationalized as articulation rate) with ambient pause duration were nonsignificant.

Many comparisons involve sequentially presented stimuli, as perforce the case in comparisons of temporal intervals. Interactions of such stimuli are as inevitable as the spatial interactions that yield color and brightness contrast. A memory-trace theory of perception (TToP) is developed and applied to time perception. Duration is estimated based on the memorial strength of the stimuli that signal the initiation of an interval at the time of its termination. Memorial persistence depends on modality and character of the signals, which condition the response to them. When the constant difference limen on the memorial continuum is back-translated to the temporal one it yields a generalized Weber function. Memory traces interact as a function of generalization gradients: Memories of stimuli that are similar enough are aggregated-feature-bound-some veridically, others as illusory conjunctions. The resulting representations may then be judged in a discrimination paradigm, or translated back to the physical domain as reproductions of the intervals. The presentation of a standard stimulus affects the perception of the comparison stimulus, warping the ruler by which it is measured. Complementary effects are predicted for discrimination and adjustment paradigms. Thus configured, the TToP accounts for multiple special effects, variously referred to as distortions, anomalies, and illusions, that are observed with classical psychophysical methods: Scalar and nonscalar timing, modality effects, time-order errors, masking, time warping, lengthening, and Vierordt's law. Similar processes affect the perception of nontemporal stimuli whenever they are presented in sequential proximity to one another. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The temporal predictability of upcoming events plays a crucial role in the adjustment of anticipatory cognitive control in multitasking. Previous research has demonstrated that task switching performance improved if tasks were validly predictable by a pre-target interval. Hence, far, the underlying cognitive processes of time-based task expectancy in task switching have not been clearly defined. The present study investigated whether the effect of time-based expectancy is due to expectancy of post-perceptual task components or rather due to facilitation of perceptual visual processing of the coloured task indicator. Participants performed two numeric judgment tasks (parity vs. magnitude), which were each indicated by two different colours. Each task was either more or less frequently preceded by one of two intervals (500 ms or 1500 ms). Tasks were indicated either by colours that were each more frequently (or in Exp. 1 also less frequently) paired with the interval or by colours that were equally frequent for each interval. Participants only responded faster when colour and task were predictable by time (expected colour), not when the task alone was predictable (neutral colour). Hence, our results speak in favour of perceptual time-based task indicator expectancy being the underlying cognitive mechanism of time-based expectancy in the task switching paradigm.

The thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), a cluster of GABAergic cells, modulates sensory attention and perception through its inhibitory projections to thalamic nuclei. Cortical and thalamic topographic projections to the auditory TRN are thought to compose tonotopic organizations for modulation of thalamic auditory processing. The present study determined tonotopies in the TRN and examined interactions between probe and masker sounds to obtain insights into temporal processing associated with tonotopies. Experiments were performed on anesthetized rats, using juxta-cellular recording and labeling techniques. Following determination of tonotopies, effects of sub-threshold masker sound stimuli on onset and late responses evoked by a probe sound were examined. The main findings are as follows. Tonotopic organizations were recognized in cell location and axonal projection. Tonotopic gradients and their clarities were diverse, depending on sound intensity, response type and the tiers of the TRN. Robust alterations in response magnitude, latency and/or burst spiking took place following masker sounds in either a broad or narrow range of frequencies that were close or far away from the probe sound frequency. The majority of alterations were suppression recognizable up to 600 ms in the interval between masker and probe sounds, and directions of alteration differed depending on the interval. Finally, masker sound effects were associated with tonotopic organizations. These findings suggest that the auditory TRN is comprised of sound intensity-dependent multiple tonotopic organizations, which could configure temporal interactions of auditory information across sound frequencies and impose complex but spatiotemporally structured influences on thalamic auditory processing.

The Auditory Consonant Trigram (ACT) Test is accepted as a pure measurement of verbal working memory, but its norm study and psychometric properties have not been sufficiently researched. This study aims to update the norm data of the ACT, validity and reliability studies of which have been previously conducted on an adult Turkish sample, on a broader young sample and in a way that would end some methodological limitations. For this purpose, the data is collected from 304 voluntary healthy young adults (aged 18-26, 152 females-152 males). According to the results, a difference is found among all delay intervals. While the test scores decrease in females as delay interval increases, there is no difference in males between the delay intervals of 9 and 18 sec. While there is no difference between the genders for very short delay intervals (0-3 sec), males show a more successful performance than females as the delay interval increases (9-18 sec). Males are also more successful than females in terms of total test scores of the ACT. In this respect, it is concluded that the ACT measurement of working memory with a total score reliability coefficient of 0.75 is reliable.

Post-error cognitive control processes are evident in post-error slowing (PES) and post-error increased accuracy (PIA). A recent theory (Wessel, 2018) proposes that post-error control disrupts not only ongoing motor activity but also current task-set representations, suggesting an interdependence of post-error control and memory. In 2 experiments, we directly tested this interdependence using response repeat/switch targets. As participants' memory of the previously-given response determined their next response, we predicted that participants would not show post-error performance improvements, or may even exhibit decrements (memory obstruction hypothesis). In line with a weak version of the memory obstruction hypothesis, participants' performance did not improve post-error regardless of preparation time across several measures (intertrial interval 500 ms-3000 ms). This could not alternatively be explained by a lack in post-error processing or error awareness. Thus, our results suggest an interdependence of memory and cognitive control in post-error processing, and we offer a novel way of directly assessing this interdependence using response repeat/switch targets. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

A substantial literature relates task-set control and language selection in bilinguals-with "switching" paradigms serving as a methodological "bridge." We asked a basic question: Is preparation for a switch equally effective in the two domains? Bilinguals switched between naming pictures in one language and another, or between the tasks of naming and categorizing pictures. The critical trials used for comparing the two kinds of switching were identical in all respects-task (naming), stimuli, responses-except one: whether the shape cue presented before the picture specified the language or the task. The effect of preparation on the "switch cost" was examined by varying the cue-stimulus interval (CSI; 50/800/1,175 ms). Preparation for a task switch was more effective: Increasing the CSI from 50 to 800 ms reduced the reaction time task switch cost by ∼63% to its minimum, but the language switch cost only by ∼24%, the latter continuing to reduce with further opportunity for preparation (CSI = 1,175 ms). The switch costs in the two domains correlated moderately (r = .36). We propose that preparation for a language switch is less effective, because (a) it must preemptively counteract greater interference during a language switch than during a task switch, and/or (b) lexical access is less amenable to "top-down" control than (components of) task-set. We also investigated the associations between stimuli and the language (or task) where they were last encountered. Associative history influenced performance-but similarly for switches and repetitions-indicating that stimulus-induced associative retrieval of language (or task-set) did not contribute to switch costs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Fixture congestion increases injury risk in football, but how it impacts other sports is unclear. The aim of this study was to identify associations between match density and injury incidence in field hockey players. Injury data from a prospective cohort study of professional and youth players was analysed in two ways. Inter-match intervals were clustered into

During jazz improvisation, performers employ short recurrent musical motifs called licks. Past research has focused on the pitch, intervallic, and rhythmic characteristics of licks, but less attention has been paid to whether they tend to start in the same place within the measure ( metrical dependence). Licks might be metrically dependent, and where a given lick starts in a measure ( metrical position) may thus be part of the performer’s mental representation of that lick. Here we report the use of a corpus study to investigate whether licks are metrically dependent. We analyzed a subset of solos, all those in 4/4 time ( n = 435), from the Weimar Jazz Database (WJD; Pfleiderer et al., 2017). Using a sliding window technique, we identified melodic sequences ( interval n-grams) between 3 and 10 intervals in length. We counted the number of times each interval n-gram occurred, and noted the metrical position of the initial note of each occurrence, using different levels of quantization (8th and 16th note). We compared the entropy of the distribution of metrical positions for each n-gram—with lower values indicating a stronger metrical dependence—against simulated counterparts that assumed no relationship between an n-gram and its metrical position (no metrical dependence). Overall, we found that shorter n-grams were metrically dependent, with varying results for longer n-grams. We suggest two possible explanations: either mental representations of licks may encode their metrical features or the metrical position may make certain licks more accessible to the performer. On the basis of our findings we discuss future studies that could employ our methods.

We can use information derived from passing time to anticipate an upcoming event. If time before an event varies, responses towards this event become faster with increasing waiting time. This variable-foreperiod effect has been often observed in response-speed studies. Different action control frameworks assume that response and stimulus features are integrated into an event file that is retrieved later if features repeat. Yet the role of foreperiods has so far not been investigated in action control. Thus, we investigated the influence of foreperiod on the integration of action-perception features. Participants worked through a standard distractor–response binding paradigm where two consecutive responses are made towards target letters while distractor letters are present. Responses and/or distractors can repeat or change from first to second display, leading to partial repetition costs when only some features repeat or repetition benefits when all features repeat (the difference constituting distractor–response binding). To investigate the effect of foreperiod, we also introduced an anti-geometric distribution of foreperiods to the time interval before the first response display. We observed that distractor–response binding increased with increasing foreperiod duration, and speculate that this was driven by an increase in motor readiness induced by temporal expectancy.

The present research explored the influence of isochronous auditory rhythms on the timing of movement-related prediction in two experiments. In both experiments, participants observed a moving disc that was visible for a predetermined period before disappearing behind a small, medium, or large occluded area for the remainder of its movement. In Experiment 1, the disc was visible for 1 s. During this period, participants were exposed to either a fast or slow auditory rhythm, or they heard nothing. They were instructed to press a key to indicate when they believed the moving disc had reached a specified location on the other side of the occluded area. The procedure measured the (signed) error in participants’ estimate of the time it would take for a moving object to contact a stationary one. The principal results of Experiment 1 were main effects of the rate of the auditory rhythm and of the size of the occlusion on participants’ judgments. In Experiment 2, the period of visibility was varied with size of the occlusion area to keep the total movement time constant for all three levels of occlusion. The results replicated the main effect of rhythm found in Experiment 1 and showed a small, significant interaction, but indicated no main effect of occlusion size. Overall, the results indicate that exposure to fast isochronous auditory rhythms during an interval of inferred motion can influence the imagined rate of such motion and suggest a possible role of an internal rhythmicity in the maintenance of temporally accurate dynamic mental representations.

Dual-task scenarios require a coordinated regulation of the processing order of component tasks in light of capacity limitations during response selection. A number of behavioral and neuroimaging findings suggest a distinct set of control processes involved in preparing this task order. In this study, we investigated electrophysiological correlates of task-order preparation in a variant of the overlapping dual-task paradigm with cue-determined task order that resulted in trials with blockwise fixed task order as well as trials with repeated and switched task order in blocks with variable task order. During the cue–stimulus interval, we found an earlier centroparietal order-mixing positivity and a later parietal order-switch positivity. A decoding approach based on multivariate pattern analysis showed that the order-mixing positivity is a necessary prerequisite for successful order selection, whereas the order-switch positivity appears to facilitate the implementation of a new task order after its selection. These correlates of order preparation share striking similarities to commonly found potentials involved in the preparation of individual tasks in the (single-)task-switching paradigm, which is strong empirical support for the account that the underlying preparatory processes are to be considered as higher-level control signals that are implemented independently of specific task representations.

Nous examinons dans cet article l’utilisation et l’origine de l’intervalle de quarte comme élément organisateur des hauteurs dans la musique du compositeur et bandonéoniste argentin Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992). Des exemples nous permettront de prendre contact avec une utilisation diversifiée de cet intervalle, soit mélodique ou harmonique, et d’en constater un emploi conscient et systématique. Une œuvre de jeunesse du compositeur où l’emploi de ces quartes est abondant nous permet de tisser un lien avec les leçons de Piazzolla avec Alberto Ginastera qui eurent lieu pendant l’élaboration de cette pièce, la musique de son professeur de cette période révélant elle-aussi d’importants usages de ces techniques quartales. Finalement, la fascination des deux compositeurs argentins pour Stravinski, et la présence de ces techniques quartales dans la musique du compositeur russe nous permet de déceler l’origine de ces techniques quartales dans la musique savante moderne.

Feature-based visual attention refers to preferential selection and processing of visual stimuli based on their nonspatial attributes, such as color or shape. Recent studies have highlighted the inferior frontal junction (IFJ) as a control region for feature but not spatial attention. However, the extent to which IFJ contributes to spatial versus feature attention control remains a topic of debate. We investigated in humans of both sexes the role of IFJ in the control of feature versus spatial attention in a cued visual spatial (attend-left or attend-right) and feature (attend-red or attend-green) attention task using fMRI. Analyzing cue-related fMRI using both univariate activation and multivoxel pattern analysis, we found the following results in IFJ. First, in line with some prior studies, the univariate activations were not different between feature and spatial attentional control. Second, in contrast, the multivoxel pattern analysis decoding accuracy was above chance level for feature attention (attend-red vs attend-green) but not for spatial attention (attend-left vs attend-right). Third, while the decoding accuracy for feature attention was above chance level during attentional control in the cue-to-target interval, it was not during target processing. Fourth, the right IFJ and visual cortex (V4) were observed to be functionally connected during feature but not during spatial attention control, and this functional connectivity was positively associated with subsequent attentional selection of targets in V4, as well as with behavioral performance. These results support a model in which IFJ plays a crucial role in top-down control of visual feature but not visual spatial attention. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Past work has shown that the inferior frontal junction (IFJ), a prefrontal structure, is activated by both attention-to-feature (e.g., color) and attention-to-location, but the precise role of IFJ in the control of feature- versus spatial-attention is debated. We investigated this issue in a cued visual spatial (attend-left or attend-right) and feature (attend-red or attend-green) attention task using fMRI, multivoxel pattern analysis, and functional connectivity methods. The results show that (1) attend-red versus attend-green can be decoded in single-trial cue-evoked BOLD activity in IFJ but not attend-left versus attend-right and (2) only right IFJ modulates V4 to enhance task performance. This study sheds light on the function and hemispheric specialization of IFJ in the control of visual attention.

Burlesque is a form that engages ideas of bodily inscription and gender performativity. Through burlesque, I seek to interrogate, critique, iterate and, ultimately, rewrite existing ideologies of f...

Older adults show both age-related decreases in resting state functional connectivity and diminished sensorimotor function. Exercise has emerged as an intervention that may mitigate or even reverse these age-related declines. Here we sought to understand whether exercise impacts resting state functional connectivity, and motor acquisition and learning in older adults. Forty-two healthy older adults rested or completed 3 sets of high-intensity interval exercise (3 minutes at 75% maximal power output and 3 minutes light intensity) for a total of 23 minutes, then immediately practiced a complex, implicit motor task with their non-dominant hand across five separate sessions. Participants completed resting stage functional MRI before the first and after the fifth day of practice; they also returned 24-hours and 35-days following their fifth day of practice to complete short- and long-term retention tests to assess motor learning. Independent component analysis of resting state functional MRI revealed increased connectivity in the frontoparietal, the dorsal attentional, and cerebellar networks in the exercise group relative to the rest group. Seed-based analysis showed strengthened connectivity between the limbic system and right cerebellum, and between the right cerebellum and bilateral middle temporal gyri. There was no motor learning advantage for the exercise group; both rest and exercise groups demonstrated motor learning as measured at the short- and long-term retention tests. Our data suggest that exercise paired with a challenging implicit motor learning task in older adults can augment resting state functional connectivity without enhancing behaviour beyond that stimulated by skilled motor practice.

There have been various studies on the effects of emotional visual processing on subsequent non-emotional auditory stimuli. A previous study with EEG has shown that responses to deviant sounds presented after presenting negative pictures collected more attentional resources than those for neutral pictures. To investigate such a compelling between emotional and cognitive processing, this study aimed to examined pupillary responses to an auditory stimulus after a positive, negative, or neutral emotional state was elicited by an emotional image. An emotional image was followed by a beep sound that was either repetitive or unexpected, and the pupillary dilation was measured. As a result, we found that the early component of the pupillary response to the beep sound was larger for negative and positive emotional states than the neutral emotional state, whereas the late component was larger for the positive emotional state than the negative and neutral emotional states. In addition, the peak latency of the pupillary response was earlier for negative than neutral or positive images. Further, to compensate for the disadvantage of low-temporal resolution of the pupillary data, the pupillary responses were deconvoluted and used in the analysis. The deconvolution analysis of pupillary responses confirmed that the responses to beep sound were more likely to be modulated by the emotional state rather than being influenced by the short presentation interval between the images and sounds. These findings suggested that pupil size index modulations in the compelling situation between emotional and cognitive processing.

Stand-alone devices for tactile speech reception serve a need as communication aids for persons with profound sensory impairments as well as in applications such as human-computer interfaces and remote communication when the normal auditory and visual channels are compromised or overloaded. The current research is concerned with perceptual evaluations of a phoneme-based tactile speech communication device in which a unique tactile code was assigned to each of the 24 consonants and 15 vowels of English. The tactile phonemic display was conveyed through an array of 24 tactors that stimulated the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the forearm. Experiments examined the recognition of individual words as a function of the inter-phoneme interval (Study 1) and two-word phrases as a function of the inter-word interval (Study 2). Following an average training period of 4.3 hrs on phoneme and word recognition tasks, mean scores for the recognition of individual words in Study 1 ranged from 87.7% correct to 74.3% correct as the inter-phoneme interval decreased from 300 to 0 ms. In Study 2, following an average of 2.5 hours of training on the two-word phrase task, both words in the phrase were identified with an accuracy of 75% correct using an inter-word interval of 1 sec and an inter-phoneme interval of 150 ms. Effective transmission rates achieved on this task were estimated to be on the order of 30 to 35 words/min.

The study was aimed at investigating specificities of brain functioning when comparing verbal signals in cross-modal interaction. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in 166 healthy subjects in a two-modal, two-stimulus test in the GO–NOGO paradigm where the first stimulus was a visual presentation of the word, and the second stimulus was an auditory presentation of the word. It was shown that while the subjects were waiting for the spoken word to follow the printed word, an activation was recorded in the frontal-temporal area of their left hemisphere (F7, F3), presumably associated with the formation of the word’s phonological representation in the memory. Upon producing the second (spoken) word if it coincides with the visual presentation, the peak activation is recorded in the posterior temporal positions (Т5, Т6) within the interval of 370–500 ms; if the second stimulus does not coincide with the first one, the peak activation is recorded in the occipital positions (O1, O2) within the interval of 590–800 ms. These ERP fluctuations supposedly result from the processes of comparing the newly received auditory information with the phonological representation of the word stored in the working memory.

The work is devoted to one of the actual problems of modern strabismology — the study of the ability to stereo perception in children with non-paralytic strabismus.Purpose: to study the capability to stereovision with alternating presentation of stereostimuli in children with functional scotoma in non-paralytic strabismus.Patients and methods. 113 children with functional scotoma (FS) in non-paralytic strabismus were observed. We used stereostimuli with different characteristics in the following regimes of presentation: 1) the regime of simple monocular alternating (alternate presentation of an image for the right eye and the left eye); 2) the regime having an “empty” interval (black background) between monocular phases; 3) the regime having a binocular phase (a binocular image containing details corresponding to the stimuli for the right eye and the left eye) between monocular phases.Results. It was found that in 23 (20,3 %) children, the ability to stereo perception was completely absent. All these children had stable total FS (monocular vision). In the remaining 90 children (with unstable or regional FS), the ability to stereo perception was shown with some stimuli in some modes of their alternating presentation. For stimuli with a central arrangement of linear parts, the stereo effect was possible when they were presented in an alternating mode with an “empty” interval lasting from 20 to 70 ms in combination with the duration of monocular phases from 30 to 90 ms. For stimuli with a peripheral arrangement of linear elements, 22.1 % of children were able to stereo perception not only in the “empty” interval mode, but also in the simple alternation mode. At the same time, the greatest number of children capable of stereo perception was detected when using the mode with an “empty” interval of 30–60 ms and a duration of monocular phases of 40–60 ms. With random-dot stimuli, none of the children in this group were capable of stereo perception.Conclusion. Our results suggest that even in patients with FS in non-paralytic strabismus, stereo perception is possible under the conditions of alternating presentation of stimuli with certain characteristics. In this case, the most likely appearance of a stereo effect with stimuli containing peripheral linear elements that create a stereo effect when presented in an alternating mode with an empty interval between monocular phases.

The work is devoted to one of the actual problems of current ophthalmology — creating effective methods of studying stereovision.The purpose — comparative analysis of the capability of stereoperception under conditions of using different regimes of alternating presentation of stereo stimuli with different characteristics in children with strabismus and in children without ophthalmopathology.Patients and methods. 294 school children — 167 children of the control group (without ophthalmopathology) and 127 children with non-paralytic strabismus without functional scotoma (FSS) were observed. We used stereostimuli with different characteristics in the following regimes of presentation: 1) the regime of simple monocular alternating (alternate presentation of an image for the right and left eye); 2) the regime having an “empty” interval (black background) between monocular phases; 3) the regime having a binocular phase (a binocular image containing details corresponding to the stimuli for the right eye and the left eye) between monocular phases.Results. It was found that the majority of children with non-paralytic strabismus, who are incapable of stereoperception with the classic Fly-test and Lang-test, can perceive the stereoeffect with alternating presentation of stereostimuli within individual ranges of durations of monocular phases, a binocular phase and an “empty” interval. In children of the control group when switching from the simple alternation regime to the “empty” interval regime the maximal durations of monocular phases, which preserved the stereoeffect, decreased and when switching to the binocular phase regime they significantly increased. In children with strabismus linear images are simpler for stereoperception than random-dot images as well as in children of the control group (p < 0.001); stimuli creating the effect of the frontoparallel separation of details get perceived better than those creating the decline effect or the turning effect (p < 0.001); stimuli creating the effect of the vertical stripes decline get perceived better than those creating the effect of the horizontal stripes turning (p < 0.001). However, as opposed to the children of the control group, in children with strabismus the stereoeffect gets formed better under conditions of the peripheral localization of linear details than under conditions of the central one.Conclusion. Using computer programs with different regimes of alternating presentation of stereostimuli with certain characteristics allows to effectively evaluate individual capability of stereoperception which is necessary for the personalized approach to the selection of visual stimuli and stimuli presentation regimes in functional treatment of patients with non-paralytic strabismus.

This text revisits selected aspects of Muzzulini's article and reformulates them on the basis of a three-dimensional interval space E and its dual E * . The pitch height of just intonation is conceived as an element h of the dual space. From octave-fifth-third coordinates it becomes transformed into chromatic coordinates. The dual chromatic basis is spanned by the duals a * of a minor second a and the duals b * and c * of two kinds of augmented primes b and c . Then for every natural number n a modified pitch height form h n is derived from h by augmenting its coordinates with the factor n , followed by rounding to nearest integers. Of particular interest are the octave-consitent forms h n mapping the octave to the value n . The three forms h n for n = 612, 118, 53 (yielding smallest deviations from the respective values of n h ) form the Muzzulini basis of E * . The respective transformation matrix T * between the coordinate representations of linear forms in the Muzzulini basis and the dual chromatic basis is unimodular and a Pisot matrix with the dominant eigen-co-vector very close to h . Certain selections of the linear forms h n are displayed in Muzzuli coordinates as ball-like point clouds within a suitable cuboid containing the origin. As an open problem remains the estimation of the musical relevance of Newton's chromatic mode, and chromatic modes in general. As a possible direction of further investigation it is proposed to study the exo-mode of Newton's chromatic mode

Noncompliance is common in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This research, therefore, assessed the effects of one reinforcer (i.e., the most preferred edible) and combined reinforcemen...

The purposes of this study were to evaluate the effects of an auditory-distractor stimulus and vocal-blocking task on performance on a math task and measures of overt verbal operants. College students served as participants, and they were instructed to solve an arithmetic problem while continuously emitting overt verbal behavior. The overt verbal behavior consisted of either talking aloud while solving the problem or reciting the alphabet. A third condition consisted of playing an auditory-distractor file containing the alphabet during the response interval while participants talked aloud. Data were collected on response accuracy, latency to respond, and frequency of echoic and self-echoic responses emitted during the response interval. The vocal-blocking task significantly affected performance on the math task when visual stimuli were absent. The decrease in performance coincided with significant decreases in participants’ mean frequency of echoic and self-echoic responses. In sum, correctly responding to an arithmetic problem was significantly affected by the vocal-blocking task, indicating support for the necessity of verbal mediation during problem solving.

Three experiments explored the effects of abrupt changes in stimulus properties on streaming dynamics. Listeners monitored 20-s-long low- and high-frequency (LHL-) tone sequences and reported the number of streams heard throughout. Experiments 1 and 2 used pure tones and examined the effects of changing triplet base frequency and level, respectively. Abrupt changes in base frequency (±3-12 semitones) caused significant magnitude-related falls in segregation (resetting), regardless of transition direction, but an asymmetry occurred for changes in level (±12 dB). Rising-level transitions usually decreased segregation significantly, whereas falling-level transitions had little or no effect. Experiment 3 used pure tones (unmodulated) and narrowly spaced (±25 Hz) tone pairs (dyads); the two evoke similar excitation patterns, but dyads are strongly modulated with a distinctive timbre. Dyad-only sequences induced a strongly segregated percept, limiting scope for further build-up. Alternation between groups of pure tones and dyads produced large, asymmetric changes in streaming. Dyad-to-pure transitions caused substantial resetting, but pure-to-dyad transitions sometimes elicited even greater segregation than for the corresponding interval in dyad-only sequences (overshoot). The results indicate that abrupt changes in timbre can strongly affect the likelihood of stream segregation without introducing significant peripheral-channeling cues. These asymmetric effects of transition direction are reminiscent of subtractive adaptation in vision.

Recent theories of instrumental conditioning postulate that the correlation between responses and outcome rates is a critical factor in instrumental free-operant performance and goal-directed control. However, it is still not clear whether human performance can be sensitive to such variable. Using a novel within-subject design, participants were trained under ratio and interval contingencies of reinforcement matching both outcome probability and outcome rates. The impact of rate correlation on performance was evident in the higher performance observed under ratio contingencies for both types of matching. Moreover, there was no difference in performance between two classes of interval schedules with similar correlational properties but different reward probabilities. The result discussed in terms of a recent dual-system model of instrumental behavior.

Eye movements are inhibited prior to the occurrence of temporally predictable events. This 'oculomotor inhibition effect' has been demonstrated with various tasks and modalities. Specifically, it was shown that when intervals between cue and target are fixed, saccade rate prior to the target is lower than when they are varied. However, it is still an open question whether this effect is linked to temporal expectation to the predictable target, or to the duration estimation of the interval preceding it. Here, we examined this question in 20 participants while they performed an implicit temporal expectation and an explicit time estimation task. In each trial, following cue onset, two consecutive grating patches were presented, each preceded by an interval. Temporal expectation was manipulated by setting the first interval duration to be either fixed or varied within each block. Participants were requested to compare either the durations of the two intervals (time estimation), or the tilts of the two grating patches (temporal expectation). Saccade rate, measured prior to the first grating, was lower in the fixed relative to the varied condition of both tasks. This suggests that the inhibition effect is elicited by target predictability and indicates that it is linked to temporal expectation, rather than to time estimation processes. Additionally, this finding suggests that the oculomotor inhibition is independent of motor readiness, as it was elicited even when no response was required. We conclude that the prestimulus oculomotor inhibition effect can be used as a marker of temporal expectation, and discuss its potential underlying mechanisms.

The purpose of this study was to investigate possible predictive relationships between interval identification and melodic dictation performance on tasks where students identify short pitch spans after a brief tonicization. College musicians ( N = 35) completed an interval identification test and a series of melodic dictation tasks. Results indicated that interval identification and melodic dictation tests reflected a battery of items ranging from very easy to very difficult with acceptable Cronbach’s α levels. We conducted a two-stage hierarchical regression analysis to examine the extent to which interval identification served as a predictor of melodic dictation accuracy while controlling for selected music and demographic variables. Results indicated that interval identification served as a significant predictor of melodic dictation scores, contributing 28.9% of the variance in melodic dictation scores while controlling for musical experience variables. The analysis indicated a dictation task by interval ability interaction based on grouping by lower, mid-, and upper performing groups on the interval identification test. Issues in measurement of melodic dictation accuracy and strategies that affect the development of melodic dictation skills are discussed.

Virtual-reality (VR) users and developers have informally reported that time seems to pass more quickly while playing games in VR. We refer to this phenomenon as time compression: a longer real duration is compressed into a shorter perceived experience. To investigate this effect, we created two versions of a labyrinth-like game. The versions are identical in their content and mode of control but differ in their display type: one was designed to be played in VR, and the other on a conventional monitor (CM). Participants were asked to estimate time prospectively using an interval production method. Participants played each version of the game for a perceived five-minute interval, and the actual durations of the intervals they produced were compared between display conditions. We found that in the first block, participants in the VR condition played for an average of 72.6 more seconds than participants in the CM condition before feeling that five minutes had passed. This amounts to perceived five-minute intervals in VR containing 28.5% more actual time than perceived five-minute intervals in CM. However, the effect appeared to be reversed in the second block when participants switched display conditions, suggesting large novelty and anchoring effects, and demonstrating the importance of using between-subjects designs in interval production experiments. Overall, our results suggest that VR displays do produce a significant time compression effect. We discuss a VR-induced reduction in bodily awareness as a potential explanation for how this effect is mediated and outline some implications and suggestions for follow-up experiments.

While a large body of evidence has demonstrated the effects of attention on spatial processes, we know much less about attentional effects on the complementary temporal aspects of visual perception. To narrow this knowledge gap, we examined the effects of endogenous attention-the voluntary component of spatial attention-on temporal integration using the Ternus display. In a typical Ternus display, horizontally aligned discs shift by one position across alternating frames that are separated by a varying interframe interval. This display can induce two different motion percepts: all three discs moving together back and forth (group motion), or the two central discs seeming to remain static and the outer disk jumping across them (element motion). Several studies suggest that element motion reflects temporal integration. Thus, we used the rate of element motion percept to measure temporal integration. Attention was manipulated via the degree of certainty regarding the discs' location (Experiment 1), or with central informative arrows (Experiment 2). The pattern of results was similar in both experiments: The participants reported perceiving element motion more often when attention was allocated in advance to the discs' location. These results suggest that attention prolongs the period of time over which information is integrated. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

In this study, we perform a diachronic analysis of the temporal trends of scholarly articles over a fairly long time scale. Through the retweeting dynamics of 298 highly retweeted articles, we find that nearly 57% of the articles have multiple peaks on diffusion curves after their initial exposure on social media. We characterize this phenomenon by measuring the time interval between peaks, the height and width of peaks, diffusion performance and the similarities between peaks. We discover that bursts of multi-peak articles usually have short durations and small coverage and that the length of the peak interval determines correlations between peaks. We also find that overlapping users between peaks can act like weak ties and spread information from one group to another, catalyzing information to experience a renewed burst of retweets. Based on the presence or absence of overlapping users, we summarize the occurrence mechanism of the multi-peak phenomenon into two types: (1) Cross-community diffusion through overlapping users. (2) Bursty diffusion of key opinion leaders at different times.

Given humans’ limited ability to recall past experiences for evaluation, scholars have proposed the peak-end rule stating that if perceived discomfort at the end of an aversive experience is lower than the peak discomfort experienced, the aversive experience will be remembered more positively. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the peak-end rule as applied to high-intensity interval exercise (HIIE). Participants were 30 inactive men ( M age = 27.9, SD = 5.2 years). In the first session they performed a graded exercise test on cycle-ergometer to determine their maximal aerobic power (MAP) ( M = 233, SD = 35W); and, in the second and third sessions, they performed two HIIE protocols in randomized order: (a) Short trial – 20-minutes of HIIE, composed of 30-second efforts at 100% of MAP interspersed by 30-seconds of passive recovery; and (b) Long trial – 20-minutes of the short trial, plus 10-minutes more of HIIE, decreasing 3% of MAP in each additional bout, resulting in 70% of MAP in the last bout. During exercise, we recorded the participants’ rating of perceived exertion (RPE) and affect, using the Feeling Scale (FS). At 30-minutes post-exercise, we again recorded the participants’ affect, using the Global Affect Evaluation (GAE) and their session-RPE, and we recorded their enjoyment, using the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES). In the last session, the participants chose a favorite protocol to repeat. All sessions were interspersed by at least 72 hours. The 10-minutes extra HIIE in the Long-trial condition resulted decreased heart rate values ( M = 157, SD = 13bpm to M = 144, SD = 14bpm; p

Behavioral and electrophysiology studies have shown that humans possess a certain self-awareness of their individual timing ability. However, conflicting reports raise concerns about whether humans can discern the direction of their timing error, calling into question the extent of this timing awareness. To understand the depth of this ability, the impact of nondirectional feedback and reinforcement learning on time perception were examined in a unique temporal reproduction paradigm that involved a mixed set of interval durations and the opportunity to repeat every trial immediately after receiving feedback, essentially allowing a “redo.” Within this task, we tested two groups of participants on versions where nondirectional feedback was provided after every response, or not provided at all. Participants in both groups demonstrated reduced central tendency and exhibited significantly greater accuracy in the redo trial temporal estimates, showcasing metacognitive ability, and an inherent capacity to adjust temporal responses despite the lack of directional information or any feedback at all. Additionally, the feedback group also exhibited an increase in the precision of responses on the redo trials, an effect not observed in the no-feedback group, suggesting that feedback may specifically reduce noise when making a temporal estimate. These findings enhance our understanding of timing self-awareness and can provide insight into what may transpire when this is disrupted.

Our subjective perception of time is optimized to temporal regularities in the environment. This is illustrated by the central tendency effect: when estimating a range of intervals, short intervals are overestimated whereas long intervals are underestimated to reduce the overall estimation error. Most models of interval timing ascribe this effect to the weighting of the current interval with previous memory traces after the interval has been perceived. Alternatively, the perception of the duration could already be flexibly tuned to its temporal context. We investigated this hypothesis using an interval reproduction task in which human participants (both sexes) reproduced a shorter and longer interval range. As expected, reproductions were biased towards the subjective mean of each presented range. EEG analyses showed that temporal context indeed affected neural dynamics during the perception phase. Specifically, longer previous durations decreased CNV and P2 amplitude and increased beta power. In addition, multivariate pattern analysis showed that it is possible to decode context from the transient EEG signal quickly after both onset and offset of the perception phase. Together, these results suggest that temporal context creates dynamic expectations which actively affect the perception of duration.Significance StatementThe subjective sense of duration does not arise in isolation, but is informed by previous experiences. This is demonstrated by abundant evidence showing that the production of duration estimates is biased towards previously experienced time intervals. However, it is yet unknown whether this temporal context actively affects perception or only asserts its influence in later, post-perceptual stages as proposed by most current formal models of this task. Using an interval reproduction task, we show that EEG signatures flexibly adapt to the temporal context during perceptual encoding. Furthermore, interval history can be decoded from the transient EEG signal even when the current duration was identical. Thus, our results demonstrate that context actively influences perception.

This study aimed to characterise bilateral asymmetry in running mechanics during perceptually regulated, high-intensity intermittent running in hypoxia and normoxia and examines whether inter-limb differences in running mechanics are modified between and within intervals. Nineteen trained runners completed 4 × 4-min treadmill running bouts (3-min passive recoveries) at a perceived rating exertion of 16 on the 6-20 Borg scale in either hypoxic (FiO

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the acoustic startle response can index automatic and attention-modulated aspects of sensorimotor gating. Automatic sensorimotor gating is typically assessed by a no-task PPI protocol in which participants are presented with discrete white noise prepulse and startle stimuli over continuous background broadband noise at brief short-lead intervals (e.g., 60–120 ms). In contrast, attention-modulated sensorimotor gating is typically assessed through a task-based PPI protocol using continuous format pure tone prepulses and white noise startle stimuli presented over an ambient background at a lead interval of 120 ms. The present study sought to test the extent that the assessment of attention-modulated PPI is dependent on prepulse type and lead interval across two experiments. Experiment 1 assessed attention effects on PPI produced by discrete prepulses at lead intervals of 60 and 120 ms. Experiment 2 examined attention effects on PPI with matched stimulus conditions apart from continuous prepulses. Results indicated that the use of discrete prepulses failed to elicit attentional-modulation of PPI and that assessment therein was dependent on the use of continuous prepulses at a lead interval of 120 ms. These results highlight additional methods to concurrently assess automatic and attention-modulated PPI in a single testing session using a task-based tone counting task.

We report two experiments investigating why learners, in making metacognitive judgments, often seem to ignore or otherwise fail to appreciate that feedback following retrieval practice provides a restudy opportunity. Learners practiced word pairs for a final cued-recall test by studying each pair initially, making a judgment of learning (JOL), and then deciding whether to practice the pair again after a short or long spacing interval, or not at all. For different groups in Experiment 1, additional practice involved restudying, retrieval practice without feedback, or retrieval practice with feedback (the full pair). We used procedures (long feedback duration and covert retrieval practice) designed to rule out the possibility that feedback is ignored because it is usually brief or because participants' choices are influenced by a desire to look good by performing well on overt practice tests. In the relearning condition, learners preferred a long spacing interval for items at all JOL levels. Despite the feedback duration and the covert retrieval practice, learners in both retrieval-practice conditions preferred a short spacing interval for hard, low-JOL items and a long spacing interval for easy, high-JOL items, even though this may not be an effective strategy when feedback is provided. In Experiment 2, instructions framed feedback either as a presentation of the correct answer or as a restudy opportunity preceded by retrieval practice. Framing feedback as a restudy opportunity markedly changed the choices learners made. Apparently, the restudy function of feedback does not occur to learners unless they are specifically alerted to it.

The purpose of the study was to determine the impact of exercises modes on developing a small ball throwing skill in boys aged 8. Materials and methods. The study participants were 21 boys aged 8, who were randomly divided into three groups of 7 people. The children and their parents were fully informed about all the features of the study and gave their consent to participate in the experiment. The study examined the influence of the number of repetitions on the effectiveness of teaching boys aged 8 throwing a small ball at a target. A pedagogical experiment examined the influence of 6, 12, and 18 repetitions with a 60-second rest interval on the increase in the level of proficiency in exercises of boys aged 8. In the first group, the boys repeated the task 6 times with a rest interval of 60 s, in the second group – 12 times with a rest interval of 60 s, in the third group 18 times with a rest interval of 60 s. When teaching throwing exercises during the class, the study evaluated the level of proficiency by the alternative method (“performed”, “failed”) and calculated the probability of exercise performance (p = n/m, where n is the number of successful attempts, m is the total number of attempts). In teaching boys aged 8, the method of algorithmic instructions was used. The next exercise started after three successful attempts. Throwing a ball at a vertical target was taught. The study materials were processed by the IBM SPSS 20 statistical analysis software. During discriminant analysis, a prognostic model for group membership was created. Results. Discriminant analysis made it possible to determine the impact of the number of repetitions on the effectiveness of developing the skills of throwing a small ball at a target; answer the question as to how significantly the modes of repetitions differ by the effectiveness of motor skills development, what class the object belongs to based on the values of discriminant variables. Conclusions. Based on the analysis of group centroids, it was found that in boys aged 8, six repetitions of the exercise (6 sets one time with a rest interval of 60 s) significantly influence the increase in the level of proficiency in exercises during physical education lessons. The results of group classification show that 85.7% of the original grouped observations were classified correctly.

Rhythmic ability is important for locomotion, communication, and coordination between group members during the daily life of animals. We aimed to examine the rhythm perception and production abilities in rats within the range of a subsecond to a few seconds. We trained rats to respond to audio-visual stimuli presented in regular, isochronous rhythms at six time-intervals (0.5-2 s). Five out of six rats successfully learned to respond to the sequential stimuli. All subjects showed periodic actions. The actions to regular stimuli were faster than randomly presented stimuli in the medium-tempo conditions. In slower and faster tempo conditions, the actions of some subjects were not periodic or phase-matched to the stimuli. The asynchrony regarding the stimulus onset became larger or smaller when the last stimulus of the sequence was presented at deviated timings. Thus, the actions of the rats were tempo matched to the regular rhythm, but not completely anticipative. We also compared the extent of phase-matching and variability of rhythm production among the interval conditions. In interval conditions longer than 1.5 s, variability tended to be larger. In conclusion, rats showed a tempo matching ability to regular rhythms to a certain degree, but maintenance of a constant tempo to slower rhythm conditions was difficult. Our findings suggest that non-vocal learning mammals have the potential to produce flexible rhythms in subsecond timing.

Somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) are used extensively to quantify cortical activity in response to noxious and/or non-noxious sensory stimuli. However, data demonstrating the reliability of SEP measures in response to non-noxious stimulation over time are scarce.We investigated the relative and absolute reliability, and the smallest detectable change at 95% confidence (SDCSEPs were evoked at an intensity three-times that of each participant's perceptual threshold and recorded from a single electrode placed over the primary somatosensory cortex (S1).Our analyses reveal that i) latency, as a measure of activity onset, has poor relative reliability but good absolute reliability; ii) area, as a measure of cortical activity, has good relative and absolute reliability (except for the NThese findings suggest that the area of the N

BACKGROUND Picture-word interference tasks have been used to investigate (a) the time course of lexical access in individuals with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and (b) how these individuals resolve competition during lexical selection. OBJECTIVE To investigate the time course of Greek-speaking individuals with PPA to produce grammatical gender-marked determiner phrases by examining their picture-naming latencies in the context of distractor words. METHOD Eight individuals with nonfluent variant PPA (nfv-PPA; M age = 62.8 years) and eight cognitively intact controls (M age = 61.1 years) participated in our study. In a picture-word interference task, the study participants named depicted objects by producing determiner + noun sequences. Interference was generated by manipulating the grammatical gender of the depicted objects and distractor words. Two stimulus onset asynchronies were used: +200 ms and +400 ms. RESULTS The individuals with nfv-PPA exhibited longer picture-naming latencies than the controls (P = 0.003). The controls exhibited interference from incongruent distractors at both asynchronies (P < 0.001); the individuals with PPA exhibited interference from incongruent distractors only at the +400-ms interval (P = 0.002). The gender-congruency effect was stronger for the individuals with PPA than for the controls at the +400-ms interval (P = 0.05); the opposite pattern was observed at the +200-ms interval (P = 0.024). CONCLUSION Gender interference resolution was abnormal in the individuals with nfv-PPA. The results point to deficits in lexicosyntactic networks that compromised the time course of picture-naming production.

The neural basis of time perception remains an enigma. In rats performing interval judgment tasks, striatal time coding has drawn attention as one potential substrate. Toso et al. (2021b) find that such time coding does not account for stimulus duration perception.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of wearing earplugs on classical musicians’ pitch perception across three experimental conditions: no earplugs, foam earplugs, and Etymotic earplugs. Participants were graduate and undergraduate music majors attending a large school of music in the southeastern United States ( N = 72). Participants adjusted the pitch of five complex stimulus tones (C#4, C#5, C#3, G#4, and F#3) using a continuous response digital interface until they believed the interval was in tune with an oboe (C#4) reference tone. Participants tended to tune flat when the stimulus tone was presented flat and to tune sharp when it was presented sharp across all three earplug conditions. Overall cent deviation in tuning responses showed that in both directional and absolute deviation analyses, listeners were most accurate when tuning without earplugs, then when using Etymotic earplugs, and least accurate with foam earplugs. Significant differences, however, were limited to specific intervals and in magnitudes not likely to be perceived. Although more research is needed, the use of Etymotic earplugs may provide valuable protection against noise-induced hearing loss with negligible effects on pitch perception. Implications for musicians and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Contains fulltext : 231738.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Threatening stimuli have varying effects, including reaction time (RT) increase in working memory tasks. This could reflect disruption of working memory or, alternatively, a reversible state of freezing. In the current series of experiments, reversible slowing due to anticipated threat was studied using the cued Virtual Attack Emotional Sternberg Task (cVAEST). In this task visually neutral cues indicate whether a future virtual attack could or could not occur during the maintenance period of a Sternberg task. Three studies (N = 47, 40, and 40, respectively) were performed by healthy adult participants online. The primary hypothesis was that the cVAEST would evoke anticipatory slowing. Further, the studies aimed to explore details of this novel task, in particular the interval between the cue and probe stimuli and the memory set size. In all studies it was found that threat anticipation slowed RTs on the working memory task. Further, Study 1 (memory set size 3) showed a decrease in RT when the attack occurred over all Cue Stimulus Intervals (CSIs). In Study 2 a minimal memory set of one item was used, under which circumstances RTs following attacks were only faster shortly after cue presentation (CSI 200 and 500 ms), when RTs were high for both threat and safe cues. Study 3 replicated results of Study 2 with more fine-grained time intervals. The results confirm that anticipation of attack stimuli can reversibly slow responses on an independent working memory task. The cVAEST may provide a useful method to study such threat-induced response slowing. 13 p.

People are more likely to judge repeatedly perceived statements as true. A decisive explanation for this so-called truth effect is that the repeated information can be processed more fluently than new information and that this fluency experience renders the information more familiar and trustworthy. Little is known, however, regarding whether and how affective states and dispositional cognitive preferences influence the truth effect. To this end, we conducted two experiments in which we manipulated (a) processing fluency via repetition, (b) the time interval (10 min vs. 1 week) between repetitions, and (c) short-term affective states using the presentation of emotional faces (Experiment 1) or the presence of an irrelevant source for changes in affective states (Experiment 2). Additionally, we assessed the dispositional variables need for cognitive closure (NCC), preference for deliberation (PD) and preference for intuition (PI). Results of Experiment 1 showed that the truth effect was significantly reduced for statements that were followed by a negative prime, although this was the case only for the longer repetition lag. Furthermore, higher NCC and lower PD scores were associated with an increased truth effect. Results of Experiment 2 replicated the moderating role of NCC and further showed that participants, who were provided with an alternative source for changes in their affective states, showed a reduced truth effect. Together, the findings suggest that (a) fluency-related changes in affective states may be (co-)responsible for the truth effect, (b) the truth effect is decreased when the repetition interval is long rather than short, and (c) the truth effect is increased for individuals with a higher need for cognitive closure. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Olympic weightlifting movements and their derivates are commonly used within resistance training sessions. The aim of the present study was to assess the influence of different rest intervals (RI) over five sets of the high-pull (HP) on power output performance, lactate concentration [La] and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) responses in trained subjects. Eleven well-trained males attended four testing sessions. The first session consisted of 1 repetition maximum (1RM) assessment. The next three sessions consisted of the same protocol (5 sets x 6 repetitions at 80% 1RM in the HP) but differing in the RI between sets used (1, 2 and 3 min). No significant power output decreases over the five sets in any RI condition. [La] did not significantly differ between RI conditions. The 1 min RI condition led to greater RPE values (6.5 ± 1.8) than both 2 (5.4 ± 1.6) and 3 min RI (5.0 ± 1.8). The present study shows that short RIs (i.e., 1 min) can be used by strength coaches to design more time-efficient sessions. The use of RPE during power training sessions should be considered as a sensitive tool to quantify training intensity.

In the present study, we investigated how positive mood affects the formation of time-based event expectancies. After positive or neutral mood inductions, participants performed a binary choice response task in which two target stimuli (circle and square) and two pre-target intervals (800 and 1600 ms) appeared equally often. One of the targets was paired with the short interval and the other target with the long interval in 90% of the trials. We found that participants from the positive and neutral groups showed markedly different behavioral patterns of time-based expectancy. The time-based expectancy was restricted to shorter intervals for the positive group and to longer intervals for the neutral group. We propose that positive mood increases attentional prioritization of information that is temporally closer to us.