Mirror Adaptation in Sensory-Motor Simultaneity

Background: When one watches a sports game, one may feel her/his own muscles moving in synchrony with the player's. Such parallels between observed actions of others and one's own has been well supported in the latest progress in neuroscience, and coined “mirror system.” It is likely that due to such phenomena, we are able to learn motor skills just by observing an expert's performance. Yet it is unknown whether such indirect learning occurs only at higher cognitive levels, or also at basic sensorimotor levels where sensorimotor delay is compensated and the timing of sensory feedback is constantly calibrated. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here, we show that the subject's passive observation of an actor manipulating a computer mouse with delayed auditory feedback led to shifts in subjective simultaneity of self mouse manipulation and auditory stimulus in the observing subjects. Likewise, self adaptation to the delayed feedback modulated the simultaneity judgment of the other subjects manipulating a mouse and an auditory stimulus. Meanwhile, subjective simultaneity of a simple visual disc and the auditory stimulus (flash test) was not affected by observation of an actor nor self-adaptation. Conclusions/Significance: The lack of shift in the flash test for both conditions indicates that the recalibration transfer is specific to the action domain, and is not due to a general sensory adaptation. This points to the involvement of a system for the temporal monitoring of actions, one that processes both one's own actions and those of others

Free Will or Not: Causality Preserved but Access to Motor Decisions Obscured

Empirical studies having addressed the free-will issue suffer from controversial methodologies and interpretations. We present a new paradigm involving a synchronization task where the time interval to synchronize with is randomly within and without subject's synchronization capabilities and ask subjects to retrospectively evaluate (Q1) which of the two occurred or (Q2) whether their motor response had had been reactive/speeded or delayed. Contrary to the non-FW view, Q1-judgments correlate with the actual duration of the synchronization interval rather than with subjects's motor response latencies. Instead of postidictively reshuffling their judgment to make it match the outcome of their actions, subjects preserve the causal chain of events having entailed them. When answering Q2 subjects' judgments also correlate with the synchronization interval, proof that they cannot decide on the intentionality of their actions. Hence the present results reveal the intrinsic duality of the free-will concept

Volition and the Function of Consciousness

People have intuitively assumed that many acts of volition are not influenced by unconscious information. However, the available evidence suggests that under suitable conditions, unconscious information can influence behavior and the underlying neural mechanisms. One possibility is that stimuli that are consciously perceived tend to yield strong signals in the brain, and this makes us think that consciousness has the function of sending such strong signals. However, if we could create conditions where the stimuli could produce strong signals but not the conscious experience of perception, perhaps we would find that such stimuli are just as effective in influencing volitional behavior.Copyright © 2009 The Society of Christian Philosophers. All rights reserved.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Perceptions and Persistence: A Multifaceted Exploration of the Hypnagogic State and Unfinished Intentions

The present dissertation explores two research topics: The perceptions during the hypnagogic state and the persistence of incompleted intentions. The hypnagogic state refers to the transition between wakefulness and sleep, in which vivid perceptions can occur across all modalities. A literature review identified a lack of consensus on their definition, prevalence and characteristics. A subsequent questionnaire study assessed their prevalence, modality, and characteristics compared to other phenomena. Hypnagogic states occurred quite frequently in the population, characterized by a predominant emergence in the kinaesthetic modality. Regarding the persistence of unfinished intentions, the focus was put on the memory advantage of interrupted tasks, called the Zeigarnik effect, and the tendency to resume interrupted tasks, called the Ovsiankina effect. To investigate both effects, a meta-analytical approach was employed, with a subsequent experimental replication attempt using videogames. Results showed a general resumption tendency of unfinished intentions, but no memory advantage. Following these results, the memory advantage was investigated using anagrams. Here, a memory advantage of interrupted tasks could be observed but could not be related to the Zeigarnik effect, questioning the effect's validity. Finally, research into the phenomenology and function of the hypnagogic state seems particularly promising. Regarding unfinished intentions, research should focus on their underlying neurological mechanisms, as their resumption tendency seems apparent and their memory advantage unreplicable

Integrating the strengths of cognitive emotion models with traditional HCI analysis tools

This paper reports an attempt to integrate key concepts from cognitive models of emotion to cognitive models of interaction established in HCI literature. The aim is to transfer the strengths of interaction models to analysis of affect-critical systems in games, e-commerce and education, thereby increasing their usefulness in these systems where affect is increasingly recognised as a key success factor. Concepts from Scherer’s appraisal model and stimulation evaluation checks, along with a framework of emotion contexts proposed by Coulson (An everything but framework for modelling emotion. In proceeding of AAAI spring symposium on architectures for emotion, 2004), are integrated into the cycle of display-based action proposed by Norman (The design of everyday things. Basic Books, New York, 1988). Norman’s action cycle has commonly been applied as an interaction analysis tool in the field of HCI. In the wake of the recent shift of emphasis to user experience, the cognition-based action cycle is deemed inadequate to explicate affective experiences, such as happiness, joy and surprise. Models based on appraisal theories, focusing on cognitive accounts of emotion, are more relevant to understanding the causes and effects of feelings arising from interacting with digital artefacts. The paper explores the compatibility between these two genres of model, and future development of integrated analysis tools

Integrating the strengths of cognitive emotion models with traditional HCI analysis tools

This paper reports an attempt to integrate key concepts from cognitive models of emotion to cognitive models of interaction established in HCI literature. The aim is to transfer the strengths of interaction models to analysis of affect-critical systems in games, e-commerce and education, thereby increasing their usefulness in these systems where affect is increasingly recognised as a key success factor. Concepts from Scherer’s appraisal model and stimulation evaluation checks, along with a framework of emotion contexts proposed by Coulson (An everything but framework for modelling emotion. In proceeding of AAAI spring symposium on architectures for emotion, 2004), are integrated into the cycle of display-based action proposed by Norman (The design of everyday things. Basic Books, New York, 1988). Norman’s action cycle has commonly been applied as an interaction analysis tool in the field of HCI. In the wake of the recent shift of emphasis to user experience, the cognition-based action cycle is deemed inadequate to explicate affective experiences, such as happiness, joy and surprise. Models based on appraisal theories, focusing on cognitive accounts of emotion, are more relevant to understanding the causes and effects of feelings arising from interacting with digital artefacts. The paper explores the compatibility between these two genres of model, and future development of integrated analysis tools

Preparation and execution of voluntary action both contribute to awareness of intention

How and when motor intentions form has long been controversial. In particular, the extent to which motor preparation and action-related processes produce a conscious experience of intention remains unknown. Here, we used a brain–computer interface (BCI) while participants performed a self-paced movement task to trigger cues upon the detection of a readiness potential (a well-characterized brain signal that precedes movement) or in its absence. The BCI-triggered cues instructed participants either to move or not to move. Following this instruction, participants reported whether they felt they were about to move at the time the cue was presented. Participants were more likely to report an intention (i) when the cue was triggered by the presence of a readiness potential than when the same cue was triggered by its absence, and (ii) when they had just made an action than when they had not. We further describe a time-dependent integration of these two factors: the probability of reporting an intention was maximal when cues were triggered in the presence of a readiness potential, and when participants also executed an action shortly afterwards. Our results provide a first systematic investigation of how prospective and retrospective components are integrated in forming a conscious intention to move

The role of attentional focus in event-based prospective memory

Shelton, Jill, B.S., University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, 2001 M.S., University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, 2003 Doctor of Philosophy, Summer Commencement, 2008 Major: Psychology The Role of Attentional Focus in Event-based Prospective Memory. Dissertation directed by Professor Emily Elliott Pages in dissertation, 59. Words in abstract 188. ABSTRACT Two experiments were conducted to investigate how attentional resources are utilized in event-based prospective memory (PM). A PM component (make a designated response when you see a bird word) was embedded in a living/non-living judgment task (Experiment 1) and a recall task that required participants to alphabetically re-order sets of items (Experiment 2). One hypothesis predicts that the focus of attention (as defined by Cowan’s model of working memory) will be narrowed, or zoomed-in, when PM target items appear during an ongoing task. This could lead to task benefits or costs depending on the nature of the ongoing task. The zoom hypothesis was supported in Experiment 1, but high performance rates in Experiment 2 reduced the ability to observe any potential effects. The second hypothesis predicts that attentional control resources, as indexed by measures of working memory capacity, will be associated with PM performance, and this hypothesis was not supported in either experiment. The outcome of this research addresses several assumptions present within prominent theories of PM, and takes the first step in investigating how focal attention processes, in particular, influence PM performance and other ongoing cognitive activities