Understanding Everyday Events: Predictive Looking Errors Drive Memory Updating

peer reviewedMemory-guided predictions can improve event comprehension by guiding attention and the eyes to the location where an actor is about to perform an action. But when events change, viewers may experience predictive looking errors and need to update their memories. In two experiments (Ns = 38 and 111), we examined the consequences of mnemonic predictive looking errors for comprehending and remembering event changes. University students watched movies of everyday activities with actions that repeated exactly and actions that repeated with changed features—for example, an actor reached for a paper towel on one occasion and a dish towel on the next. Memory guidance led to predictive looking errors that were associated with better memory for subsequently changed event features. These results indicate that retrieving recent event features can guide predictions during unfolding events, and that error signals derived from mismatches between mnemonic predictions and actual events contribute to new learning.Mind-wandering in everyday event comprehension: Memory, attention, and the brai

The longitudinal development of emotion regulation capacities in children at risk for externalizing disorders

The development of emotional regulation capacities in children at high versus low risk for externalizing disorder was examined in a longitudinal study investigating: a) whether disturbances in emotion regulation precede and predict the emergence of externalizing symptoms; and b) whether sensitive maternal behavior is a significant influence on the development of child emotion regulation. Families experiencing high (n=58) and low (n=63) levels of psychosocial adversity were recruited to the study during pregnancy. Direct observational assessments of child emotion regulation capacities and maternal sensitivity were completed in early infancy, at 12 and 18-months, and at 5-years. Key findings were as follows. First, high risk children showed poorer emotion regulation capacities than their low risk counterparts at every stage of assessment. Second, from 12-months onwards, emotion regulation capacities showed a degree of stability, and were associated with behavioral problems, both concurrently and prospectively. Third, maternal sensitivity was related to child emotion regulation capacities throughout development, with poorer emotion regulation in the high risk group being associated with lower maternal sensitivity. The results are consistent with a causal role for problems in the regulation of negative emotions in the etiology of externalizing psychopathology, and highlight insensitive parenting as a potentially key developmental influence

Gene expression during normal and FSHD myogenesis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is a dominant disease linked to contraction of an array of tandem 3.3-kb repeats (D4Z4) at 4q35. Within each repeat unit is a gene, <it>DUX4</it>, that can encode a protein containing two homeodomains. A <it>DUX4 </it>transcript derived from the last repeat unit in a contracted array is associated with pathogenesis but it is unclear how.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Using exon-based microarrays, the expression profiles of myogenic precursor cells were determined. Both undifferentiated myoblasts and myoblasts differentiated to myotubes derived from FSHD patients and controls were studied after immunocytochemical verification of the quality of the cultures. To further our understanding of FSHD and normal myogenesis, the expression profiles obtained were compared to those of 19 non-muscle cell types analyzed by identical methods.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Many of the ~17,000 examined genes were differentially expressed (> 2-fold, <it>p </it>< 0.01) in control myoblasts or myotubes vs. non-muscle cells (2185 and 3006, respectively) or in FSHD vs. control myoblasts or myotubes (295 and 797, respectively). Surprisingly, despite the morphologically normal differentiation of FSHD myoblasts to myotubes, most of the disease-related dysregulation was seen as dampening of normal myogenesis-specific expression changes, including in genes for muscle structure, mitochondrial function, stress responses, and signal transduction. Other classes of genes, including those encoding extracellular matrix or pro-inflammatory proteins, were upregulated in FSHD myogenic cells independent of an inverse myogenesis association. Importantly, the disease-linked <it>DUX4 </it>RNA isoform was detected by RT-PCR in FSHD myoblast and myotube preparations only at extremely low levels. Unique insights into myogenesis-specific gene expression were also obtained. For example, all four Argonaute genes involved in RNA-silencing were significantly upregulated during normal (but not FSHD) myogenesis relative to non-muscle cell types.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p><it>DUX4</it>'s pathogenic effect in FSHD may occur transiently at or before the stage of myoblast formation to establish a cascade of gene dysregulation. This contrasts with the current emphasis on toxic effects of experimentally upregulated <it>DUX4 </it>expression at the myoblast or myotube stages. Our model could explain why <it>DUX4</it>'s inappropriate expression was barely detectable in myoblasts and myotubes but nonetheless linked to FSHD.</p

Temperament Pathways to Childhood Disruptive Behavior and Adolescent Substance Abuse: Testing a Cascade Model

Abstract Temperament traits may increase risk for developmental psychopathology like Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and disruptive behaviors during childhood, as well as predisposing to substance abuse during adolescence. In the current study, a cascade model of trait pathways to adolescent substance abuse was examined. Component hypotheses were that (a) maladaptive traits would increase risk for inattention/hyperactivity, (b) inattention/hyperactivity would increase risk for disruptive behaviors, and (c) disruptive behaviors would lead to adolescent substance abuse. Participants were 674 children (486 boys) from 321 families in an ongoing, longitudinal high risk study that began when children were 3 years old. Temperament traits assessed were reactive control, resiliency, and negative emotionality, using examiner ratings on the California Q-Sort. Parent, teacher, and self ratings of inattention/hyperactivity, disruptive behaviors, and substance abuse were also obtained. Low levels of childhood reactive control, but not resiliency or negative emotionality, were associated with adolescent substance abuse, mediated by disruptive behaviors. Using a cascade model, family risk for substance abuse was partially mediated by reactive control, inattention/hyperactivity, and disruptive behavior. Some, but not all, temperament traits in childhood were related to adolescent substance abuse; these effects were mediated via inattentive/hyperactive and disruptive behaviors.This work was supported by NIAAA grant R01-AA12217 to Robert Zucker and Joel Nigg, NIAAA grant R37-AA07065 to Robert Zucker and Hiram Fitzgerald, and NIMH grant R01-MH59105 to Joel Nigg. Martel was supported by 1 F31 MH075533-01A2.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64507/1/#167, Martel 2009, Temperament path to disruptive behav and sub abuse JACP.pd

Dynamic prediction during perception of everyday events

Abstract The ability to predict what is going to happen in the near future is integral for daily functioning. Previous research suggests that predictability varies over time, with increases in prediction error at those moments that people perceive as boundaries between meaningful events. These moments also tend to be points of rapid change in the environment. Eye tracking provides a method for noninterruptive measurement of prediction as participants watch a movie of an actor performing a series of actions. In two studies, we used eye tracking to study the time course of prediction around event boundaries. In both studies, viewers looked at objects that were about to be touched by the actor shortly before the objects were contacted, demonstrating predictive looking. However, this behavior was modulated by event boundaries: looks to to-be-contacted objects near event boundaries were less likely to be early and more likely to be late compared to looks to objects contacted within events. This result is consistent with theories proposing that event segmentation results from transient increases in prediction error

Event Processing and Memory Deficits Associated with PTSD

This project contains materials from two papers that studied event processing in a group of people diagnosed with post posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and matched controls: Pitts, B. L., Eisenberg, M. L., Bailey, H. R., &amp; Zacks, J. M. (2022). PTSD is associated with impaired event processing and memory for everyday events. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 7(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-022-00386-6 Current theories of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) propose that memory abnormalities are central to the development and persistence of symptoms. While the most notable memory disturbances in PTSD involve memory for the trauma itself, individuals often have trouble remembering aspects of everyday life. Further, people with PTSD may have difficulty segmenting ongoing activity into discrete units, which is important for our perception and later memory of the activity. The current study investigated whether PTSD diagnosis and symptom severity predicted event segmentation and memory for everyday activities. To do so, 63 people with PTSD and 64 controls with a trauma history watched, segmented, and recalled videos of everyday activities. Viewers with higher PTSD symptom severity showed lower agreement on locations of event boundaries and recalled fewer fine-grained actions than did those with lower symptom severity. These results suggest that PTSD symptoms alter event segmentation, which may contribute to subsequent memory disturbances. Pitts, B. L., Eisenberg, M. L., Bailey, H. R., &amp; Zacks, J. M. (2023). Cueing natural event boundaries improves memory in people with post-traumatic stress disorder. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 8(1), 26. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-023-00478-x People with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often report difficulty remembering information in their everyday lives. Recent findings suggest that such difficulties may be due to PTSD-related deficits in parsing ongoing activity into discrete events, a process called event segmentation. Here, we investigated the causal relationship between event segmentation and memory by cueing event boundaries and evaluating its effect on subsequent memory in people with PTSD. People with PTSD (n = 38) and trauma-matched controls (n = 36) watched and remembered videos of everyday activities that were either unedited, contained visual and auditory cues at event boundaries, or contained visual and auditory cues at event middles. PTSD symptom severity varied substantial within both the group with a PTSD diagnosis and the control group. Memory performance did not differ significantly between groups, but people with high symptoms of PTSD remembered fewer details from the videos than those with lower symptoms of PTSD. Both those with PTSD and controls remembered more information from the videos in the event boundary cue condition than the middle cue or unedited conditions. This finding has important implications for translational work focusing on addressing everyday memory complaints in people with PTSD