Electrophysiological dynamics reveal distinct processing of stimulus-stimulus and stimulus-response conflicts

The present study examined electroencephalogram profiles on a novel stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) task in order to elucidate the distinct brain mechanisms of stimulus-stimulus (S-S) and stimulus-response (S-R) conflict processing. The results showed that the SRC effects on reaction times (RTs) and N2 amplitudes were additive when both S-S and S-R conflicts existed. We also observed that, for both RTs and N2 amplitudes, the conflict adaptation effectsthe reduced SRC effect following an incongruent trial versus a congruent trialwere present only when two consecutive trials involved the same type of conflict. Time-frequency analysis revealed that both S-S and S-R conflicts modulated power in the theta band, whereas S-S conflict additionally modulated power in the alpha and beta bands. In summary, our findings provide insight into the domain-specific conflict processing and the modular organization of cognitive control

Delay-probability-distribution-dependent H∞ FIR filtering design with envelope constraints

Published version of an article in the journal: Mathematical Problems in Engineering. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/930927 Open AccessThis paper studies the problem of H∞ finite-impulse response (FIR) filtering design of time-delay system. The time-delay considered here is time-varying meanwhile with a certain stochastic characteristic, and the probability of delay distribution is assumed to be known. Furthermore, the requirement of pulse-shape is also considered in filter design. Employing the information about the size and probability distribution of delay, a delay-probability-distribution-dependent criterion is proposed for the filtering error system. Based on a Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) are formulated to solve the problem. At last, a numerical example is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the filter design approach proposed in the paper

An open science resource for establishing reliability and reproducibility in functional connectomics

Efforts to identify meaningful functional imaging-based biomarkers are limited by the ability to reliably characterize inter-individual differences in human brain function. Although a growing number of connectomics-based measures are reported to have moderate to high test-retest reliability, the variability in data acquisition, experimental designs, and analytic methods precludes the ability to generalize results. The Consortium for Reliability and Reproducibility (CoRR) is working to address this challenge and establish test-retest reliability as a minimum standard for methods development in functional connectomics. Specifically, CoRR has aggregated 1,629 typical individuals’ resting state fMRI (rfMRI) data (5,093 rfMRI scans) from 18 international sites, and is openly sharing them via the International Data-sharing Neuroimaging Initiative (INDI). To allow researchers to generate various estimates of reliability and reproducibility, a variety of data acquisition procedures and experimental designs are included. Similarly, to enable users to assess the impact of commonly encountered artifacts (for example, motion) on characterizations of inter-individual variation, datasets of varying quality are included

Government audit supervision and enterprise mergers and acquisitions

ABSTRACTAs an important part of the national political system, government audits play a significant role in supervising and restricting enterprises. Since 2010, the National Audit Office of China has repeatedly disclosed the problems regarding enterprises’ M&A to prevent the loss of state-owned assets. This study takes listed companies controlled by the central enterprises of A-shares from 2008 to 2018 as a sample to investigate the impact of government audit supervision on M&A. We find that government audit supervision reduces the number and scale of M&As. Further research shows that government audits can reduce enterprises’ M&A premiums and affect payment methods. Finally, government audits significantly improve the short- and long-term performance of M&As. These findings show that Chinese government audits positively affect corporate governance, curbing M&As that damage enterprise interests. This study provides micro-level evidence of the governance effect of government audits on the scientific decision-making of enterprises

The time course of attentional modulation on emotional conflict processing

Cognitive conflict resolution is critical to human survival in a rapidly changing environment. However, emotional conflict processing seems to be particularly important for human interactions. This study examined whether the time course of attentional modulation on emotional conflict processing was different from cognitive conflict processing during a flanker task. Results showed that emotional N200 and P300 effects, similar to colour conflict processing, appeared only during the relevant task. However, the emotional N200 effect preceded the colour N200 effect, indicating that emotional conflict can be identified earlier than cognitive conflict. Additionally, a significant emotional N100 effect revealed that emotional valence differences could be perceived during early processing based on rough aspects of input. The present data suggest that emotional conflict processing is modulated by top-down attention, similar to cognitive conflict processing (reflected by N200 and P300 effects). However, emotional conflict processing seems to have more time advantages during two different processing stages

Negative Impacts of Sleep–Wake Rhythm Disturbances on Attention in Young Adults

Sleep–wake rhythm disturbances have a negative impact on attention. However, how it affects attention and whether the restoration of regular rhythms can restore attention are unclear. This study aims to explore the effects of sleep–wake rhythm disturbances on three subfunctions of attention (alertness, orientation, and executive control) and the restoration of regular rhythms on these functions. Twenty-one participants in the experimental group (who experienced sleep–wake rhythm disturbances for at least one month; aged 18–26) were required to sleep regularly following a sleep schedule, whereas 20 participants in the control group (who maintained regular sleep for at least three months; aged 19–22) received no manipulation of their sleep. All participants were assessed using the attention network test three times in six days. All of them wore spectrum activity monitors and kept sleep diaries every day. The results showed that the effects of alertness and executive control in the experimental group were significantly lower than those in the control group. After five days of regular sleep, the difference in the alertness effect between the two groups significantly decreased. These results suggested that under natural conditions, sleep–wake rhythm disturbances could negatively influence alertness and executive control, and a short period of restoring a regular rhythm has a recovery effect on alertness

Independent Processing of Stimulus-Stimulus and Stimulus-Response Conflicts

The dimensional overlap (DO) model proposes distinct mechanisms for stimulus-stimulus (S-S) and stimulus-response (S-R) conflict effects. Many studies have examined the independence of S-S and S-R conflict effects in the color-word Stroop and Simon tasks. However, confounds exist between the distinction of DO (i.e., S-S dimensional overlap compared with S-R dimensional overlap) and the distinction of stimulus attributes (e.g., color compared with spatial location; semantic compared with nonsemantic information), which may hinder interpretation of the independence of S-S and S-R conflicts. A spatial Stroop (word) task and a spatial Stroop (arrow) task were combined with a Simon task in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively to eliminate these confounds of stimulus attributes. The results showed that S-S and S-R conflicts affected performance additively. There was no significant correlation across participants. These findings lend further support to independent processing of S-S and S-R conflicts as it is outlined in the taxonomy of DO

Two processing stages of the SNARC effect

The spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect showed that small/large numbers represented in the left/right space facilitated left/right responses, respectively. However, the processing stage (semantic representation or response selection) of the SNARC effect is still controversial. To investigate this issue, we adopted a modified magnitude comparison task in which the effects of SNARC, Stroop (semantic-representation stage), and Simon (response-selection stage) could be simultaneously induced. The processing stages of the SNARC effect were investigated by examining the interactions among these effects. According to the additive factor logic, if two effects are interactive, then they occur in the same stage; if two effects are additive, then they occur in different stages. Across two experiments, the SNARC effect interacted with the Stroop effect and with the Simon effect. These results suggested that the SNARC effect occurred in both the semantic-representation and response-selection stages and provided insight into that the SNARC effect might have two originating sources.</p

The SNARC effect occurs in the response-selection stage

The dimensional overlap (DO) theory categorizes various stimulus-response compatible effects (e.g., the manual Stroop, Simon, and SNARC effects) into two main types: stimulus-stimulus (S-S) and stimulus-response (S-R) dimensional overlap effects. The S-S type effect (e.g., the manual Stroop) occurs in the semantic-representation stage, while the S-R type effect (e.g., Simon) occurs in the response-selection stage. However, the processing stage of the SNARC effect, which is also categorized as an S-R type, remains controversial. To investigate this issue, we adopted a modified numeral parity judgment task that could simultaneously induce manual Stroop, Simon, and SNARC effects. According to the additive-factor logic, two effects occur in the same processing stage if they are interactive. In our task, we checked the interaction among the three effects to identify the locus of the SNARC effect. In two experiments with different target numbers (exp1: 1, 2, 7, 8; exp2: 0, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9), the manual Stroop, Simon, and SNARC effects were all observed, showing longer response times and higher error rates in the incongruent conditions than in the congruent conditions. Most importantly, only the interaction between SNARC and Simon effects was observed in the two experiments. This result suggests that the SNARC effect, as an S-R type effect like the Simon effect, occurs in the response-selection stage. In addition, the non-interaction of the manual Stroop and Simon effects and the manual Stroop and SNARC effects in our study repeatedly verifies the independence of the S-S and S-R effects. Our results further support the classification of the DO theory.</p

Empathy or schadenfreude? Social value orientation and affective responses to gambling results

Social value orientation (SVO) refers to the social motivation that guides people to trade off interests between the self and others, which plays an important role in human prosocial behaviors. In this research, three studies were conducted to investigate whether people with high versus low SVO differ in their affective response to winning and losing in a gambling task when the gambler is a stranger (Study 1), when both oneself and strangers are the gamblers and social comparison is involved (Study 2) and when the gambler is a liked or disliked person (Study 3). The results show that when the gambler is a stranger (Study 1) or a liked person (Study 3), people manifest empathy regardless of their level of SVO. When the self is involved (Study 2) or when the target is a disliked person (Study 3), however, people with high SVO manifest empathy-like responses, but people with low SVO manifest schadenfreude. Overall, whether SVO influences affective responses to economic gain and loss depends on the gambling situation or the target person, thus enriching our understandings of humans' prosocial behaviors