2,599 research outputs found
Testing theories of post-error slowing
People tend to slow down after they make an error. This phenomenon, generally referred to as post-error slowing, has been hypothesized to reflect perceptual distraction, time wasted on irrelevant processes, an a priori bias against the response made in error, increased variability in a priori bias, or an increase in response caution. Although the response caution interpretation has dominated the empirical literature, little research has attempted to test this interpretation in the context of a formal process model. Here, we used the drift diffusion model to isolate and identify the psychological processes responsible for post-error slowing. In a very large lexical decision data set, we found that post-error slowing was associated with an increase in response caution andâto a lesser extentâa change in response bias. In the present data set, we found no evidence that post-error slowing is caused by perceptual distraction or time wasted on irrelevant processes. These results support a response-monitoring account of post-error slowing
Getting more from accuracy and response time data: Methods for fitting the linear ballistic accumulator
Electrophysiological activation by masked primes: Independence of prime-related and target-related activities
Visual stimuli that are made invisible by metacontrast masking (primes) have a
marked influence on behavioral and psychophysiological measures such as reaction
time (RT) and the lateralized readiness potential (LRP). 4 experiments are
reported that shed light on the effects that masked primes have on the LRP.
Participants had a go-nogo task in which the prime was associated with 1 of 2
responses even if the target required participants to refrain from responding.
To analyze the electrophysiological responses, we computed the LRP and applied
an averaging method separating the activation due to the prime and the target.
The results demonstrated that (a) masked primes activate responses even in a
nogo situation, (b) this prime-related activation is independent of masking, (c)
and is also independent of whether prime and target require the same responses
(congruent condition) or different responses (incongruent condition)
Rough droplet model for spherical metal clusters
We study the thermally activated oscillations, or capillary waves, of a
neutral metal cluster within the liquid drop model. These deformations
correspond to a surface roughness which we characterize by a single parameter
. We derive a simple analytic approximate expression determining
as a function of temperature and cluster size. We then estimate the
induced effects on shell structure by means of a periodic orbit analysis and
compare with recent data for shell energy of sodium clusters in the size range
. A small surface roughness \AA~ is seen to
give a reasonable account of the decrease of amplitude of the shell structure
observed in experiment. Moreover -- contrary to usual Jahn-Teller type of
deformations -- roughness correctly reproduces the shape of the shell energy in
the domain of sizes considered in experiment.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, important modifications of the presentation, to
appear in Phys. Rev.
Neural correlates of evidence accumulation during value-based decisions revealed via simultaneous EEG-fMRI
Current computational accounts posit that, in simple binary choices, humans accumulate
evidence in favour of the different alternatives before committing to a decision. Neural
correlates of this accumulating activity have been found during perceptual decisions in
parietal and prefrontal cortex; however the source of such activity in value-based choices
remains unknown. Here we use simultaneous EEGâfMRI and computational modelling to
identify EEG signals reflecting an accumulation process and demonstrate that the within- and
across-trial variability in these signals explains fMRI responses in posterior-medial frontal
cortex. Consistent with its role in integrating the evidence prior to reaching a decision, this
region also exhibits task-dependent coupling with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and
the striatum, brain areas known to encode the subjective value of the decision alternatives.
These results further endorse the proposition of an evidence accumulation process
during value-based decisions in humans and implicate the posterior-medial frontal cortex in
this process
Measurement of the branching ratios of the Z0 into heavy quarks
We measure the hadronic branching ratios of the Z0 boson into heavy quarks:
Rb=Gamma(Z0->bb)/Gamma(Z0->hadrons) and Rc=Gamma(Z0->cc/Gamma(Z0->hadrons)
using a multi-tag technique. The measurement was performed using about 400,000
hadronic Z0 events recorded in the SLD experiment at SLAC between 1996 and
1998. The small and stable SLC beam spot and the CCD-based vertex detector were
used to reconstruct bottom and charm hadron decay vertices with high efficiency
and purity, which enables us to measure most efficiencies from data. We obtain,
Rb=0.21604 +- 0.00098(stat.) +- 0.00073(syst.) -+ 0.00012(Rc) and, Rc= 0.1744
+- 0.0031(stat.) +- 0.0020(syst.) -+ 0.0006(Rb)Comment: 37 pages, 8 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev. D version 2:
changed title to ratios, used common D production fractions for Rb and Rc and
corrected Zgamma interference. Identical to PRD submissio
Direct Measurements of A_b and A_c using Vertex/Kaon Charge Tags at SLD
Exploiting the manipulation of the SLC electron-beam polarization, we present
precise direct measurements of the parity violation parameters A_c and A_b in
the Z boson - c quark and Z boson - b quark coupling. Quark/antiquark
discrimination is accomplished via a unique algorithm that takes advantage of
the precise SLD CCD vertex detector, employing the net charge of displaced
vertices as well as the charge of kaons that emanate from those vertices. From
the 1996-98 sample of 400,000 Z decays, produced with an average beam
polarization of 73.4%, we find A_c = 0.673 +/- 0.029 (stat.) +/- 0.023 (syst.)
and A_b = 0.919 +/- 0.018 (stat.) +/- 0.017 (syst.).Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, to be submitted to Physical Review
Letters; version 2 reflects changes suggested by the refere
Measurement of ISR-FSR interference in the processes e+ e- --> mu+ mu- gamma and e+ e- --> pi+ pi- gamma
Charge asymmetry in processes e+ e- --> mu+ mu- gamma and e+ e- --> pi+ pi-
gamma is measured using 232 fb-1 of data collected with the BABAR detector at
center-of-mass energies near 10.58 GeV. An observable is introduced and shown
to be very robust against detector asymmetries while keeping a large
sensitivity to the physical charge asymmetry that results from the interference
between initial and final state radiation. The asymmetry is determined as
afunction of the invariant mass of the final-state tracks from production
threshold to a few GeV/c2. It is compared to the expectation from QED for e+ e-
--> mu+ mu- gamma and from theoretical models for e+ e- --> pi+ pi- gamma. A
clear interference pattern is observed in e+ e- --> pi+ pi- gamma, particularly
in the vicinity of the f_2(1270) resonance. The inferred rate of lowest order
FSR production is consistent with the QED expectation for e+ e- --> mu+ mu-
gamma, and is negligibly small for e+ e- --> pi+ pi- gamma.Comment: 32 pages,29 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev.
A Search for Jet Handedness in Hadronic Decays
We have searched for signatures of polarization in hadronic jets from decays using the ``jet handedness'' method. The polar angle
asymmetry induced by the high SLC electron-beam polarization was used to
separate quark jets from antiquark jets, expected to be left- and
right-polarized, respectively. We find no evidence for jet handedness in our
global sample or in a sample of light quark jets and we set upper limits at the
95% C.L. of 0.063 and 0.099 respectively on the magnitude of the analyzing
power of the method proposed by Efremov {\it et al.}Comment: Revtex, 8 pages, 2 figure
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