Object based implicit contextual learning: a study of eye movements.

PubMed

van Asselen, Marieke; Sampaio, Joana; Pina, Ana; Castelo-Branco, Miguel

2011-02-01

Implicit contextual cueing refers to a top-down mechanism in which visual search is facilitated by learned contextual features. In the current study we aimed to investigate the mechanism underlying implicit contextual learning using object information as a contextual cue. Therefore, we measured eye movements during an object-based contextual cueing task. We demonstrated that visual search is facilitated by repeated object information and that this reduction in response times is associated with shorter fixation durations. This indicates that by memorizing associations between objects in our environment we can recognize objects faster, thereby facilitating visual search.

Contextual cost: when a visual-search target is not where it should be.

PubMed

Makovski, Tal; Jiang, Yuhong V

2010-02-01

Visual search is often facilitated when the search display occasionally repeats, revealing a contextual-cueing effect. According to the associative-learning account, contextual cueing arises from associating the display configuration with the target location. However, recent findings emphasizing the importance of local context near the target have given rise to the possibility that low-level repetition priming may account for the contextual-cueing effect. This study distinguishes associative learning from local repetition priming by testing whether search is directed toward a target's expected location, even when the target is relocated. After participants searched for a T among Ls in displays that repeated 24 times, they completed a transfer session where the target was relocated locally to a previously blank location (Experiment 1) or to an adjacent distractor location (Experiment 2). Results revealed that contextual cueing decreased as the target appeared farther away from its expected location, ultimately resulting in a contextual cost when the target swapped locations with a local distractor. We conclude that target predictability is a key factor in contextual cueing.

Exposure to retrieval cues improves retention performance and induces changes in ACTH and corticosterone release.

PubMed

Gisquet-Verrier, Pascale; Botreau, Fanny; Venero, Cesar; Sandi, Carmen

2004-05-01

Memory retrieval can be facilitated by pretest exposure to cues associated with the original training. The present series of experiments was aimed at investigating whether the effectiveness of the retrieval cues might be due to their emotional value and thus be associated to a particular pattern of activation of stress systems. Therefore, the effects of exposing rats to different cueing conditions were investigated both on retention performance and on the level of different stress hormones (ACTH, corticosterone and glucose; the latter as an indirect index of adrenergic/sympathetic nervous system activation). Rats trained in a brightness avoidance discrimination task exhibited an enhancement of the retention performance following exposure to the light discriminative stimulus when delivered 1-day after training and not after 21 days, while exposure to contextual cues led to opposite effects on the retention performance, confirming our previous results. Analyses of the level of stress hormones at the time of testing indicated that when the retrieval cues were effective at the behavioral level, cued rats exhibited higher ACTH plasmatic levels than controls, but did not differ in their glucose or corticosterone levels. Further experiments showed that one day after training, both ACTH and corticosterone levels were elevated in light-cued rats if hormone samples were taken 15 min after cueing. These results show that exposure to an effective retrieval cue is accompanied by the activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. The possible involvement of the Corticotropin Releasing Factor at the level of the hypothalamus and amygdala (particularly the central nucleus) on the facilitating effect on retention performance following exposure to aversive training-associated cues is discussed. The present results strengthen the notion that emotion can interact with retrieval processes.

Drug-induced conditioned place preference and aversion in mice.

PubMed

Cunningham, Christopher L; Gremel, Christina M; Groblewski, Peter A

2006-01-01

This protocol describes the equipment and methods used to establish conditioned place preference (CPP) or aversion (CPA). Place conditioning is a form of Pavlovian conditioning routinely used to measure the rewarding or aversive motivational effects of objects or experiences (e.g., abused drugs). Here, we present a place conditioning procedure that has been used extensively to study the motivational effects of ethanol and other abused drugs in mice. This protocol involves three phases: (i) habituation (or a pretest), (ii) conditioning of an association between the drug and a tactile or visual stimulus and (iii) a test that offers a choice between the drug-associated cue and a neutral cue. If the drug has motivational significance, mice will spend significantly more time (CPP) or less time (CPA) in proximity to the drug-associated cue. Potential problems in the design and interpretation of place conditioning studies are discussed. A typical experiment lasts 2 weeks.

Contextual remapping in visual search after predictable target-location changes.

PubMed

Conci, Markus; Sun, Luning; Müller, Hermann J

2011-07-01

Invariant spatial context can facilitate visual search. For instance, detection of a target is faster if it is presented within a repeatedly encountered, as compared to a novel, layout of nontargets, demonstrating a role of contextual learning for attentional guidance ('contextual cueing'). Here, we investigated how context-based learning adapts to target location (and identity) changes. Three experiments were performed in which, in an initial learning phase, observers learned to associate a given context with a given target location. A subsequent test phase then introduced identity and/or location changes to the target. The results showed that contextual cueing could not compensate for target changes that were not 'predictable' (i.e. learnable). However, for predictable changes, contextual cueing remained effective even immediately after the change. These findings demonstrate that contextual cueing is adaptive to predictable target location changes. Under these conditions, learned contextual associations can be effectively 'remapped' to accommodate new task requirements.

The time course of attentional deployment in contextual cueing.

PubMed

Jiang, Yuhong V; Sigstad, Heather M; Swallow, Khena M

2013-04-01

The time course of attention is a major characteristic on which different types of attention diverge. In addition to explicit goals and salient stimuli, spatial attention is influenced by past experience. In contextual cueing, behaviorally relevant stimuli are more quickly found when they appear in a spatial context that has previously been encountered than when they appear in a new context. In this study, we investigated the time that it takes for contextual cueing to develop following the onset of search layout cues. In three experiments, participants searched for a T target in an array of Ls. Each array was consistently associated with a single target location. In a testing phase, we manipulated the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the repeated spatial layout and the search display. Contextual cueing was equivalent for a wide range of SOAs between 0 and 1,000 ms. The lack of an increase in contextual cueing with increasing cue durations suggests that as an implicit learning mechanism, contextual cueing cannot be effectively used until search begins.

Uncertainty is associated with increased selective attention and sustained stimulus processing.

PubMed

Dieterich, Raoul; Endrass, Tanja; Kathmann, Norbert

2016-06-01

Uncertainty about future threat has been found to be associated with an overestimation of threat probability and is hypothesized to elicit additional allocation of attention. We used event-related potentials to examine uncertainty-related dynamics in attentional allocation, exploiting brain potentials' high temporal resolution and sensitivity to attention. Thirty participants performed a picture-viewing task in which cues indicated the subsequent picture valence. A certain-neutral and a certain-aversive cue accurately predicted subsequent picture valence, whereas an uncertain cue did not. Participants overestimated the effective frequency of aversive pictures following the uncertain cue, both during and after the task, signifying expectancy and covariation biases, and they tended to express lower subjective valences for aversive pictures presented after the uncertain cue. Pictures elicited increased P2 and LPP amplitudes when their valence could not be predicted from the cue. For the LPP, this effect was more pronounced in response to neutral pictures. Uncertainty appears to enhance the engagement of early phasic and sustained attention for uncertainly cued targets. Thus, defensive motivation related to uncertainty about future threat elicits specific attentional dynamics implicating prioritization at various processing stages, especially for nonthreatening stimuli that tend to violate expectations.

Contextual cueing in 3D visual search depends on representations in planar-, not depth-defined space.

PubMed

Zang, Xuelian; Shi, Zhuanghua; Müller, Hermann J; Conci, Markus

2017-05-01

Learning of spatial inter-item associations can speed up visual search in everyday life, an effect referred to as contextual cueing (Chun & Jiang, 1998). Whereas previous studies investigated contextual cueing primarily using 2D layouts, the current study examined how 3D depth influences contextual learning in visual search. In two experiments, the search items were presented evenly distributed across front and back planes in an initial training session. In the subsequent test session, the search items were either swapped between the front and back planes (Experiment 1) or between the left and right halves (Experiment 2) of the displays. The results showed that repeated spatial contexts were learned efficiently under 3D viewing conditions, facilitating search in the training sessions, in both experiments. Importantly, contextual cueing remained robust and virtually unaffected following the swap of depth planes in Experiment 1, but it was substantially reduced (to nonsignificant levels) following the left-right side swap in Experiment 2. This result pattern indicates that spatial, but not depth, inter-item variations limit effective contextual guidance. Restated, contextual cueing (even under 3D viewing conditions) is primarily based on 2D inter-item associations, while depth-defined spatial regularities are probably not encoded during contextual learning. Hence, changing the depth relations does not impact the cueing effect.

Contextual cueing in multiconjunction visual search is dependent on color- and configuration-based intertrial contingencies.

PubMed

Geyer, Thomas; Shi, Zhuanghua; Müller, Hermann J

2010-06-01

Three experiments examined memory-based guidance of visual search using a modified version of the contextual-cueing paradigm (Jiang & Chun, 2001). The target, if present, was a conjunction of color and orientation, with target (and distractor) features randomly varying across trials (multiconjunction search). Under these conditions, reaction times (RTs) were faster when all items in the display appeared at predictive ("old") relative to nonpredictive ("new") locations. However, this RT benefit was smaller compared to when only one set of items, namely that sharing the target's color (but not that in the alternative color) appeared in predictive arrangement. In all conditions, contextual cueing was reliable on both target-present and -absent trials and enhanced if a predictive display was preceded by a predictive (though differently arranged) display, rather than a nonpredictive display. These results suggest that (1) contextual cueing is confined to color subsets of items, that (2) retrieving contextual associations for one color subset of items can be impeded by associations formed within the alternative subset ("contextual interference"), and (3) that contextual cueing is modulated by intertrial priming.

Elemental or contextual? It depends: individual difference in the hippocampal dependence of associative learning for a simple sensory stimulus

PubMed Central

Lee, Kyung J.; Park, Seong-Beom; Lee, Inah

2014-01-01

Learning theories categorize learning systems into elemental and contextual systems, the former being processed by non-hippocampal regions and the latter being processed in the hippocampus. A set of complex stimuli such as a visual background is often considered a contextual stimulus and simple sensory stimuli such as pure tone and light are considered elemental stimuli. However, this elemental-contextual categorization scheme has only been tested in limited behavioral paradigms and it is largely unknown whether it can be generalized across different learning situations. By requiring rats to respond differently to a common object in association with various types of sensory cues including contextual and elemental stimuli, we tested whether different types of elemental and contextual sensory stimuli depended on the hippocampus to different degrees. In most rats, a surrounding visual background and a tactile stimulus served as contextual (hippocampal dependent) and elemental (non-hippocampal dependent) stimuli, respectively. However, simple tone and light stimuli frequently used as elemental cues in traditional experiments required the hippocampus to varying degrees among rats. Specifically, one group of rats showed a normal contextual bias when both contextual and elemental cues were present. These rats effectively switched to using elemental cues when the hippocampus was inactivated. The other group showed a strong contextual bias (and hippocampal dependence) because these rats were not able to use elemental cues when the hippocampus was unavailable. It is possible that the latter group of rats might have interpreted the elemental cues (light and tone) as background stimuli and depended more on the hippocampus in associating the cues with choice responses. Although exact mechanisms underlying these individual variances are unclear, our findings recommend a caution for adopting a simple sensory stimulus as a non-hippocampal sensory cue only based on the literature. PMID:24982624

Hierarchical acquisition of visual specificity in spatial contextual cueing.

PubMed

Lie, Kin-Pou

2015-01-01

Spatial contextual cueing refers to visual search performance's being improved when invariant associations between target locations and distractor spatial configurations are learned incidentally. Using the instance theory of automatization and the reverse hierarchy theory of visual perceptual learning, this study explores the acquisition of visual specificity in spatial contextual cueing. Two experiments in which detailed visual features were irrelevant for distinguishing between spatial contexts found that spatial contextual cueing was visually generic in difficult trials when the trials were not preceded by easy trials (Experiment 1) but that spatial contextual cueing progressed to visual specificity when difficult trials were preceded by easy trials (Experiment 2). These findings support reverse hierarchy theory, which predicts that even when detailed visual features are irrelevant for distinguishing between spatial contexts, spatial contextual cueing can progress to visual specificity if the stimuli remain constant, the task is difficult, and difficult trials are preceded by easy trials. However, these findings are inconsistent with instance theory, which predicts that when detailed visual features are irrelevant for distinguishing between spatial contexts, spatial contextual cueing will not progress to visual specificity. This study concludes that the acquisition of visual specificity in spatial contextual cueing is more plausibly hierarchical, rather than instance-based.

More equal than others: Equity norms as an integration of cognitive heuristics and contextual cues in bargaining games.

PubMed

Civai, Claudia; Rumiati, Raffaella Ida; Rustichini, Aldo

2013-09-01

Behavior in one-shot bargaining games, like the Ultimatum Game (UG), has been interpreted as an expression of social preferences, such as inequity aversion and negative reciprocity; however, the traditional UG design limits the range of possible psychological interpretation of the results. Here, we employed three different designs for ultimatum games, finding support for a more comprehensive theory: behavior is driven by cognitive factors implementing rules such as equal splitting, speaking up for the idea that equity works as a cognitive heuristic, applicable when the environment provides no reason to behave otherwise. Instead subjects deviate from this rule when environment changes, as, for instance, when personal interest is at stake. Results show that behavior varies systematically with contextual cues, balancing the self-interest with the automatic application of the equity heuristic. Thus, the context suggests the rule to be applied in a specific situation. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The effect of contextual cues on the encoding of motor memories.

PubMed

Howard, Ian S; Wolpert, Daniel M; Franklin, David W

2013-05-01

Several studies have shown that sensory contextual cues can reduce the interference observed during learning of opposing force fields. However, because each study examined a small set of cues, often in a unique paradigm, the relative efficacy of different sensory contextual cues is unclear. In the present study we quantify how seven contextual cues, some investigated previously and some novel, affect the formation and recall of motor memories. Subjects made movements in a velocity-dependent curl field, with direction varying randomly from trial to trial but always associated with a unique contextual cue. Linking field direction to the cursor or background color, or to peripheral visual motion cues, did not reduce interference. In contrast, the orientation of a visual object attached to the hand cursor significantly reduced interference, albeit by a small amount. When the fields were associated with movement in different locations in the workspace, a substantial reduction in interference was observed. We tested whether this reduction in interference was due to the different locations of the visual feedback (targets and cursor) or the movements (proprioceptive). When the fields were associated only with changes in visual display location (movements always made centrally) or only with changes in the movement location (visual feedback always displayed centrally), a substantial reduction in interference was observed. These results show that although some visual cues can lead to the formation and recall of distinct representations in motor memory, changes in spatial visual and proprioceptive states of the movement are far more effective than changes in simple visual contextual cues.

Aversive Stimuli Differentially Modulate Real-Time Dopamine Transmission Dynamics within the Nucleus Accumbens Core and Shell

PubMed Central

Badrinarayan, Aneesha; Wescott, Seth A.; Vander Weele, Caitlin M.; Saunders, Benjamin T.; Couturier, Brenann E.; Maren, Stephen

2012-01-01

Although fear directs adaptive behavioral responses, how aversive cues recruit motivational neural circuitry is poorly understood. Specifically, while it is known that dopamine (DA) transmission within the nucleus accumbens (NAc) is imperative for mediating appetitive motivated behaviors, its role in aversive behavior is controversial. It has been proposed that divergent phasic DA transmission following aversive events may correspond to segregated mesolimbic dopamine pathways; however, this prediction has never been tested. Here, we used fast-scan cyclic voltammetry to examine real-time DA transmission within NAc core and shell projection systems in response to a fear-evoking cue. In male Sprague Dawley rats, we first demonstrate that a fear cue results in decreased DA transmission within the NAc core, but increased transmission within the NAc shell. We examined whether these changes in DA transmission could be attributed to modulation of phasic transmission evoked by cue presentation. We found that cue presentation decreased the probability of phasic DA release in the core, while the same cue enhanced the amplitude of release events in the NAc shell. We further characterized the relationship between freezing and both changes in DA as well as local pH. Although we found that both analytes were significantly correlated with freezing in the NAc across the session, changes in DA were not strictly associated with freezing while basic pH shifts in the core more consistently followed behavioral expression. Together, these results provide the first real-time neurochemical evidence that aversive cues differentially modulate distinct DA projection systems. PMID:23136417

Motivational state controls the prediction error in Pavlovian appetitive-aversive interactions.

PubMed

Laurent, Vincent; Balleine, Bernard W; Westbrook, R Frederick

2018-01-01

Contemporary theories of learning emphasize the role of a prediction error signal in driving learning, but the nature of this signal remains hotly debated. Here, we used Pavlovian conditioning in rats to investigate whether primary motivational and emotional states interact to control prediction error. We initially generated cues that positively or negatively predicted an appetitive food outcome. We then assessed how these cues modulated aversive conditioning when a novel cue was paired with a foot shock. We found that a positive predictor of food enhances, whereas a negative predictor of that same food impairs, aversive conditioning. Critically, we also showed that the enhancement produced by the positive predictor is removed by reducing the value of its associated food. In contrast, the impairment triggered by the negative predictor remains insensitive to devaluation of its associated food. These findings provide compelling evidence that the motivational value attributed to a predicted food outcome can directly control appetitive-aversive interactions and, therefore, that motivational processes can modulate emotional processes to generate the final error term on which subsequent learning is based. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Odor Context Facilitates the Perception of Low-Intensity Facial Expressions of Emotion

PubMed Central

Leleu, Arnaud; Demily, Caroline; Franck, Nicolas; Durand, Karine; Schaal, Benoist; Baudouin, Jean-Yves

2015-01-01

It has been established that the recognition of facial expressions integrates contextual information. In this study, we aimed to clarify the influence of contextual odors. The participants were asked to match a target face varying in expression intensity with non-ambiguous expressive faces. Intensity variations in the target faces were designed by morphing expressive faces with neutral faces. In addition, the influence of verbal information was assessed by providing half the participants with the emotion names. Odor cues were manipulated by placing participants in a pleasant (strawberry), aversive (butyric acid), or no-odor control context. The results showed two main effects of the odor context. First, the minimum amount of visual information required to perceive an expression was lowered when the odor context was emotionally congruent: happiness was correctly perceived at lower intensities in the faces displayed in the pleasant odor context, and the same phenomenon occurred for disgust and anger in the aversive odor context. Second, the odor context influenced the false perception of expressions that were not used in target faces, with distinct patterns according to the presence of emotion names. When emotion names were provided, the aversive odor context decreased intrusions for disgust ambiguous faces but increased them for anger. When the emotion names were not provided, this effect did not occur and the pleasant odor context elicited an overall increase in intrusions for negative expressions. We conclude that olfaction plays a role in the way facial expressions are perceived in interaction with other contextual influences such as verbal information. PMID:26390036

The role of injection cues in the production of the morphine preexposure effect in taste aversion learning.

PubMed

Davis, Catherine M; de Brugada, Isabel; Riley, Anthony L

2010-05-01

The attenuation of an LiCl-induced conditioned taste aversion (CTA) by LiCl preexposure is mediated primarily by associative blocking via injection-related cues. Given that preexposure to morphine attenuates morphine-induced CTAs, it was of interest to determine whether injection cues also mediate this effect. Certain morphine-induced behaviors such as analgesic tolerance are controlled associatively, via injection-related cues. Accordingly, animals in the present experiments were preexposed to morphine (or vehicle) every other day for five total exposures, followed by an extinction phase, in which the subjects were given saline injections (or no treatment) for 8 (Experiment 1) or 16 (Experiment 2) consecutive days. All of the animals then received five CTA trials with morphine (or vehicle). The morphine-preexposed animals in Experiment 1 displayed an attenuation of the morphine CTA that was unaffected by extinction saline injections, suggesting that blocking by injection cues during morphine preexposure does not mediate this effect. All of the morphine-preexposed subjects in Experiment 2 displayed a weakened preexposure effect, an effect inconsistent with a selective extinction of drug-associated stimuli. The attenuating effects of morphine preexposure in aversion learning are most likely controlled by nonassociative mechanisms, like drug tolerance.

The strength of aversive and appetitive associations and maladaptive behaviors.

PubMed

Itzhak, Yossef; Perez-Lanza, Daniel; Liddie, Shervin

2014-08-01

Certain maladaptive behaviors are thought to be acquired through classical Pavlovian conditioning. Exaggerated fear response, which can develop through Pavlovian conditioning, is associated with acquired anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSDs). Inflated reward-seeking behavior, which develops through Pavlovian conditioning, underlies some types of addictive behavior (e.g., addiction to drugs, food, and gambling). These maladaptive behaviors are dependent on associative learning and the development of long-term memory (LTM). In animal models, an aversive reinforcer (fear conditioning) encodes an aversive contextual and cued LTM. On the other hand, an appetitive reinforcer results in conditioned place preference (CPP) that encodes an appetitive contextual LTM. The literature on weak and strong associative learning pertaining to the development of aversive and appetitive LTM is relatively scarce; thus, this review is particularly focused on the strength of associative learning. The strength of associative learning is dependent on the valence of the reinforcer and the salience of the conditioned stimulus that ultimately sways the strength of the memory trace. Our studies suggest that labile (weak) aversive and appetitive LTM may share similar signaling pathways, whereas stable (strong) aversive and appetitive LTM is mediated through different pathways. In addition, we provide some evidence suggesting that extinction of aversive fear memory and appetitive drug memory is likely to be mediated through different signaling molecules. We put forward the importance of studies aimed to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying the development of weak and strong memories (aversive and appetitive), which would ultimately help in the development of targeted pharmacotherapies for the management of maladaptive behaviors that arise from classical Pavlovian conditioning. © 2014 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Contextual Cueing Effect in Spatial Layout Defined by Binocular Disparity

PubMed Central

Zhao, Guang; Zhuang, Qian; Ma, Jie; Tu, Shen; Liu, Qiang; Sun, Hong-jin

2017-01-01

Repeated visual context induces higher search efficiency, revealing a contextual cueing effect, which depends on the association between the target and its visual context. In this study, participants performed a visual search task where search items were presented with depth information defined by binocular disparity. When the 3-dimensional (3D) configurations were repeated over blocks, the contextual cueing effect was obtained (Experiment 1). When depth information was in chaos over repeated configurations, visual search was not facilitated and the contextual cueing effect largely crippled (Experiment 2). However, when we made the search items within a tiny random displacement in the 2-dimentional (2D) plane but maintained the depth information constant, the contextual cueing was preserved (Experiment 3). We concluded that the contextual cueing effect was robust in the context provided by 3D space with stereoscopic information, and more importantly, the visual system prioritized stereoscopic information in learning of spatial information when depth information was available. PMID:28912739

Contextual Cueing Effect in Spatial Layout Defined by Binocular Disparity.

PubMed

Zhao, Guang; Zhuang, Qian; Ma, Jie; Tu, Shen; Liu, Qiang; Sun, Hong-Jin

2017-01-01

Repeated visual context induces higher search efficiency, revealing a contextual cueing effect, which depends on the association between the target and its visual context. In this study, participants performed a visual search task where search items were presented with depth information defined by binocular disparity. When the 3-dimensional (3D) configurations were repeated over blocks, the contextual cueing effect was obtained (Experiment 1). When depth information was in chaos over repeated configurations, visual search was not facilitated and the contextual cueing effect largely crippled (Experiment 2). However, when we made the search items within a tiny random displacement in the 2-dimentional (2D) plane but maintained the depth information constant, the contextual cueing was preserved (Experiment 3). We concluded that the contextual cueing effect was robust in the context provided by 3D space with stereoscopic information, and more importantly, the visual system prioritized stereoscopic information in learning of spatial information when depth information was available.

Attentional and Contextual Priors in Sound Perception.

PubMed

Wolmetz, Michael; Elhilali, Mounya

2016-01-01

Behavioral and neural studies of selective attention have consistently demonstrated that explicit attentional cues to particular perceptual features profoundly alter perception and performance. The statistics of the sensory environment can also provide cues about what perceptual features to expect, but the extent to which these more implicit contextual cues impact perception and performance, as well as their relationship to explicit attentional cues, is not well understood. In this study, the explicit cues, or attentional prior probabilities, and the implicit cues, or contextual prior probabilities, associated with different acoustic frequencies in a detection task were simultaneously manipulated. Both attentional and contextual priors had similarly large but independent impacts on sound detectability, with evidence that listeners tracked and used contextual priors for a variety of sound classes (pure tones, harmonic complexes, and vowels). Further analyses showed that listeners updated their contextual priors rapidly and optimally, given the changing acoustic frequency statistics inherent in the paradigm. A Bayesian Observer model accounted for both attentional and contextual adaptations found with listeners. These results bolster the interpretation of perception as Bayesian inference, and suggest that some effects attributed to selective attention may be a special case of contextual prior integration along a feature axis.

Attentional and Contextual Priors in Sound Perception

PubMed Central

Wolmetz, Michael; Elhilali, Mounya

2016-01-01

Behavioral and neural studies of selective attention have consistently demonstrated that explicit attentional cues to particular perceptual features profoundly alter perception and performance. The statistics of the sensory environment can also provide cues about what perceptual features to expect, but the extent to which these more implicit contextual cues impact perception and performance, as well as their relationship to explicit attentional cues, is not well understood. In this study, the explicit cues, or attentional prior probabilities, and the implicit cues, or contextual prior probabilities, associated with different acoustic frequencies in a detection task were simultaneously manipulated. Both attentional and contextual priors had similarly large but independent impacts on sound detectability, with evidence that listeners tracked and used contextual priors for a variety of sound classes (pure tones, harmonic complexes, and vowels). Further analyses showed that listeners updated their contextual priors rapidly and optimally, given the changing acoustic frequency statistics inherent in the paradigm. A Bayesian Observer model accounted for both attentional and contextual adaptations found with listeners. These results bolster the interpretation of perception as Bayesian inference, and suggest that some effects attributed to selective attention may be a special case of contextual prior integration along a feature axis. PMID:26882228

Ventral, but not dorsal, hippocampus inactivation impairs reward memory expression and retrieval in contexts defined by proximal cues.

PubMed

Riaz, Sadia; Schumacher, Anett; Sivagurunathan, Seyon; Van Der Meer, Matthijs; Ito, Rutsuko

2017-07-01

The hippocampus (HPC) has been widely implicated in the contextual control of appetitive and aversive conditioning. However, whole hippocampal lesions do not invariably impair all forms of contextual processing, as in the case of complex biconditional context discrimination, leading to contention over the exact nature of the contribution of the HPC in contextual processing. Moreover, the increasingly well-established functional dissociation between the dorsal (dHPC) and ventral (vHPC) subregions of the HPC has been largely overlooked in the existing literature on hippocampal-based contextual memory processing in appetitively motivated tasks. Thus, the present study sought to investigate the individual roles of the dHPC and the vHPC in contextual biconditional discrimination (CBD) performance and memory retrieval. To this end, we examined the effects of transient post-acquisition pharmacological inactivation (using a combination of GABA A and GABA B receptor agonists muscimol and baclofen) of functionally distinct subregions of the HPC (CA1/CA3 subfields of the dHPC and vHPC) on CBD memory retrieval. Additional behavioral assays including novelty preference, light-dark box and locomotor activity test were also performed to confirm that the respective sites of inactivation were functionally silent. We observed robust deficits in CBD performance and memory retrieval following inactivation of the vHPC, but not the dHPC. Our data provides novel insight into the differential roles of the ventral and dorsal HPC in reward contextual processing, under conditions in which the context is defined by proximal cues. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow – Adaptation to Change in Memory-Guided Visual Search

PubMed Central

Zellin, Martina; Conci, Markus; von Mühlenen, Adrian; Müller, Hermann J.

2013-01-01

Visual search for a target object can be facilitated by the repeated presentation of an invariant configuration of nontargets (‘contextual cueing’). Here, we tested adaptation of learned contextual associations after a sudden, but permanent, relocation of the target. After an initial learning phase targets were relocated within their invariant contexts and repeatedly presented at new locations, before they returned to the initial locations. Contextual cueing for relocated targets was neither observed after numerous presentations nor after insertion of an overnight break. Further experiments investigated whether learning of additional, previously unseen context-target configurations is comparable to adaptation of existing contextual associations to change. In contrast to the lack of adaptation to changed target locations, contextual cueing developed for additional invariant configurations under identical training conditions. Moreover, across all experiments, presenting relocated targets or additional contexts did not interfere with contextual cueing of initially learned invariant configurations. Overall, the adaptation of contextual memory to changed target locations was severely constrained and unsuccessful in comparison to learning of an additional set of contexts, which suggests that contextual cueing facilitates search for only one repeated target location. PMID:23555038

Cross-modal and modality-specific expectancy effects between pain and disgust

PubMed Central

Sharvit, Gil; Vuilleumier, Patrik; Delplanque, Sylvain; Corradi-Dell’ Acqua, Corrado

2015-01-01

Pain sensitivity increases when a noxious stimulus is preceded by cues predicting higher intensity. However, it is unclear whether the modulation of nociception by expectancy is sensory-specific (“modality based”) or reflects the aversive-affective consequence of the upcoming event (“unpleasantness”), potentially common with other negative events. Here we compared expectancy effects for pain and disgust by using different, but equally unpleasant, nociceptive (thermal) and olfactory stimulations. Indeed both pain and disgust are aversive, associated with threat to the organism, and processed in partly overlapping brain networks. Participants saw cues predicting the unpleasantness (high/low) and the modality (pain/disgust) of upcoming thermal or olfactory stimulations, and rated the associated unpleasantness after stimuli delivery. Results showed that identical thermal stimuli were perceived as more unpleasant when preceded by cues threatening about high (as opposed to low) pain. A similar expectancy effect was found for olfactory disgust. Critically, cross-modal expectancy effects were observed on inconsistent trials when thermal stimuli were preceded by high-disgust cues or olfactory stimuli preceded by high-pain cues. However, these effects were stronger in consistent than inconsistent conditions. Taken together, our results suggest that expectation of an unpleasant event elicits representations of both its modality-specific properties and its aversive consequences. PMID:26631975

Pigeons exhibit contextual cueing to both simple and complex backgrounds.

PubMed

Wasserman, Edward A; Teng, Yuejia; Castro, Leyre

2014-05-01

Repeated pairings of a particular visual context with a specific location of a target stimulus facilitate target search in humans. We explored an animal model of this contextual cueing effect using a novel Cueing-Miscueing design. Pigeons had to peck a target which could appear in one of four possible locations on four possible color backgrounds or four possible color photographs of real-world scenes. On 80% of the trials, each of the contexts was uniquely paired with one of the target locations; on the other 20% of the trials, each of the contexts was randomly paired with the remaining target locations. Pigeons came to exhibit robust contextual cueing when the context preceded the target by 2s, with reaction times to the target being shorter on correctly-cued trials than on incorrectly-cued trials. Contextual cueing proved to be more robust with photographic backgrounds than with uniformly colored backgrounds. In addition, during the context-target delay, pigeons predominately pecked toward the location of the upcoming target, suggesting that attentional guidance contributes to contextual cueing. These findings confirm the effectiveness of animal models of contextual cueing and underscore the important part played by associative learning in producing the effect. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: SQAB 2013: Contextual Con. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Pigeons Exhibit Contextual Cueing to Both Simple and Complex Backgrounds

PubMed Central

Wasserman, Edward A.; Teng, Yuejia; Castro, Leyre

2014-01-01

Repeated pairings of a particular visual context with a specific location of a target stimulus facilitate target search in humans. We explored an animal model of this contextual cueing effect using a novel Cueing-Miscueing design. Pigeons had to peck a target which could appear in one of four possible locations on four possible color backgrounds or four possible color photographs of real-world scenes. On 80% of the trials, each of the contexts was uniquely paired with one of the target locations; on the other 20% of the trials, each of the contexts was randomly paired with the remaining target locations. Pigeons came to exhibit robust contextual cueing when the context preceded the target by 2 s, with reaction times to the target being shorter on correctly-cued trials than on incorrectly-cued trials. Contextual cueing proved to be more robust with photographic backgrounds than with uniformly colored backgrounds. In addition, during the context-target delay, pigeons predominately pecked toward the location of the upcoming target, suggesting that attentional guidance contributes to contextual cueing. These findings confirm the effectiveness of animal models of contextual cueing and underscore the important part played by associative learning in producing the effect. PMID:24491468

Memory under pressure: secondary-task effects on contextual cueing of visual search.

PubMed

Annac, Efsun; Manginelli, Angela A; Pollmann, Stefan; Shi, Zhuanghua; Müller, Hermann J; Geyer, Thomas

2013-11-04

Repeated display configurations improve visual search. Recently, the question has arisen whether this contextual cueing effect (Chun & Jiang, 1998) is itself mediated by attention, both in terms of selectivity and processing resources deployed. While it is accepted that selective attention modulates contextual cueing (Jiang & Leung, 2005), there is an ongoing debate whether the cueing effect is affected by a secondary working memory (WM) task, specifically at which stage WM influences the cueing effect: the acquisition of configural associations (e.g., Travis, Mattingley, & Dux, 2013) versus the expression of learned associations (e.g., Manginelli, Langer, Klose, & Pollmann, 2013). The present study re-investigated this issue. Observers performed a visual search in combination with a spatial WM task. The latter was applied on either early or late search trials--so as to examine whether WM load hampers the acquisition of or retrieval from contextual memory. Additionally, the WM and search tasks were performed either temporally in parallel or in succession--so as to permit the effects of spatial WM load to be dissociated from those of executive load. The secondary WM task was found to affect cueing in late, but not early, experimental trials--though only when the search and WM tasks were performed in parallel. This pattern suggests that contextual cueing involves a spatial WM resource, with spatial WM providing a workspace linking the current search array with configural long-term memory; as a result, occupying this workspace by a secondary WM task hampers the expression of learned configural associations.

Attentional Bias for Uncertain Cues of Shock in Human Fear Conditioning: Evidence for Attentional Learning Theory

PubMed Central

Koenig, Stephan; Uengoer, Metin; Lachnit, Harald

2017-01-01

We conducted a human fear conditioning experiment in which three different color cues were followed by an aversive electric shock on 0, 50, and 100% of the trials, and thus induced low (L), partial (P), and high (H) shock expectancy, respectively. The cues differed with respect to the strength of their shock association (L < P < H) and the uncertainty of their prediction (L < P > H). During conditioning we measured pupil dilation and ocular fixations to index differences in the attentional processing of the cues. After conditioning, the shock-associated colors were introduced as irrelevant distracters during visual search for a shape target while shocks were no longer administered and we analyzed the cues’ potential to capture and hold overt attention automatically. Our findings suggest that fear conditioning creates an automatic attention bias for the conditioned cues that depends on their correlation with the aversive outcome. This bias was exclusively linked to the strength of the cues’ shock association for the early attentional processing of cues in the visual periphery, but additionally was influenced by the uncertainty of the shock prediction after participants fixated on the cues. These findings are in accord with attentional learning theories that formalize how associative learning shapes automatic attention. PMID:28588466

The habenula encodes negative motivational value associated with primary punishment in humans.

PubMed

Lawson, Rebecca P; Seymour, Ben; Loh, Eleanor; Lutti, Antoine; Dolan, Raymond J; Dayan, Peter; Weiskopf, Nikolaus; Roiser, Jonathan P

2014-08-12

Learning what to approach, and what to avoid, involves assigning value to environmental cues that predict positive and negative events. Studies in animals indicate that the lateral habenula encodes the previously learned negative motivational value of stimuli. However, involvement of the habenula in dynamic trial-by-trial aversive learning has not been assessed, and the functional role of this structure in humans remains poorly characterized, in part, due to its small size. Using high-resolution functional neuroimaging and computational modeling of reinforcement learning, we demonstrate positive habenula responses to the dynamically changing values of cues signaling painful electric shocks, which predict behavioral suppression of responses to those cues across individuals. By contrast, negative habenula responses to monetary reward cue values predict behavioral invigoration. Our findings show that the habenula plays a key role in an online aversive learning system and in generating associated motivated behavior in humans.

Glucocorticoids Enhance Taste Aversion Memory via Actions in the Insular Cortex and Basolateral Amygdala

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miranda, Maria Isabel; Quirarte, Gina L.; Rodriguez-Garcia, Gabriela; McGaugh, James L.; Roozendaal, Benno

2008-01-01

It is well established that glucocorticoid hormones strengthen the consolidation of hippocampus-dependent spatial and contextual memory. The present experiments investigated glucocorticoid effects on the long-term formation of conditioned taste aversion (CTA), an associative learning task that does not depend critically on hippocampal function.…

Impaired right inferior frontal gyrus response to contextual cues in male veterans with PTSD during response inhibition.

PubMed

van Rooij, Sanne J H; Rademaker, Arthur R; Kennis, Mitzy; Vink, Matthijs; Kahn, René S; Geuze, Elbert

2014-09-01

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is often associated with impaired fear inhibition and decreased safety cue processing; however, studies capturing the cognitive aspect of inhibition and contextual cue processing are limited. In this fMRI study, the role of contextual cues in response inhibition was investigated. Male medication-naive war veterans with PTSD, male control veterans (combat controls) and healthy nonmilitary men (healthy controls) underwent fMRI while performing the stop-signal anticipation task (SSAT). The SSAT evokes 2 forms of response inhibition: reactive inhibition (outright stopping) and proactive inhibition (anticipation of stopping based on contextual cues). We enrolled 28 veterans with PTSD, 26 combat controls and 25 healthy controls in our study. Reduced reactive inhibition was observed in all veterans, both with and without PTSD, but not in nonmilitary controls, whereas decreased inhibition of the left pre/postcentral gyrus appeared to be specifically associated with PTSD. Impaired behavioural proactive inhibition was also specific to PTSD. Furthermore, the PTSD group showed a reduced right inferior frontal gyrus response during proactive inhibition compared with the combat control group. Most patients with PTSD had comorbid psychiatric disorders, but such comorbidity is common in patients with PTSD. Also, the education level (estimate of intelligence) of participants, but not of their parents, differed among the groups. Our findings of reduced proactive inhibition imply that patients with PTSD show reduced contextual cue processing. These results complement previous findings on fear inhibition and demonstrate that contextual cue processing in patients with PTSD is also reduced during cognitive processes, indicating a more general deficit.

Visuocortical Changes During Delay and Trace Aversive Conditioning: Evidence From Steady-State Visual Evoked Potentials

PubMed Central

Miskovic, Vladimir; Keil, Andreas

2015-01-01

The visual system is biased towards sensory cues that have been associated with danger or harm through temporal co-occurrence. An outstanding question about conditioning-induced changes in visuocortical processing is the extent to which they are driven primarily by top-down factors such as expectancy or by low-level factors such as the temporal proximity between conditioned stimuli and aversive outcomes. Here, we examined this question using two different differential aversive conditioning experiments: participants learned to associate a particular grating stimulus with an aversive noise that was presented either in close temporal proximity (delay conditioning experiment) or after a prolonged stimulus-free interval (trace conditioning experiment). In both experiments we probed cue-related cortical responses by recording steady-state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs). Although behavioral ratings indicated that all participants successfully learned to discriminate between the grating patterns that predicted the presence versus absence of the aversive noise, selective amplification of population-level responses in visual cortex for the conditioned danger signal was observed only when the grating and the noise were temporally contiguous. Our findings are in line with notions purporting that changes in the electrocortical response of visual neurons induced by aversive conditioning are a product of Hebbian associations among sensory cell assemblies rather than being driven entirely by expectancy-based, declarative processes. PMID:23398582

G protein-gated K+ channel ablation in forebrain pyramidal neurons selectively impairs fear learning

PubMed Central

Victoria, Nicole C.; de Velasco, Ezequiel Marron Fernandez; Ostrovskaya, Olga; Metzger, Stefania; Xia, Zhilian; Kotecki, Lydia; Benneyworth, Michael A.; Zink, Anastasia N.; Martemyanov, Kirill A.; Wickman, Kevin

2015-01-01

Background Cognitive dysfunction occurs in many debilitating conditions including Alzheimer’s disease, Down syndrome, schizophrenia, and mood disorders. The dorsal hippocampus is a critical locus of cognitive processes linked to spatial and contextual learning. G protein-gated inwardly rectifying K+ (GIRK/Kir3) channels, which mediate the postsynaptic inhibitory effect of many neurotransmitters, have been implicated in hippocampal-dependent cognition. Available evidence, however, derives primarily from constitutive gain-of-function models that lack cellular specificity. Methods We used constitutive and neuron-specific gene ablation models targeting an integral subunit of neuronal GIRK channels (GIRK2) to probe the impact of GIRK channels on associative learning and memory. Results Constitutive Girk2−/− mice exhibited a striking deficit in hippocampal-dependent (contextual) and hippocampal-independent (cue) fear conditioning. Mice lacking GIRK2 in GABA neurons (GAD-Cre:Girk2flox/flox mice) exhibited a clear deficit in GIRK-dependent signaling in dorsal hippocampal GABA neurons, but no evident behavioral phenotype. Mice lacking GIRK2 in forebrain pyramidal neurons (CaMKII-Cre(+):Girk2flox/flox mice) exhibited diminished GIRK-dependent signaling in dorsal, but not ventral, hippocampal pyramidal neurons. CaMKII-Cre(+):Girk2flox/flox mice also displayed a selective impairment in contextual fear conditioning, as both cue-fear and spatial learning were intact in these mice. Finally, loss of GIRK2 in forebrain pyramidal neurons correlated with enhanced long-term depression and blunted depotentiation of long-term potentiation at the Schaffer collateral/CA1 synapse in the dorsal hippocampus. Conclusions Our data suggest that GIRK channels in dorsal hippocampal pyramidal neurons are necessary for normal learning involving aversive stimuli, and support the contention that dysregulation of GIRK-dependent signaling may underlie cognitive dysfunction in some disorders. PMID:26612516

NMDA and Muscarinic Receptors of the Nucleus Accumbens Have Differential Effects on Taste Memory Formation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bermudez-Rattoni, Federico; Ramirez-Lugo, Leticia; Zavala-Vega, Sergio

2006-01-01

Animals recognize a taste cue as aversive when it has been associated with post-ingestive malaise; this associative learning is known as conditioned taste aversion (CTA). When an animal consumes a new taste and no negative consequences follow, it becomes recognized as a safe signal, leading to an increase in its consumption in subsequent…

Conflict adaptation in time: foreperiods as contextual cues for attentional adjustment.

PubMed

Wendt, Mike; Kiesel, Andrea

2011-10-01

Interference evoked by distractor stimulus information, such as flankers in the Eriksen task, is reduced when the proportion of conflicting stimuli is increased. This modulation is sensitive to contextual cues such as stimulus location or color, suggesting attentional adjustment to conflict contingencies on the basis of context information. In the present study, we explored whether conflict adjustment is modulated by temporal variation of conflict likelihood. To this end, we associated low and high proportions of conflict stimuli with foreperiods of different lengths. Flanker interference was higher with foreperiods associated with low conflict proportions, suggesting that participants use the foreperiod as a contextual cue for attentional adjustment. We conjecture that participants initially adopt the strategy useful for conflict contingencies associated with short foreperiods, and then readjust during the trial, in the absence of any additional exogenous cue, when the imperative stimulus has not occurred during a certain time interval.

Contextual Variability in Free Recall

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lohnas, Lynn J.; Polyn, Sean M.; Kahana, Michael J.

2011-01-01

According to contextual-variability theory, experiences encoded at different times tend to be associated with different contextual states. The gradual evolution of context implies that spaced items will be associated with more distinct contextual states, and thus have more unique retrieval cues, than items presented in proximity. Ross and Landauer…

The emotional harbinger effect: poor context memory for cues that previously predicted something arousing.

PubMed

Mather, Mara; Knight, Marisa

2008-12-01

A key function of memory is to use past experience to predict when something important might happen next. Indeed, cues that previously predicted arousing events (emotional harbingers) garner more attention than other cues. However, the current series of five experiments demonstrates that people have poorer memory for the context of emotional harbinger cues than of neutral harbinger cues. Participants first learned that some harbinger cues (neutral tones or faces) predicted emotionally arousing pictures and others predicted neutral pictures. Then they studied associations between the harbinger cues and new contextual details. They were worse at remembering associations with emotional harbingers than with neutral harbingers. Memory was impaired not only for the association between emotional harbingers and nearby digits, but also for contextual details that overlapped with or were intrinsic to the emotional harbingers. However, new cues that were inherently emotionally arousing did not yield the same memory impairments as the emotional harbingers. Thus, emotional harbinger cues seem to suffer more from proactive interference than do neutral harbinger cues, impairing formation of new associations with cues that previously predicted something arousing. 2008 APA, all rights reserved

The emotional harbinger effect: Poor context memory for cues that previously predicted something arousing

PubMed Central

Mather, Mara; Knight, Marisa

2009-01-01

A key function of memory is to use past experience to predict when something important might happen next. Indeed, cues that previously predicted arousing events (emotional harbingers) garner more attention than other cues. However, the current series of five experiments demonstrates that people have poorer memory for the context of emotional harbinger cues than of neutral harbinger cues. Participants first learned that some harbinger cues (neutral tones or faces) predicted emotionally arousing pictures and others predicted neutral pictures. Then they studied associations between the harbinger cues and new contextual details. They were worse at remembering associations with emotional harbingers than with neutral harbingers. Memory was impaired not only for the association between emotional harbingers and nearby digits but also for contextual details that overlapped with or were intrinsic to the emotional harbingers. However, new cues that were inherently emotionally arousing did not yield the same memory impairments as the emotional harbingers. Thus, emotional harbinger cues seem to suffer more from proactive interference than do neutral harbinger cues, impairing formation of new associations with cues that previously predicted something arousing. PMID:19102596

Adolescent prosocial behavior: the role of self-processes and contextual cues.

PubMed

Wentzel, Kathryn R; Filisetti, Laurence; Looney, Lisa

2007-01-01

Peer- and teacher-reported prosocial behavior of 339 6th-grade (11-12 years) and 8th-grade (13-14 years) students was examined in relation to prosocial goals, self-processes (reasons for behavior, empathy, perspective taking, depressive affect, perceived competence), and contextual cues (expectations of peers and teachers). Goal pursuit significantly predicted prosocial behavior, and goal pursuit provided a pathway by which reasons for behavior were related to behavior. Reasons reflected external, other-focused, self-focused, and internal justifications for behavior; each reason was related to a unique set of self-processes and contextual cues. Associations between prosocial outcomes and sex and race (Caucasian and African American) were mediated in part by self-processes and contextual cues. The implications of studying prosocial behavior from a motivational perspective are discussed.

Contextual control over task-set retrieval.

PubMed

Crump, Matthew J C; Logan, Gordon D

2010-11-01

Contextual cues signaling task likelihood or the likelihood of task repetition are known to modulate the size of switch costs. We follow up on the finding by Leboe, Wong, Crump, and Stobbe (2008) that location cues predictive of the proportion of switch or repeat trials modulate switch costs. Their design employed one cue per task, whereas our experiment employed two cues per task, which allowed separate assessment of modulations to the cue-repetition benefit, a measure of lower level cue-encoding processes, and to the task-alternation cost, a measure of higher level processes representing task-set information. We demonstrate that location information predictive of switch proportion modulates performance at the level of task-set representations. Furthermore, we demonstrate that contextual control occurs even when subjects are unaware of the associations between context and switch likelihood. We discuss the notion that contextual information provides rapid, unconscious control over the extent to which prior task-set representations are retrieved in the service of guiding online performance.

The strategic control of prospective memory monitoring in response to complex and probabilistic contextual cues.

PubMed

Bugg, Julie M; Ball, B Hunter

2017-07-01

Participants use simple contextual cues to reduce deployment of costly monitoring processes in contexts in which prospective memory (PM) targets are not expected. This study investigated whether this strategic monitoring pattern is observed in response to complex and probabilistic contextual cues. Participants performed a lexical decision task in which words or nonwords were presented in upper or lower locations on screen. The specific condition was informed that PM targets ("tor" syllable) would occur only in words in the upper location, whereas the nonspecific condition was informed that targets could occur in any location or word type. Context was blocked such that word type and location changed every 8 trials. In Experiment 1, the specific condition used the complex contextual cue to reduce monitoring in unexpected contexts relative to the nonspecific condition. This pattern largely was not evidenced when the complex contextual cue was probabilistic (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 confirmed that strategic monitoring is observed for a complex cue that is deterministic, but not one that is probabilistic. Additionally, Experiments 1 and 3 demonstrated a disadvantage associated with strategic monitoring-namely, that the specific condition was less likely to respond to a PM target in an unexpected context. Experiment 3 provided evidence that this disadvantage is attributable to impaired noticing of the target. The novel findings suggest use of a complex contextual cue per se is not a boundary condition for the strategic, context-specific allocation of monitoring processes to support prospective remembering; however, strategic monitoring is constrained by the predictive utility of the complex contextual cue.

Impaired right inferior frontal gyrus response to contextual cues in male veterans with PTSD during response inhibition

PubMed Central

van Rooij, Sanne J.H.; Rademaker, Arthur R.; Kennis, Mitzy; Vink, Matthijs; Kahn, René S.; Geuze, Elbert

2014-01-01

Background Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is often associated with impaired fear inhibition and decreased safety cue processing; however, studies capturing the cognitive aspect of inhibition and contextual cue processing are limited. In this fMRI study, the role of contextual cues in response inhibition was investigated. Methods Male medication-naive war veterans with PTSD, male control veterans (combat controls) and healthy nonmilitary men (healthy controls) underwent fMRI while performing the stop-signal anticipation task (SSAT). The SSAT evokes 2 forms of response inhibition: reactive inhibition (outright stopping) and proactive inhibition (anticipation of stopping based on contextual cues). Results We enrolled 28 veterans with PTSD, 26 combat controls and 25 healthy controls in our study. Reduced reactive inhibition was observed in all veterans, both with and without PTSD, but not in nonmilitary controls, whereas decreased inhibition of the left pre/postcentral gyrus appeared to be specifically associated with PTSD. Impaired behavioural proactive inhibition was also specific to PTSD. Furthermore, the PTSD group showed a reduced right inferior frontal gyrus response during proactive inhibition compared with the combat control group. Limitations Most patients with PTSD had comorbid psychiatric disorders, but such comorbidity is common in patients with PTSD. Also, the education level (estimate of intelligence) of participants, but not of their parents, differed among the groups. Conclusion Our findings of reduced proactive inhibition imply that patients with PTSD show reduced contextual cue processing. These results complement previous findings on fear inhibition and demonstrate that contextual cue processing in patients with PTSD is also reduced during cognitive processes, indicating a more general deficit. PMID:24886789

The impact of signal-to-noise ratio on contextual cueing in children and adults.

PubMed

Yang, Yingying; Merrill, Edward C

2015-04-01

Contextual cueing refers to a form of implicit spatial learning where participants incidentally learn to associate a target location with its repeated spatial context. Successful contextual learning produces an efficient visual search through familiar environments. Despite the fact that children exhibit the basic ability of implicit spatial learning, their general effectiveness in this form of learning can be compromised by other development-dependent factors. Learning to extract useful information (signal) in the presence of various amounts of irrelevant or distracting information (noise) characterizes one of the most important changes that occur with cognitive development. This research investigated whether signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) affects contextual cueing differently in children and adults. S/N was operationally defined as the ratio of repeated versus new displays encountered over time. Three ratio conditions were created: high (100%), medium (67%), and low (33%) conditions. Results suggested no difference in the acquisition of contextual learning effects in the high and medium conditions across three age groups (6- to 8-year-olds, 10- to 12-year-olds, and young adults). However, a significant developmental difference emerged in the low S/N condition. As predicted, adults exhibited significant contextual cueing effects, whereas older children showed marginally significant contextual cueing and younger children did not show cueing effects. Group differences in the ability to exhibit implicit contextual learning under low S/N conditions and the implications of this difference are discussed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Molecular Dissociation between Cued and Contextual Appetitive Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kheirbek, Mazen A.; Beeler, Jeff A.; Chi, Wanhao; Ishikawa, Yoshihiro; Zhuang, Xiaoxi

2010-01-01

In appetitive Pavlovian learning, animals learn to associate discrete cues or environmental contexts with rewarding outcomes, and these cues and/or contexts can potentiate an ongoing instrumental response for reward. Although anatomical substrates underlying cued and contextual learning have been proposed, it remains unknown whether specific…

Incidental fear cues increase monetary loss aversion.

PubMed

Schulreich, Stefan; Gerhardt, Holger; Heekeren, Hauke R

2016-04-01

In many everyday decisions, people exhibit loss aversion-a greater sensitivity to losses relative to gains of equal size. Loss aversion is thought to be (at least partly) mediated by emotional--in particular, fear-related--processes. Decision research has shown that even incidental emotions, which are unrelated to the decision at hand, can influence decision making. The effect of incidental fear on loss aversion, however, is thus far unclear. In two studies, we experimentally investigated how incidental fear cues, presented during (Study 1) or before (Study 2) choices to accept or reject mixed gambles over real monetary stakes, influence monetary loss aversion. We find that the presentation of fearful faces, relative to the presentation of neutral faces, increased risk aversion-an effect that could be attributed to increased loss aversion. The size of this effect was moderated by psychopathic personality: Fearless dominance, in particular its interpersonal facet, but not self-centered impulsivity, attenuated the effect of incidental fear cues on loss aversion, consistent with reduced fear reactivity. Together, these results highlight the sensitivity of loss aversion to the affective context. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Awareness in contextual cueing of visual search as measured with concurrent access- and phenomenal-consciousness tasks.

PubMed

Schlagbauer, Bernhard; Müller, Hermann J; Zehetleitner, Michael; Geyer, Thomas

2012-10-25

In visual search, context information can serve as a cue to guide attention to the target location. When observers repeatedly encounter displays with identical target-distractor arrangements, reaction times (RTs) are faster for repeated relative to nonrepeated displays, the latter containing novel configurations. This effect has been termed "contextual cueing." The present study asked whether information about the target location in repeated displays is "explicit" (or "conscious") in nature. To examine this issue, observers performed a test session (after an initial training phase in which RTs to repeated and nonrepeated displays were measured) in which the search stimuli were presented briefly and terminated by visual masks; following this, observers had to make a target localization response (with accuracy as the dependent measure) and indicate their visual experience and confidence associated with the localization response. The data were examined at the level of individual displays, i.e., in terms of whether or not a repeated display actually produced contextual cueing. The results were that (a) contextual cueing was driven by only a very small number of about four actually learned configurations; (b) localization accuracy was increased for learned relative to nonrepeated displays; and (c) both consciousness measures were enhanced for learned compared to nonrepeated displays. It is concluded that contextual cueing is driven by only a few repeated displays and the ability to locate the target in these displays is associated with increased visual experience.

The face-specific proportion congruency effect: social stimuli as contextual cues.

PubMed

Jiménez-Moya, Gloria; Rodríguez-Bailón, Rosa; Lupiáñez, Juan

2018-06-18

Previous research shows that larger interference is observed in contexts associated with a high proportion of congruent trials than in those associated with a low proportion of congruent trials. Given that one of the most relevant contexts for human beings is social context, researchers have recently explored the possibility that social stimuli could also work as contextual cues for the allocation of attentional control. In fact, it has been shown that individuals use social categories (i.e., men and women) as cues to allocate attentional control. In this work, we go further by showing that individual faces (instead of the social categories they belong to) associated with a high proportion of congruent trials can also lead to larger interference effects compared to individual faces predicting a relatively low proportion of congruent trials. Furthermore, we show that faces associated with a high proportion of congruent trials are more positively evaluated than faces associated with a high proportion of incongruent trials. These results demonstrate that unique human faces are potential contextual cues than can be employed to apply cognitive control when performing an automatic task.

Neural Correlates of Inhibition and Contextual Cue Processing Related to Treatment Response in PTSD

PubMed Central

van Rooij, Sanne JH; Geuze, Elbert; Kennis, Mitzy; Rademaker, Arthur R; Vink, Matthijs

2015-01-01

Thirty to fifty percent of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients do not respond to treatment. Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying treatment response could contribute to improve response rates. PTSD is often associated with decreased inhibition of fear responses in a safe environment. Importantly, the mechanism of effective treatment (psychotherapy) relies on inhibition and so-called contextual cue processing. Therefore, we investigate inhibition and contextual cue processing in the context of treatment. Forty-one male war veterans with PTSD and 22 healthy male war veterans (combat controls) were scanned twice with a 6- to 8-month interval, in which PTSD patients received treatment (psychotherapy). We distinguished treatment responders from nonresponders on the base of percentage symptom decrease. Inhibition and contextual cue processing were assessed with the stop-signal anticipation task. Behavioral and functional MRI measures were compared between PTSD patients and combat controls, and between responders and nonresponders using repeated measures analyses. PTSD patients showed behavioral and neural deficits in inhibition and contextual cue processing at both time points compared with combat controls. These deficits were unaffected by treatment; therefore, they likely represent vulnerability factors or scar aspects of PTSD. Second, responders showed increased pretreatment activation of the left inferior parietal lobe (IPL) during contextual cue processing compared with nonresponders. Moreover, left IPL activation predicted percentage symptom improvement. The IPL has an important role in contextual cue processing, and may therefore facilitate the effect of psychotherapy. Hence, increased left IPL activation may represent a potential predictive biomarker for PTSD treatment response. PMID:25154707

Distinct Patterns of Dysfunctional Appetitive and Aversive Motivation in Bipolar Disorder Versus Schizophrenia: An Event Related Potential Study

PubMed Central

Horan, William P.; Wynn, Jonathan K.; Hajcak, Greg; Altshuler, Lori; Green, Michael F.

2016-01-01

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are associated with different clinical profiles of disturbances in motivation, yet few studies have compared the neurophysiological correlates of such disturbances. Outpatients with schizophrenia (n = 34), or bipolar disorder I (n = 33), and healthy controls (n = 31) completed a task in which the Late Positive Potential (LPP), an index of motivated attention, was assessed along motivational gradients determined by apparent distance from potential rewards or punishments. Sequences of cues signaling possible monetary gains or losses appeared to loom progressively closer to the viewer; a reaction time (RT) task after the final cue determined the outcome. Controls showed the expected pattern with LPPs for appetitive and aversive cues that were initially elevated, smaller during intermediate positions, and escalated just prior to the RT task. The clinical groups showed different patterns in the final positions just prior to the RT task: the bipolar group’s LPPs to both types of cues peaked relatively early during looming sequences and subsequently decreased, whereas the schizophrenia group showed relatively small LPP escalations, particularly for aversive cues. These distinct patterns suggest that the temporal unfolding of attentional resource allocation for motivationally significant events may qualitatively differ between these disorders. PMID:26845261

Nucleus accumbens corticotropin-releasing factor increases cue-triggered motivation for sucrose reward: paradoxical positive incentive effects in stress?

PubMed

Peciña, Susana; Schulkin, Jay; Berridge, Kent C

2006-04-13

Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) is typically considered to mediate aversive aspects of stress, fear and anxiety. However, CRF release in the brain is also elicited by natural rewards and incentive cues, raising the possibility that some CRF systems in the brain mediate an independent function of positive incentive motivation, such as amplifying incentive salience. Here we asked whether activation of a limbic CRF subsystem magnifies the increase in positive motivation for reward elicited by incentive cues previously associated with that reward, in a way that might exacerbate cue-triggered binge pursuit of food or other incentives? We assessed the impact of CRF microinjections into the medial shell of nucleus accumbens using a pure incentive version of Pavlovian-Instrumental transfer, a measure specifically sensitive to the incentive salience of reward cues (which it separates from influences of aversive stress, stress reduction, frustration and other traditional explanations for stress-increased behavior). Rats were first trained to press one of two levers to obtain sucrose pellets, and then separately conditioned to associate a Pavlovian cue with free sucrose pellets. On test days, rats received microinjections of vehicle, CRF (250 or 500 ng/0.2 microl) or amphetamine (20 microg/0.2 microl). Lever pressing was assessed in the presence or absence of the Pavlovian cues during a half-hour test. Microinjections of the highest dose of CRF (500 ng) or amphetamine (20 microg) selectively enhanced the ability of Pavlovian reward cues to trigger phasic peaks of increased instrumental performance for a sucrose reward, each peak lasting a minute or so before decaying after the cue. Lever pressing was not enhanced by CRF microinjections in the baseline absence of the Pavlovian cue or during the presentation without a cue, showing that the CRF enhancement could not be explained as a result of generalized motor arousal, frustration or stress, or by persistent attempts to ameliorate aversive states. We conclude that CRF in nucleus accumbens shell amplifies positive motivation for cued rewards, in particular by magnifying incentive salience that is attributed to Pavlovian cues previously associated with those rewards. CRF-induced magnification of incentive salience provides a novel explanation as to why stress may produce cue-triggered bursts of binge eating, drug addiction relapse, or other excessive pursuits of rewards.

Nucleus accumbens corticotropin-releasing factor increases cue-triggered motivation for sucrose reward: paradoxical positive incentive effects in stress?

PubMed Central

Peciña, Susana; Schulkin, Jay; Berridge, Kent C

2006-01-01

Background Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) is typically considered to mediate aversive aspects of stress, fear and anxiety. However, CRF release in the brain is also elicited by natural rewards and incentive cues, raising the possibility that some CRF systems in the brain mediate an independent function of positive incentive motivation, such as amplifying incentive salience. Here we asked whether activation of a limbic CRF subsystem magnifies the increase in positive motivation for reward elicited by incentive cues previously associated with that reward, in a way that might exacerbate cue-triggered binge pursuit of food or other incentives? We assessed the impact of CRF microinjections into the medial shell of nucleus accumbens using a pure incentive version of Pavlovian-Instrumental transfer, a measure specifically sensitive to the incentive salience of reward cues (which it separates from influences of aversive stress, stress reduction, frustration and other traditional explanations for stress-increased behavior). Rats were first trained to press one of two levers to obtain sucrose pellets, and then separately conditioned to associate a Pavlovian cue with free sucrose pellets. On test days, rats received microinjections of vehicle, CRF (250 or 500 ng/0.2 μl) or amphetamine (20 μg/0.2 μl). Lever pressing was assessed in the presence or absence of the Pavlovian cues during a half-hour test. Results Microinjections of the highest dose of CRF (500 ng) or amphetamine (20 μg) selectively enhanced the ability of Pavlovian reward cues to trigger phasic peaks of increased instrumental performance for a sucrose reward, each peak lasting a minute or so before decaying after the cue. Lever pressing was not enhanced by CRF microinjections in the baseline absence of the Pavlovian cue or during the presentation without a cue, showing that the CRF enhancement could not be explained as a result of generalized motor arousal, frustration or stress, or by persistent attempts to ameliorate aversive states. Conclusion We conclude that CRF in nucleus accumbens shell amplifies positive motivation for cued rewards, in particular by magnifying incentive salience that is attributed to Pavlovian cues previously associated with those rewards. CRF-induced magnification of incentive salience provides a novel explanation as to why stress may produce cue-triggered bursts of binge eating, drug addiction relapse, or other excessive pursuits of rewards. PMID:16613600

The effects of anxiety upon attention allocation to affective stimuli.

PubMed

Waters, Allison M; Nitz, Ashley B; Craske, Michelle G; Johnson, Chris

2007-04-01

Pictures of emotionally aversive, neutral, and pleasant scenes were presented for 500 ms, followed by a probe presented in the same location (valid trials) or an alternate location (invalid trials) as the picture. Response-times to the probes were recorded in low (N=20) and high (N=27) trait anxious participants. Results revealed an overall negative cue validity effect of shorter reaction times (RTs) on invalid than valid trials, suggestive of an inhibition of return effect. Moreover, high trait anxious females showed a reduced negative cue validity effect for aversive pictures in comparison with neutral and pleasant pictures, suggestive of selective interference by the unpleasant material. By contrast, low trait anxious females showed an enhanced negative cue validity effect for aversive pictures relative to neutral and pleasant pictures, suggestive of attentional avoidance of the aversive content. The emotional content of picture cues did not significantly affect RTs in males, regardless of anxiety status. The results suggest that biased attention processes for aversive stimuli may contribute to the greater female propensity for anxiety disorders.

Time to learn: evidence for two types of attentional guidance in contextual cueing.

PubMed

Ogawa, Hirokazu; Watanabe, Katsumi

2010-01-01

Repetition of the same spatial configurations of a search display implicitly facilitates performance of a visual-search task when the target location in the display is fixed. The improvement of performance is referred to as contextual cueing. We examined whether the association process between target location and surrounding configuration of distractors occurs during active search or at the instant the target is found. To dissociate these two processes, we changed the surrounding configuration of the distractors at the instant of target detection so that the layout where the participants had searched for the target and the layout presented at the instant of target detection differed. The results demonstrated that both processes are responsible for the contextual-cueing effect, but they differ in the accuracies of attentional guidance and their time courses, suggesting that two different types of attentional-guidance processes may be involved in contextual cueing.

Dissociation of the Role of Infralimbic Cortex in Learning and Consolidation of Extinction of Recent and Remote Aversion Memory

PubMed Central

Awad, Walaa; Ferreira, Guillaume; Maroun, Mouna

2015-01-01

Medial prefrontal circuits have been reported to undergo a major reorganization over time and gradually take a more important role for remote emotional memories such as contextual fear memory or food aversion memory. The medial prefrontal cortex, and specifically its ventral subregion, the infralimbic cortex (IL), was also reported to be critical for recent memory extinction of contextual fear conditioning and conditioned odor aversion. However, its exact role in the extinction of remotely acquired information is still not clear. Using postretrieval blockade of protein synthesis or inactivation of the IL, we showed that the IL is similarly required for extinction consolidation of recent and remote fear memory. However, in odor aversion memory, the IL was only involved in extinction consolidation of recent, but not remote, memory. In contrast, only remote retrieval of aversion memory induced c-Fos activation in the IL and preretrieval inactivation of the IL with lidocaine impaired subsequent extinction of remote but not recent memory, indicating IL is necessary for extinction learning of remote aversion memory. In contrast to the effects in odor aversion, our data show that the involvement of the IL in the consolidation of fear extinction does not depend on the memory age. More importantly, our data indicate that the IL is implicated in the extinction of fear and nonfear-based associations and suggest dissociation in the engagement of the IL in the learning and consolidation of food aversion extinction over time. PMID:25872918

Eye-tracking reveals a slowdown of social context processing during intention attribution in patients with schizophrenia.

PubMed

Roux, Paul; Brunet-Gouet, Eric; Passerieux, Christine; Ramus, Franck

2016-03-01

Schizophrenia is associated with poor theory of mind (ToM), particularly in the attribution of intentions to others. It is also associated with abnormal gaze behaviours and contextual processing. This study investigated to what extent impaired ToM in patients with schizophrenia is related to abnormal processing of social context. We evaluated ToM using a nonverbal intention attribution task based on comic strips depicting social/nonsocial and contextual/noncontextual events while eye movements were recorded. Eye-tracking was used to assess processing time dedicated to visual cues contained in regions of interest identified in a pilot study. We measured cognitive contextual control on a separate task. We tested 29 patients with schizophrenia and 29 controls. Compared with controls, patients were slower in intention attribution but not in physical reasoning. They looked longer than controls at contextual cues displayed in the first 2 context pictures of the comic strips, and this difference was greater for intention attribution than for physical reasoning. We found no group difference in time spent looking at noncontextual cues. Patients' impairment in contextual control did not explain their increased reaction time and gaze duration on contextual cues during intention attribution. Difficulty may not have been equivalent between intention attribution and physical reasoning conditions. Overall, schizophrenia was characterized by a delay in intention attribution related to a slowdown of social context processing that was not explained by worse executive contextual control.

Eye-tracking reveals a slowdown of social context processing during intention attribution in patients with schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Roux, Paul; Brunet-Gouet, Eric; Passerieux, Christine; Ramus, Franck

2016-01-01

Background Schizophrenia is associated with poor theory of mind (ToM), particularly in the attribution of intentions to others. It is also associated with abnormal gaze behaviours and contextual processing. This study investigated to what extent impaired ToM in patients with schizophrenia is related to abnormal processing of social context. Methods We evaluated ToM using a nonverbal intention attribution task based on comic strips depicting social/nonsocial and contextual/noncontextual events while eye movements were recorded. Eye-tracking was used to assess processing time dedicated to visual cues contained in regions of interest identified in a pilot study. We measured cognitive contextual control on a separate task. Results We tested 29 patients with schizophrenia and 29 controls. Compared with controls, patients were slower in intention attribution but not in physical reasoning. They looked longer than controls at contextual cues displayed in the first 2 context pictures of the comic strips, and this difference was greater for intention attribution than for physical reasoning. We found no group difference in time spent looking at noncontextual cues. Patients’ impairment in contextual control did not explain their increased reaction time and gaze duration on contextual cues during intention attribution. Limitations Difficulty may not have been equivalent between intention attribution and physical reasoning conditions. Conclusion Overall, schizophrenia was characterized by a delay in intention attribution related to a slowdown of social context processing that was not explained by worse executive contextual control. PMID:26836621

Scene-Based Contextual Cueing in Pigeons

PubMed Central

Wasserman, Edward A.; Teng, Yuejia; Brooks, Daniel I.

2014-01-01

Repeated pairings of a particular visual context with a specific location of a target stimulus facilitate target search in humans. We explored an animal model of such contextual cueing. Pigeons had to peck a target which could appear in one of four locations on color photographs of real-world scenes. On half of the trials, each of four scenes was consistently paired with one of four possible target locations; on the other half of the trials, each of four different scenes was randomly paired with the same four possible target locations. In Experiments 1 and 2, pigeons exhibited robust contextual cueing when the context preceded the target by 1 s to 8 s, with reaction times to the target being shorter on predictive-scene trials than on random-scene trials. Pigeons also responded more frequently during the delay on predictive-scene trials than on random-scene trials; indeed, during the delay on predictive-scene trials, pigeons predominately pecked toward the location of the upcoming target, suggesting that attentional guidance contributes to contextual cueing. In Experiment 3, involving left-right and top-bottom scene reversals, pigeons exhibited stronger control by global than by local scene cues. These results attest to the robustness and associative basis of contextual cueing in pigeons. PMID:25546098

An unconditioned stimulus retrieval extinction procedure to prevent the return of fear memory.

PubMed

Liu, Jianfeng; Zhao, Liyan; Xue, Yanxue; Shi, Jie; Suo, Lin; Luo, Yixiao; Chai, Baisheng; Yang, Chang; Fang, Qin; Zhang, Yan; Bao, Yanping; Pickens, Charles L; Lu, Lin

2014-12-01

Conditioned fear memories can be updated by extinction during reconsolidation, and this effect is specific to the reactivated conditioned stimulus (CS). However, a traumatic event can be associated with several cues, and each cue can potentially trigger recollection of the event. We introduced a technique to target all diverse cues associated with an aversive event that causes fear. In human experiments, 161 subjects underwent modified fear conditioning, in which they were exposed to an unconditioned stimulus (US) or unreinforced CS to reactivate the memory and then underwent extinction, spontaneous recovery, and reinstatement. In animal experiments, 343 rats underwent contextual fear conditioning under a similar protocol as that used in the human experiments. We also explored the molecular alterations after US reactivation in rats. Presentation of a lower intensity US before extinction disrupted the associations between the different CS and reactivated US in both humans and rats. This effect persisted for at least 6 months in humans and was selective to the reactivated US. This procedure was also effective for remote memories in both humans and rats. Compared with the CS, the US induced stronger endocytosis of alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid glutamate receptors 1 and 2 and stronger activation of protein kinase A, p70S6 kinase, and cyclic adenosine monophosphate response element binding protein in the dorsal hippocampus in rats. These findings demonstrate that a modified US retrieval extinction strategy may have a potential impact on therapeutic approaches to prevent the return of fear. Copyright © 2014 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Where there's smoke, there's fire: the brain reactivity of chronic smokers when exposed to the negative value of smoking.

PubMed

Dinh-Williams, Laurence; Mendrek, Adrianna; Bourque, Josiane; Potvin, Stéphane

2014-04-03

The addictive nature of smoking is characterized by responses to cigarette stimuli that significantly impede smoking cessation efforts. Studies have shown that smokers are roused by appetitive smoking-related stimuli, and their consumption tends to be unaffected by the negative value of smoking. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the goal of this study was two-fold: to examine the brain reactivity of chronic smokers when processing the negative value of smoking using aversive smoking-related cues; to further characterize this response by comparing the latter to the processing of aversive nonsmoking-related and appetitive smoking-related cues. Thirty chronic smokers passively viewed aversive smoking-related, aversive nonsmoking-related, appetitive smoking-related and neutral images presented in a block design while being scanned. Aversive smoking-related stimuli elicited significantly greater activation in the medial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, inferior frontal gyrus and lateral orbitofrontal cortex than neutral stimuli. Aversive smoking-related stimuli elicited lower activation in the parahippocampal gyrus, insula and inferior frontal gyrus compared to the aversive nonsmoking-related condition, as well as lower activation in the posterior cingulate, precuneus and medial prefrontal cortices compared to appetitive smoking-related cues. The brain activation pattern observed suggests that chronic smokers experience an aversive response when processing aversive smoking-related stimuli, however we argue that the latter triggers a weaker negative emotional and driving response than the aversive non-smoking-related and appetitive smoking-related cues respectively. These fMRI results highlight potentially important processes underlying the insensitivity to the negative value of smoking, an important characteristic of addiction. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

"Incidental fear cues increase monetary loss aversion": Correction to Schulreich, Gerhardt, and Heekeren (2016).

PubMed

2016-12-01

Reports an error in "Incidental fear cues increase monetary loss aversion" by Stefan Schulreich, Holger Gerhardt and Hauke R. Heekeren ( Emotion , 2016[Apr], Vol 16[3], 402-412). In the current article, there was an error in the Study 2 portion of the article. The fourth paragraph of the Results section should read as follows: Performing the same analyses as in Study 1, we found an effect of incidental fear cues on decision behavior. Participants accepted fewer gambles in the fearful-face condition (32.77%) than in the neutral-face condition (33.96%), with Z = -2.187, p = .027, d = -0.998 in the Wilcoxon signed-ranks test and β = 0.012, SE = 0.0053, F(1, 21) = 4.434, p = .047, partial η² = .174 in the linear regression. This suggests increased risk aversion in the fearful-face condition. Concerning personality, however, there were no significant between-subjects effects or between-within interaction effects (all ps = .349). (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2015-52358-001.) In many everyday decisions, people exhibit loss aversion-a greater sensitivity to losses relative to gains of equal size. Loss aversion is thought to be (at least partly) mediated by emotional-in particular, fear-related-processes. Decision research has shown that even incidental emotions, which are unrelated to the decision at hand, can influence decision making. The effect of incidental fear on loss aversion, however, is thus far unclear. In two studies, we experimentally investigated how incidental fear cues, presented during (Study 1) or before (Study 2) choices to accept or reject mixed gambles over real monetary stakes, influence monetary loss aversion. We find that the presentation of fearful faces, relative to the presentation of neutral faces, increased risk aversion-an effect that could be attributed to increased loss aversion. The size of this effect was moderated by psychopathic personality: Fearless dominance, in particular its interpersonal facet, but not self-centered impulsivity, attenuated the effect of incidental fear cues on loss aversion, consistent with reduced fear reactivity. Together, these results highlight the sensitivity of loss aversion to the affective context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Two (or three) is one too many: testing the flexibility of contextual cueing with multiple target locations.

PubMed

Zellin, Martina; Conci, Markus; von Mühlenen, Adrian; Müller, Hermann J

2011-10-01

Visual search for a target object is facilitated when the object is repeatedly presented within an invariant context of surrounding items ("contextual cueing"; Chun & Jiang, Cognitive Psychology, 36, 28-71, 1998). The present study investigated whether such invariant contexts can cue more than one target location. In a series of three experiments, we showed that contextual cueing is significantly reduced when invariant contexts are paired with two rather than one possible target location, whereas no contextual cueing occurs with three distinct target locations. Closer data inspection revealed that one "dominant" target always exhibited substantially more contextual cueing than did the other, "minor" target(s), which caused negative contextual-cueing effects. However, minor targets could benefit from the invariant context when they were spatially close to the dominant target. In sum, our experiments suggest that contextual cueing can guide visual attention to a spatially limited region of the display, only enhancing the detection of targets presented inside that region.

Procedural Learning and Associative Memory Mechanisms Contribute to Contextual Cueing: Evidence from fMRI and Eye-Tracking

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Manelis, Anna; Reder, Lynne M.

2012-01-01

Using a combination of eye tracking and fMRI in a contextual cueing task, we explored the mechanisms underlying the facilitation of visual search for repeated spatial configurations. When configurations of distractors were repeated, greater activation in the right hippocampus corresponded to greater reductions in the number of saccades to locate…

Age-related similarities in contextual cueing in the presence of unpredictive distracters.

PubMed

Yang, Yingying; Merrill, Edward C

2015-01-01

Contextual cueing effects of 6-8-year-old children, 10-12-year-old-children, and college students were compared under conditions in which some of the distracters in the search displays predicted the location of the target and other distracters did not. More specifically, the percent of distracters that predicted the location of the target varied across three conditions (100%, 67%, and 33%). Previous research had indicated that children are impacted more than adults when the percent of predictive distracters is relatively low. However, that research included new displays as well as repeated displays as participants were implicitly learning the association between the predictive distracters and the target. This re-evaluation did not introduce new display until a separate test phase. Results suggested that all three age groups demonstrated significant and comparable contextual cueing effects across all three signal-to-noise ratio conditions. Hence, children appear to possess the general ability to extract and remember information associated with spatial regularities in the presence of considerable spatial noise. In addition, contextual cueing effects were linked to improvements in search efficiency for all groups in this study, providing another degree of similarity across variations in age.

Evaluation of ambiguous associations in the amygdala by learning the structure of the environment

PubMed Central

Madarasz, Tamas J.; Diaz-Mataix, Lorenzo; Akhand, Omar; Ycu, Edgar A.; LeDoux, Joseph E.; Johansen, Joshua P.

2017-01-01

Recognizing predictive relationships is critical for survival, but an understanding of the underlying neural mechanisms remains elusive. In particular it is unclear how the brain distinguishes predictive relationships from spurious ones when evidence about a relationship is ambiguous, or how it computes predictions given such uncertainty. To better understand this process we introduced ambiguity into an associative learning task by presenting aversive outcomes both in the presence and absence of a predictive cue. Electrophysiological and optogenetic approaches revealed that amygdala neurons directly regulate and track the effects of ambiguity on learning. Contrary to established accounts of associative learning however, interference from competing associations was not required to assess an ambiguous cue-outcome contingency. Instead, animals’ behavior was explained by a normative account that evaluates different models of the environment’s statistical structure. These findings suggest an alternative view on the role of amygdala circuits in resolving ambiguity during aversive learning. PMID:27214568

Evaluation of ambiguous associations in the amygdala by learning the structure of the environment.

PubMed

Madarasz, Tamas J; Diaz-Mataix, Lorenzo; Akhand, Omar; Ycu, Edgar A; LeDoux, Joseph E; Johansen, Joshua P

2016-07-01

Recognizing predictive relationships is critical for survival, but an understanding of the underlying neural mechanisms remains elusive. In particular, it is unclear how the brain distinguishes predictive relationships from spurious ones when evidence about a relationship is ambiguous, or how it computes predictions given such uncertainty. To better understand this process, we introduced ambiguity into an associative learning task by presenting aversive outcomes both in the presence and in the absence of a predictive cue. Electrophysiological and optogenetic approaches revealed that amygdala neurons directly regulated and tracked the effects of ambiguity on learning. Contrary to established accounts of associative learning, however, interference from competing associations was not required to assess an ambiguous cue-outcome contingency. Instead, animals' behavior was explained by a normative account that evaluates different models of the environment's statistical structure. These findings suggest an alternative view of amygdala circuits in resolving ambiguity during aversive learning.

Adapting to life’s slings and arrows: Individual differences in resilience when recovering from an anticipated threat

PubMed Central

Waugh, Christian E.; Fredrickson, Barbara L.; Taylor, Stephan F.

2009-01-01

Following highly negative events, people are deemed resilient if they maintain psychological stability and experience fewer mental health problems. The current research investigated how trait resilience (Block & Kremen, 1996, ER89) influences recovery from anticipated threats. Participants viewed cues (‘aversive’, ‘threat’, ‘safety’) that signified the likelihood of an upcoming picture (100% aversive, 50/50 aversive/neutral, or 100% neutral; respectively), and provided continuous affective ratings during the cue, picture, and after picture offset (recovery period). Participants high in trait resilience (HighR) exhibited more complete affective recovery (compared to LowR) after viewing a neutral picture that could have been aversive. Although other personality traits previously associated with resilience (i.e., optimism, extraversion, neuroticism) predicted affective responses during various portions of the task, none mediated the influence of trait resilience on affective recovery. PMID:19649310

Psychophysiology of prospective memory.

PubMed

Rothen, Nicolas; Meier, Beat

2014-01-01

Prospective memory involves the self-initiated retrieval of an intention upon an appropriate retrieval cue. Cue identification can be considered as an orienting reaction and may thus trigger a psychophysiological response. Here we present two experiments in which skin conductance responses (SCRs) elicited by prospective memory cues were compared to SCRs elicited by aversive stimuli to test whether a single prospective memory cue triggers a similar SCR as an aversive stimulus. In Experiment 2 we also assessed whether cue specificity had a differential influence on prospective memory performance and on SCRs. We found that detecting a single prospective memory cue is as likely to elicit a SCR as an aversive stimulus. Missed prospective memory cues also elicited SCRs. On a behavioural level, specific intentions led to better prospective memory performance. However, on a psychophysiological level specificity had no influence. More generally, the results indicate reliable SCRs for prospective memory cues and point to psychophysiological measures as valuable approach, which offers a new way to study one-off prospective memory tasks. Moreover, the findings are consistent with a theory that posits multiple prospective memory retrieval stages.

Context-dependent arm pointing adaptation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Seidler, R. D.; Bloomberg, J. J.; Stelmach, G. E.

2001-01-01

We sought to determine the effectiveness of head posture as a contextual cue to facilitate adaptive transitions in manual control during visuomotor distortions. Subjects performed arm pointing movements by drawing on a digitizing tablet, with targets and movement trajectories displayed in real time on a computer monitor. Adaptation was induced by presenting the trajectories in an altered gain format on the monitor. The subjects were shown visual displays of their movements that corresponded to either 0.5 or 1.5 scaling of the movements made. Subjects were assigned to three groups: the head orientation group tilted the head towards the right shoulder when drawing under a 0.5 gain of display and towards the left shoulder when drawing under a 1.5 gain of display; the target orientation group had the home and target positions rotated counterclockwise when drawing under the 0.5 gain and clockwise for the 1.5 gain; the arm posture group changed the elbow angle of the arm they were not drawing with from full flexion to full extension with 0.5 and 1.5 gain display changes. To determine if contextual cues were associated with display alternations, the gain changes were returned to the standard (1.0) display. Aftereffects were assessed to determine the efficacy of the head orientation contextual cue compared to the two control cues. The head orientation cue was effectively associated with the multiple gains. The target orientation cue also demonstrated some effectiveness while the arm posture cue did not. The results demonstrate that contextual cues can be used to switch between multiple adaptive states. These data provide support for the idea that static head orientation information is a crucial component to the arm adaptation process. These data further define the functional linkage between head posture and arm pointing movements.

Context-Dependent Arm Pointing Adaptation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Seidler, R. D.; Bloomberg, J. J.; Stelmach, G. E.

2000-01-01

We sought to determine the effectiveness of head posture as a contextual cue to facilitate adaptive transitions in manual control during visuomotor distortions. Subjects performed arm pointing movements by drawing on a digitizing tablet, with targets and movement trajectories displayed in real time on a computer monitor. Adaptation was induced by presenting the trajectories in an altered gain format on the monitor. The subjects were shown visual displays of their movements that corresponded to either 0.5 or 1.5 scaling of the movements made. Subjects were assigned to three groups: the head orientation group tilted the head towards the right shoulder when drawing under a 0.5 gain of display and towards the left shoulder when drawing under a 1.5 gain of display, the target orientation group had the home & target positions rotated counterclockwise when drawing under the 0.5 gain and clockwise for the 1.5 gain, the arm posture group changed the elbow angle of the arm they were not drawing with from full flexion to full extension with 0.5 and 1.5 gain display changes. To determine if contextual cues were associated with display alternations, the gain changes were returned to the standard (1.0) display. Aftereffects were assessed to determine the efficacy of the head orientation contextual cue. . compared to the two control cues. The head orientation cue was effectively associated with the multiple gains. The target orientation cue also demonstrated some effectiveness while the.arm posture cue did not. The results demonstrate that contextual cues can be used to switch between multiple adaptive states. These data provide support for the idea that static head orientation information is a crucial component to the arm adaptation process. These data further define the functional linkage between head posture and arm pointing movements.

Cocaine cues drive opposing context-dependent shifts in reward processing and emotional state.

PubMed

Wheeler, Robert A; Aragona, Brandon J; Fuhrmann, Katherine A; Jones, Joshua L; Day, Jeremy J; Cacciapaglia, Fabio; Wightman, R Mark; Carelli, Regina M

2011-06-01

Prominent neurobiological theories of addiction posit a central role for aberrant mesolimbic dopamine release but disagree as to whether repeated drug experience blunts or enhances this system. Although drug withdrawal diminishes dopamine release, drug sensitization augments mesolimbic function, and both processes have been linked to drug seeking. One possibility is that the dopamine system can rapidly switch from dampened to enhanced release depending on the specific drug-predictive environment. To test this, we examined dopamine release when cues signaled delayed cocaine delivery versus imminent cocaine self-administration. Fast-scan cyclic voltammetry was used to examine real-time dopamine release while simultaneously monitoring behavioral indexes of aversion as rats experienced a sweet taste cue that predicted delayed cocaine availability and during self-administration. Furthermore, the impact of cues signaling delayed drug availability on intracranial self-stimulation, a broad measure of reward function, was assessed. We observed decreased mesolimbic dopamine concentrations, decreased reward sensitivity, and negative affect in response to the cocaine-predictive taste cue that signaled delayed cocaine availability. Importantly, dopamine concentration rapidly switched to elevated levels to cues signaling imminent cocaine delivery in the subsequent self-administration session. These findings show rapid, bivalent contextual control over brain reward processing, affect, and motivated behavior and have implications for mechanisms mediating substance abuse. Copyright © 2011 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Global Repetition Influences Contextual Cueing

PubMed Central

Zang, Xuelian; Zinchenko, Artyom; Jia, Lina; Li, Hong

2018-01-01

Our visual system has a striking ability to improve visual search based on the learning of repeated ambient regularities, an effect named contextual cueing. Whereas most of the previous studies investigated contextual cueing effect with the same number of repeated and non-repeated search displays per block, the current study focused on whether a global repetition frequency formed by different presentation ratios between the repeated and non-repeated configurations influence contextual cueing effect. Specifically, the number of repeated and non-repeated displays presented in each block was manipulated: 12:12, 20:4, 4:20, and 4:4 in Experiments 1–4, respectively. The results revealed a significant contextual cueing effect when the global repetition frequency is high (≥1:1 ratio) in Experiments 1, 2, and 4, given that processing of repeated displays was expedited relative to non-repeated displays. Nevertheless, the contextual cueing effect reduced to a non-significant level when the repetition frequency reduced to 4:20 in Experiment 3. These results suggested that the presentation frequency of repeated relative to the non-repeated displays could influence the strength of contextual cueing. In other words, global repetition statistics could be a crucial factor to mediate contextual cueing effect. PMID:29636716

Global Repetition Influences Contextual Cueing.

PubMed

Zang, Xuelian; Zinchenko, Artyom; Jia, Lina; Assumpção, Leonardo; Li, Hong

2018-01-01

Our visual system has a striking ability to improve visual search based on the learning of repeated ambient regularities, an effect named contextual cueing. Whereas most of the previous studies investigated contextual cueing effect with the same number of repeated and non-repeated search displays per block, the current study focused on whether a global repetition frequency formed by different presentation ratios between the repeated and non-repeated configurations influence contextual cueing effect. Specifically, the number of repeated and non-repeated displays presented in each block was manipulated: 12:12, 20:4, 4:20, and 4:4 in Experiments 1-4, respectively. The results revealed a significant contextual cueing effect when the global repetition frequency is high (≥1:1 ratio) in Experiments 1, 2, and 4, given that processing of repeated displays was expedited relative to non-repeated displays. Nevertheless, the contextual cueing effect reduced to a non-significant level when the repetition frequency reduced to 4:20 in Experiment 3. These results suggested that the presentation frequency of repeated relative to the non-repeated displays could influence the strength of contextual cueing. In other words, global repetition statistics could be a crucial factor to mediate contextual cueing effect.

Hippocampal-dependent memory in the plus-maze discriminative avoidance task: The role of spatial cues and CA1 activity.

PubMed

Leão, Anderson H F F; Medeiros, André M; Apolinário, Gênedy K S; Cabral, Alícia; Ribeiro, Alessandra M; Barbosa, Flávio F; Silva, Regina H

2016-05-01

The plus-maze discriminative avoidance task (PMDAT) has been used to investigate interactions between aversive memory and an anxiety-like response in rodents. Suitable performance in this task depends on the activity of the basolateral amygdala, similar to other aversive-based memory tasks. However, the role of spatial cues and hippocampal-dependent learning in the performance of PMDAT remains unknown. Here, we investigated the role of proximal and distal cues in the retrieval of this task. Animals tested under misplaced proximal cues had diminished performance, and animals tested under both misplaced proximal cues and absent distal cues could not discriminate the aversive arm. We also assessed the role of the dorsal hippocampus (CA1) in this aversive memory task. Temporary bilateral inactivation of dorsal CA1 was conducted with muscimol (0.05 μg, 0.1 μg, and 0.2 μg) prior to the training session. While the acquisition of the task was not altered, muscimol impaired the performance in the test session and reduced the anxiety-like response in the training session. We also performed a spreading analysis of a fluorophore-conjugated muscimol to confirm selective inhibition of CA1. In conclusion, both distal and proximal cues are required to retrieve the task, with the latter being more relevant to spatial orientation. Dorsal CA1 activity is also required for aversive memory formation in this task, and interfered with the anxiety-like response as well. Importantly, both effects were detected by different parameters in the same paradigm, endorsing the previous findings of independent assessment of aversive memory and anxiety-like behavior in the PMDAT. Taken together, these findings suggest that the PMDAT probably requires an integration of multiple systems for memory formation, resembling an episodic-like memory rather than a pure conditioning behavior. Furthermore, the concomitant and independent assessment of emotionality and memory in rodents is relevant to elucidate how these memory systems interact during aversive memory formation. Thus, the PMDAT can be useful for studying hippocampal-dependent memory when it involves emotional content. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Strong seduction: impulsivity and the impact of contextual cues on instrumental behavior in alcohol dependence.

PubMed

Sommer, C; Garbusow, M; Jünger, E; Pooseh, S; Bernhardt, N; Birkenstock, J; Schad, D J; Jabs, B; Glöckler, T; Huys, Q M; Heinz, A; Smolka, M N; Zimmermann, U S

2017-08-01

Alcohol-related cues acquire incentive salience through Pavlovian conditioning and then can markedly affect instrumental behavior of alcohol-dependent patients to promote relapse. However, it is unclear whether similar effects occur with alcohol-unrelated cues. We tested 116 early-abstinent alcohol-dependent patients and 91 healthy controls who completed a delay discounting task to assess choice impulsivity, and a Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) paradigm employing both alcohol-unrelated and alcohol-related stimuli. To modify instrumental choice behavior, we tiled the background of the computer screen either with conditioned stimuli (CS) previously generated by pairing abstract pictures with pictures indicating monetary gains or losses, or with pictures displaying alcohol or water beverages. CS paired to money gains and losses affected instrumental choices differently. This PIT effect was significantly more pronounced in patients compared to controls, and the group difference was mainly driven by highly impulsive patients. The PIT effect was particularly strong in trials in which the instrumental stimulus required inhibition of instrumental response behavior and the background CS was associated to monetary gains. Under that condition, patients performed inappropriate approach behavior, contrary to their previously formed behavioral intention. Surprisingly, the effect of alcohol and water pictures as background stimuli resembled that of aversive and appetitive CS, respectively. These findings suggest that positively valenced background CS can provoke dysfunctional instrumental approach behavior in impulsive alcohol-dependent patients. Consequently, in real life they might be easily seduced by environmental cues to engage in actions thwarting their long-term goals. Such behaviors may include, but are not limited to, approaching alcohol.

Contextual cueing in naturalistic scenes: Global and local contexts.

PubMed

Brockmole, James R; Castelhano, Monica S; Henderson, John M

2006-07-01

In contextual cueing, the position of a target within a group of distractors is learned over repeated exposure to a display with reference to a few nearby items rather than to the global pattern created by the elements. The authors contrasted the role of global and local contexts for contextual cueing in naturalistic scenes. Experiment 1 showed that learned target positions transfer when local information is altered but not when global information is changed. Experiment 2 showed that scene-target covariation is learned more slowly when local, but not global, information is repeated across trials than when global but not local information is repeated. Thus, in naturalistic scenes, observers are biased to associate target locations with global contexts. Copyright 2006 APA, all rights reserved.

The acquisition of contextual cueing effects by persons with and without intellectual disability.

PubMed

Merrill, Edward C; Conners, Frances A; Yang, Yingying; Weathington, Dana

2014-10-01

Two experiments were conducted to compare the acquisition of contextual cueing effects of adolescents and young adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) relative to typically developing children and young adults. Contextual cueing reflects an implicit, memory based attention guidance mechanism that results in faster search for target locations that have been previously experienced in a predictable context. In the study, participants located a target stimulus embedded in a context of numerous distracter stimuli. During a learning phase, the location of the target was predictable from the location of the distracters in the search displays. We then compared response times to locating predictable relative to unpredictable targets presented in a test phase. In Experiment 1, all of the distracters predicted the location of the target. In Experiment 2, half of the distracters predicted the location of the target while the other half varied randomly. The participants with ID exhibited significant contextual facilitation in both experiments, with the magnitude of facilitation being similar to that of the typically developing (TD) children and adults. We concluded that deficiencies in contextual cueing are not necessarily associated with low measured intelligence that results in a classification of ID. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Distinct Contributions of Median Raphe Nucleus to Contextual Fear Conditioning and Fear-Potentiated Startle

PubMed Central

Silva, R. C. B.; Cruz, A. P. M.; Avanzi, V.; Landeira-Fernandez, J.; Brandão, M. L.

2002-01-01

Ascending 5-HT projections from the median raphe nucleus (MRN), probably to the hippocampus, are implicated in the acquisition of contextual fear (background stimuli), as assessed by freezing behavior. Foreground cues like light, used as a conditioned stimulus (CS) in classical fear conditioning, also cause freezing through thalamic transmission to the amygdala. As the MRN projects to the hippocampus and amygdala, the role of this raphe nucleus in fear conditioning to explicit cues remains to be explained. Here we analyzed the behavior of rats with MRN electrolytic lesions in a contextual conditioning situation and in a fear-potentiated startle procedure. The animals received MRN electrolytic lesions either before or on the day after two consecutive training sessions in which they were submitted to 10 conditioning trials, each in an experimental chamber (same context) where they. received foot-shocks (0.6 mA, 1 sec) paired to a 4-sec light CS. Seven to ten days later, the animals were submitted to testing sessions for assessing conditioned fear when they were placed for five shocks, and the duration of contextual freezing was recorded. The animals were then submitted to a fear-potentiated startle in response to a 4-sec light-CS, followed by white noise (100 dB, 50 ms). Control rats (sham) tested in the same context showed more freezing than did rats with pre- or post-training MRN lesions. Startle was clearly potentiated in the presence of light CS in the sham-lesioned animals. Whereas pretraining lesions reduced both freezing and fear-potentiated startle, the post-training lesions reduced only freezing to context, without changing the fear-potentiated startle. In a second experiment, neurotoxic lesions of the MRN with local injections of N-methyl-D-aspartate or the activation of 5-HT1A somatodendritic auto-receptors of the MRN by microinjections of the 5-HT1A receptor agonist 8-hydroxy- 2-(di-n-propylamino)tetralin (8-OH-DPAT) before the training sessions also reduced the amount of freezing and the fear-potentiated startle. Freezing is a prominent response of contextual fear conditioning, but does not seem to be crucial for the enhancement of the startle reflex by explicit aversive cues. As fear-potentiated startle may be produced in posttraining lesioned rats that are unable to freeze to fear contextual stimuli, dissociable systems seem to be recruited in each condition. Thus, contextual fear and fear-potentiated startle are conveyed by distinct 5-HT-mediated circuits of the MRN. PMID:12959153

Temporal and peripheral extraction of contextual cues from scenes during visual search.

PubMed

Koehler, Kathryn; Eckstein, Miguel P

2017-02-01

Scene context is known to facilitate object recognition and guide visual search, but little work has focused on isolating image-based cues and evaluating their contributions to eye movement guidance and search performance. Here, we explore three types of contextual cues (a co-occurring object, the configuration of other objects, and the superordinate category of background elements) and assess their joint contributions to search performance in the framework of cue-combination and the temporal unfolding of their extraction. We also assess whether observers' ability to extract each contextual cue in the visual periphery is a bottleneck that determines the utilization and contribution of each cue to search guidance and decision accuracy. We find that during the first four fixations of a visual search task observers first utilize the configuration of objects for coarse eye movement guidance and later use co-occurring object information for finer guidance. In the absence of contextual cues, observers were suboptimally biased to report the target object as being absent. The presence of the co-occurring object was the only contextual cue that had a significant effect in reducing decision bias. The early influence of object-based cues on eye movements is corroborated by a clear demonstration of observers' ability to extract object cues up to 16° into the visual periphery. The joint contributions of the cues to decision search accuracy approximates that expected from the combination of statistically independent cues and optimal cue combination. Finally, the lack of utilization and contribution of the background-based contextual cue to search guidance cannot be explained by the availability of the contextual cue in the visual periphery; instead it is related to background cues providing the least inherent information about the precise location of the target in the scene.

Control of Appetitive and Aversive Taste-Reactivity Responses by an Auditory Conditioned Stimulus in a Devaluation Task: A FOS and Behavioral Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kerfoot, Erin C.; Agarwal, Isha; Lee, Hongjoo J.; Holland, Peter C.

2007-01-01

Through associative learning, cues for biologically significant reinforcers such as food may gain access to mental representations of those reinforcers. Here, we used devaluation procedures, behavioral assessment of hedonic taste-reactivity responses, and measurement of immediate-early gene (IEG) expression to show that a cue for food engages…

Differential Effects of Cannabinoid Receptor Agonist on Social Discrimination and Contextual Fear in Amygdala and Hippocampus

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Segev, Amir; Akirav, Irit

2011-01-01

We examined whether the cannabinoid receptor agonist WIN55,212-2 (WIN; 5 [mu]g/side) microinjected into the hippocampus or the amygdala would differentially affect memory processes in a neutral vs. an aversive task. In the aversive contextual fear task, WIN into the basolateral amygdala impaired fear acquisition/consolidation, but not retrieval.…

Context and Time Matter: Effects of Emotion and Motivation on Episodic Memory Overtime

PubMed Central

Sun, Qing; Gu, Simeng

2018-01-01

Previous studies have shown that compared with neutral cues, stimuli with positive and negative/stressful contexts or reward and punishment cues are remembered better. However, it is unclear whether the enhanced effect differs in emotion or motivation dimensions and the passage of time. We addressed these issues by manipulating different contextual cues for neutral words at different time intervals. In experiment 1, subjects were asked to learn words with picture contexts in positive, negative/stressful, and neutral valences and were tested by old/new word recognition and contextual judgment 10 min, 1 day, and 1 week later. In experiment 2, the reward and punishment motivations were manipulated by monetary cues during learning. Word recognition and contextual judgment were assessed 10 min, 1 day, 1 week, and 1 month after the study. Compared with negative and punishment conditions, the words in positive and reward contexts were recognized better at shorter intervals, which was associated with recollection process. In contrast, the words in negative and punishment contexts were recognized better at longer intervals, which was mainly associated with familiarity process. These results clarified how different dimensions of emotional and motivational contexts influence memory at short and long intervals and highlighted the role of contextual features in memory formation and consolidation. PMID:29849564

Context and Time Matter: Effects of Emotion and Motivation on Episodic Memory Overtime.

PubMed

Sun, Qing; Gu, Simeng; Yang, Jiongjiong

2018-01-01

Previous studies have shown that compared with neutral cues, stimuli with positive and negative/stressful contexts or reward and punishment cues are remembered better. However, it is unclear whether the enhanced effect differs in emotion or motivation dimensions and the passage of time. We addressed these issues by manipulating different contextual cues for neutral words at different time intervals. In experiment 1, subjects were asked to learn words with picture contexts in positive, negative/stressful, and neutral valences and were tested by old/new word recognition and contextual judgment 10 min, 1 day, and 1 week later. In experiment 2, the reward and punishment motivations were manipulated by monetary cues during learning. Word recognition and contextual judgment were assessed 10 min, 1 day, 1 week, and 1 month after the study. Compared with negative and punishment conditions, the words in positive and reward contexts were recognized better at shorter intervals, which was associated with recollection process. In contrast, the words in negative and punishment contexts were recognized better at longer intervals, which was mainly associated with familiarity process. These results clarified how different dimensions of emotional and motivational contexts influence memory at short and long intervals and highlighted the role of contextual features in memory formation and consolidation.

Object-based implicit learning in visual search: perceptual segmentation constrains contextual cueing.

PubMed

Conci, Markus; Müller, Hermann J; von Mühlenen, Adrian

2013-07-09

In visual search, detection of a target is faster when it is presented within a spatial layout of repeatedly encountered nontarget items, indicating that contextual invariances can guide selective attention (contextual cueing; Chun & Jiang, 1998). However, perceptual regularities may interfere with contextual learning; for instance, no contextual facilitation occurs when four nontargets form a square-shaped grouping, even though the square location predicts the target location (Conci & von Mühlenen, 2009). Here, we further investigated potential causes for this interference-effect: We show that contextual cueing can reliably occur for targets located within the region of a segmented object, but not for targets presented outside of the object's boundaries. Four experiments demonstrate an object-based facilitation in contextual cueing, with a modulation of context-based learning by relatively subtle grouping cues including closure, symmetry, and spatial regularity. Moreover, the lack of contextual cueing for targets located outside the segmented region was due to an absence of (latent) learning of contextual layouts, rather than due to an attentional bias towards the grouped region. Taken together, these results indicate that perceptual segmentation provides a basic structure within which contextual scene regularities are acquired. This in turn argues that contextual learning is constrained by object-based selection.

Contextual cueing impairment in patients with age-related macular degeneration.

PubMed

Geringswald, Franziska; Herbik, Anne; Hoffmann, Michael B; Pollmann, Stefan

2013-09-12

Visual attention can be guided by past experience of regularities in our visual environment. In the contextual cueing paradigm, incidental learning of repeated distractor configurations speeds up search times compared to random search arrays. Concomitantly, fewer fixations and more direct scan paths indicate more efficient visual exploration in repeated search arrays. In previous work, we found that simulating a central scotoma in healthy observers eliminated this search facilitation. Here, we investigated contextual cueing in patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) who suffer from impaired foveal vision. AMD patients performed visual search using only their more severely impaired eye (n = 13) as well as under binocular viewing (n = 16). Normal-sighted controls developed a significant contextual cueing effect. In comparison, patients showed only a small nonsignificant advantage for repeated displays when searching with their worse eye. When searching binocularly, they profited from contextual cues, but still less than controls. Number of fixations and scan pattern ratios showed a comparable pattern as search times. Moreover, contextual cueing was significantly correlated with acuity in monocular search. Thus, foveal vision loss may lead to impaired guidance of attention by contextual memory cues.

Human cortical activity evoked by contextual processing in attentional orienting.

PubMed

Zhao, Shuo; Li, Chunlin; Uono, Shota; Yoshimura, Sayaka; Toichi, Motomi

2017-06-07

The ability to assess another person's direction of attention is paramount in social communication, many studies have reported a similar pattern between gaze and arrow cues in attention orienting. Neuroimaging research has also demonstrated no qualitative differences in attention to gaze and arrow cues. However, these studies were implemented under simple experiment conditions. Researchers have highlighted the importance of contextual processing (i.e., the semantic congruence between cue and target) in attentional orienting, showing that attentional orienting by social gaze or arrow cues could be modulated through contextual processing. Here, we examine the neural activity of attentional orienting by gaze and arrow cues in response to contextual processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The results demonstrated that the influence of neural activity through contextual processing to attentional orienting occurred under invalid conditions (when the cue and target were incongruent versus congruent) in the ventral frontoparietal network, although we did not identify any differences in the neural substrates of attentional orienting in contextual processing between gaze and arrow cues. These results support behavioural data of attentional orienting modulated by contextual processing based on the neurocognitive architecture.

Does Contextual Cueing Guide the Deployment of Attention?

PubMed Central

Kunar, Melina A.; Flusberg, Stephen; Horowitz, Todd S.; Wolfe, Jeremy M.

2008-01-01

Contextual cueing experiments show that when displays are repeated, reaction times (RTs) to find a target decrease over time even when observers are not aware of the repetition. It has been thought that the context of the display guides attention to the target. We tested this hypothesis by comparing the effects of guidance in a standard search task to the effects of contextual cueing. Firstly, in standard search, an improvement in guidance causes search slopes (derived from RT × Set Size functions) to decrease. In contrast, we found that search slopes in contextual cueing did not become more efficient over time (Experiment 1). Secondly, when guidance is optimal (e.g. in easy feature search) we still found a small, but reliable contextual cueing effect (Experiments 2a and 2b), suggesting that other factors, such as response selection, contribute to the effect. Experiment 3 supported this hypothesis by showing that the contextual cueing effect disappeared when we added interference to the response selection process. Overall, our data suggest that the relationship between guidance and contextual cueing is weak and that response selection can account for part of the effect. PMID:17683230

Differences between appetitive and aversive reinforcement on reorientation in a spatial working memory task.

PubMed

Golob, Edward J; Taube, Jeffrey S

2002-10-17

Tasks using appetitive reinforcers show that following disorientation rats use the shape of an arena to reorient, and cannot distinguish two geometrically similar corners to obtain a reward, despite the presence of a prominent visual cue that provides information to differentiate the two corners. Other studies show that disorientation impairs performance on certain appetitive, but not aversive, tasks. This study evaluated whether rats would make similar geometric errors in a working memory task that used aversive reinforcement. We hypothesized that in a task that used aversive reinforcement rats that were initially disoriented would not reorient by arena shape and thus make similar geometric errors. Tests were performed in a rectangular arena having one polarizing cue. In the appetitive condition water consumption was the reward. The aversive condition was a water maze task with reinforcement provided by escape to a hidden platform. In the aversive condition rats returned to the reinforced corner significantly more often than in the dry condition, and did not favor the diagonally opposite corner. Results show that rats can use cues besides arena shape to reorient in an aversive reinforcement condition. These findings may also reflect different strategies, with an escape/homing strategy in the wet condition and a foraging strategy in the dry condition.

Task-relevant information is prioritized in spatiotemporal contextual cueing.

PubMed

Higuchi, Yoko; Ueda, Yoshiyuki; Ogawa, Hirokazu; Saiki, Jun

2016-11-01

Implicit learning of visual contexts facilitates search performance-a phenomenon known as contextual cueing; however, little is known about contextual cueing under situations in which multidimensional regularities exist simultaneously. In everyday vision, different information, such as object identity and location, appears simultaneously and interacts with each other. We tested the hypothesis that, in contextual cueing, when multiple regularities are present, the regularities that are most relevant to our behavioral goals would be prioritized. Previous studies of contextual cueing have commonly used the visual search paradigm. However, this paradigm is not suitable for directing participants' attention to a particular regularity. Therefore, we developed a new paradigm, the "spatiotemporal contextual cueing paradigm," and manipulated task-relevant and task-irrelevant regularities. In four experiments, we demonstrated that task-relevant regularities were more responsible for search facilitation than task-irrelevant regularities. This finding suggests our visual behavior is focused on regularities that are relevant to our current goal.

Dorsal and ventral working memory-related brain areas support distinct processes in contextual cueing.

PubMed

Manginelli, Angela A; Baumgartner, Florian; Pollmann, Stefan

2013-02-15

Behavioral evidence suggests that the use of implicitly learned spatial contexts for improved visual search may depend on visual working memory resources. Working memory may be involved in contextual cueing in different ways: (1) for keeping implicitly learned working memory contents available during search or (2) for the capture of attention by contexts retrieved from memory. We mapped brain areas that were modulated by working memory capacity. Within these areas, activation was modulated by contextual cueing along the descending segment of the intraparietal sulcus, an area that has previously been related to maintenance of explicit memories. Increased activation for learned displays, but not modulated by the size of contextual cueing, was observed in the temporo-parietal junction area, previously associated with the capture of attention by explicitly retrieved memory items, and in the ventral visual cortex. This pattern of activation extends previous research on dorsal versus ventral stream functions in memory guidance of attention to the realm of attentional guidance by implicit memory. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A conditioned aversion study of sucrose and SC45647 taste in TRPM5 knockout mice.

PubMed

Eddy, Meghan C; Eschle, Benjamin K; Peterson, Darlene; Lauras, Nathan; Margolskee, Robert F; Delay, Eugene R

2012-06-01

Previously, published studies have reported mixed results regarding the role of the TRPM5 cation channel in signaling sweet taste by taste sensory cells. Some studies have reported a complete loss of sweet taste preference in TRPM5 knockout (KO) mice, whereas others have reported only a partial loss of sweet taste preference. This study reports the results of conditioned aversion studies designed to motivate wild-type (WT) and KO mice to respond to sweet substances. In conditioned taste aversion experiments, WT mice showed nearly complete LiCl-induced response suppression to sucrose and SC45647. In contrast, TRPM5 KO mice showed a much smaller conditioned aversion to either sweet substance, suggesting a compromised, but not absent, ability to detect sweet taste. A subsequent conditioned flavor aversion experiment was conducted to determine if TRPM5 KO mice were impaired in their ability to learn a conditioned aversion. In this experiment, KO and WT mice were conditioned to a mixture of SC45647 and amyl acetate (an odor cue). Although WT mice avoided both components of the stimulus mixture, they avoided SC45647 more than the odor cue. The KO mice also avoided both stimuli, but they avoided the odor component more than SC45647, suggesting that while the KO mice are capable of learning an aversion, to them the odor cue was more salient than the taste cue. Collectively, these findings suggest the TRPM5 KO mice have some residual ability to detect SC45647 and sucrose, and, like bitter, there may be a TRPM5-independent transduction pathway for detecting these substances.

Ventral Pallidum Encodes Contextual Information and Controls Aversive Behaviors.

PubMed

Saga, Yosuke; Richard, Augustin; Sgambato-Faure, Véronique; Hoshi, Eiji; Tobler, Philippe N; Tremblay, Léon

2017-04-01

Successful avoidance of aversive outcomes is crucial for the survival of animals. Although accumulating evidence indicates that an indirect pathway in the basal ganglia is involved in aversive behavior, the ventral pallidum (VP), which is an important component of this pathway, has so far been implicated primarily in appetitive behavior. In this study, we used single-cell recordings and bicuculline (GABAA antagonist) injections to elucidate the role of VP both in the encoding of aversive context and in active avoidance. We found 2 populations of neurons that were preferentially activated by appetitive and aversive conditioned stimuli (CSs). In addition, VP showed appetitive and aversive outcome anticipatory activities. These activity patterns indicate that VP is involved in encoding and maintaining CS-induced aversive contextual information. Furthermore, the disturbance of VP activity by bicuculline injection increased the number of error trials in aversive trials. In particular, the subjects released the response bar prematurely, showed no response at all, or failed to avoid the aversive outcome. Overall, these results suggest that VP plays a central role in controlling CS-induced negative motivation to produce avoidance behavior. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Contextual cueing improves attentional guidance, even when guidance is supposedly optimal.

PubMed

Harris, Anthony M; Remington, Roger W

2017-05-01

Visual search through previously encountered contexts typically produces reduced reaction times compared with search through novel contexts. This contextual cueing benefit is well established, but there is debate regarding its underlying mechanisms. Eye-tracking studies have consistently shown reduced number of fixations with repetition, supporting improvements in attentional guidance as the source of contextual cueing. However, contextual cueing benefits have been shown in conditions in which attentional guidance should already be optimal-namely, when attention is captured to the target location by an abrupt onset, or under pop-out conditions. These results have been used to argue for a response-related account of contextual cueing. Here, we combine eye tracking with response time to examine the mechanisms behind contextual cueing in spatially cued and pop-out conditions. Three experiments find consistent response time benefits with repetition, which appear to be driven almost entirely by a reduction in number of fixations, supporting improved attentional guidance as the mechanism behind contextual cueing. No differences were observed in the time between fixating the target and responding-our proxy for response related processes. Furthermore, the correlation between contextual cueing magnitude and the reduction in number of fixations on repeated contexts approaches 1. These results argue strongly that attentional guidance is facilitated by familiar search contexts, even when guidance is near-optimal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Aversive olfactory associative memory loses odor specificity over time

PubMed Central

König, Christian; Antwi-Adjei, Emmanuel; Ganesan, Mathangi; Kilonzo, Kasyoka; Viswanathan, Vignesh; Durairaja, Archana; Voigt, Anne

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT Avoiding associatively learned predictors of danger is crucial for survival. Aversive memories can, however, become counter-adaptive when they are overly generalized to harmless cues and contexts. In a fruit fly odor–electric shock associative memory paradigm, we found that learned avoidance lost its specificity for the trained odor and became general to novel odors within a day of training. We discuss the possible neural circuit mechanisms of this effect and highlight the parallelism to over-generalization of learned fear behavior after an incubation period in rodents and humans, with due relevance for post-traumatic stress disorder. PMID:28468811

Measuring anxious responses to predictable and unpredictable threat in children and adolescents

PubMed Central

Schmitz, Anja; Merikangas, Kathleen; Swendsen, Haruka; Cui, Lihong; Heaton, Leanne; Grillon, Christian

2011-01-01

Research has highlighted the need for new methods to assess emotions in children on multiple levels in order to gain better insight into the complex processes of emotional development. The startle reflex is a unique translational tool that has been utilized to study physiological processes during fear and anxiety in rodents and in human subjects. However, it has been challenging to implement developmentally-appropriate startle experiments in children. This paper describes a procedure that uses predictable and unpredictable aversive events to distinguish between phasic fear and sustained anxiety in children and adolescents. We investigated anxious responses, as measured with the startle reflex, in youth (N = 36, mean age[range] = 12.63 [7–17]) across three conditions: no aversive events (N), predictable aversive events (P), and unpredictable aversive events (U). Short-duration cues were presented several times in each condition. Aversive events were signaled by the cues in P, but were presented randomly in U. Participants showed fear-potentiated startle to the threat cue in P. Startle responses were also elevated between cues in U compared to N, suggesting that unpredictable aversive events can evoke a sustained state of anxiety in youth. This latter effect was influenced by sex, being greater in girls compared to boys. These findings indicate the feasibility of this experimental induction of the startle reflex in response to predictable and unpredictable events in children and adolescents, enabling future research on inter-individual differences in fear and anxiety and their development in youth. PMID:21440905

The effect of contextual sound cues on visual fidelity perception.

PubMed

Rojas, David; Cowan, Brent; Kapralos, Bill; Collins, Karen; Dubrowski, Adam

2014-01-01

Previous work has shown that sound can affect the perception of visual fidelity. Here we build upon this previous work by examining the effect of contextual sound cues (i.e., sounds that are related to the visuals) on visual fidelity perception. Results suggest that contextual sound cues do influence visual fidelity perception and, more specifically, our perception of visual fidelity increases with contextual sound cues. These results have implications for designers of multimodal virtual worlds and serious games that, with the appropriate use of contextual sounds, can reduce visual rendering requirements without a corresponding decrease in the perception of visual fidelity.

Cue-elicited food seeking is eliminated with aversive outcomes following outcome devaluation.

PubMed

Eder, Andreas B; Dignath, David

2016-01-01

In outcome-selective Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT), stimuli that are predictive of specific outcomes prime instrumental responses that are associated with these outcomes. Previous human studies yielded mixed evidence in respect to whether the PIT effect is affected by a posttraining devaluation of an outcome, with the PIT effect being preserved after a devaluation of a primary reinforcer (food, drugs) but not following the devaluation of a secondary reinforcer (money). The present research examined whether outcome-selective transfer is eliminated when the devaluation of a primary (liquid) reinforcer is strong and aversive. Experiment 1 confirmed these expectations following a devaluation with bad tasting Tween 20. However, outcome-selective transfer was still observed when the earned (devalued) outcome was not consumed immediately after each test (Experiment 2). These results suggest that the capacity of a Pavlovian cue to motivate a specific response is affected by the incentive value of the shared outcome only when the devaluation yields an aversive outcome that is consumed immediately.

Effects of prior aversive experience upon retrograde amnesia induced by hypothermia.

PubMed

Jensen, R A; Riccio, D C; Gehres, L

1975-08-01

Two experiments examined the extent to which retrograde amnesia (RA) is attenuated by prior learning experiences. In Experiment 1, rats initially received either passive avoidance training in a step-through apparatus, exposure to the apparatus, or noncontingent footshock. When training on a second but different passive avoidance task was followed by hypothermia treatment, RA was obtained only in the latter two groups. In Experiment 2, one-way active avoidance training, yoked noncontingent shocks, or apparatus exposure constituted the initial experience. Subsequent step-down passive avoidance training and amnestic treatment resulted in memory loss for the prior apparatus exposure group, but not for either of the preshocked conditions. These experiments demonstrate that certain types of prior aversive experience can substantially modify the magnitude of RA, and, in conjunction with other familiarization studies, emphasize a paradox for interpretations of RA based solely upon CNS disruption. The possibility that hypothermia treatment serves as an important contextual or encoding cue necessary for memory retrieval was considered. It was suggested that prior experience may block RA by enabling rats to differentiate training and treatment conditions.

Context modulation of learned attention deployment.

PubMed

Uengoer, Metin; Pearce, John M; Lachnit, Harald; Koenig, Stephan

2018-03-01

In three experiments, we investigated the contextual control of attention in human discrimination learning. In each experiment, participants initially received discrimination training in which the cues from Dimension A were relevant in Context 1 but irrelevant in Context 2, whereas the cues from Dimension B were irrelevant in Context 1 but relevant in Context 2. In Experiment 1, the same cues from each dimension were used in Contexts 1 and 2, whereas in Experiments 2 and 3, the cues from each dimension were changed across contexts. In each experiment, participants were subsequently shifted to a transfer discrimination involving novel cues from either dimension, to assess the contextual control of attention. In Experiment 1, measures of eye gaze during the transfer discrimination revealed that Dimension A received more attention than Dimension B in Context 1, whereas the reverse occurred in Context 2. Corresponding results indicating the contextual control of attention were found in Experiments 2 and 3, in which we used the speed of learning (associability) as an indirect marker of learned attentional changes. Implications of our results for current theories of learning and attention are discussed.

The effect of anticipation and the specificity of sex differences for amygdala and hippocampus function in emotional memory.

PubMed

Mackiewicz, Kristen L; Sarinopoulos, Issidoros; Cleven, Krystal L; Nitschke, Jack B

2006-09-19

Prior research has shown memory is enhanced for emotional events. Key brain areas involved in emotional memory are the amygdala and hippocampus, which are also recruited during aversion and its anticipation. This study investigated whether anticipatory processes signaling an upcoming aversive event contribute to emotional memory. In an event-related functional MRI paradigm, 40 healthy participants viewed aversive and neutral pictures preceded by predictive warning cues. Participants completed a surprise recognition task directly after functional MRI scanning or 2 weeks later. In anticipation of aversive pictures, bilateral dorsal amygdala and anterior hippocampus activations were associated with better immediate recognition memory. Similar associations with memory were observed for activation of those areas in response to aversive pictures. Anticipatory activation predicted immediate memory over and above these associations for picture viewing. Bilateral ventral amygdala activations in response to aversive pictures predicted delayed memory only. We found that previously reported sex differences of memory associations with left amygdala for women and with right amygdala for men were confined to the ventral amygdala during picture viewing and delayed memory. Results support an established animal model elucidating the functional neuroanatomy of the amygdala and hippocampus in emotional memory, highlight the importance of anticipatory processes in such memory for aversive events, and extend neuroanatomical evidence of sex differences for emotional memory.

Stimulus homogeneity enhances implicit learning: evidence from contextual cueing.

PubMed

Feldmann-Wüstefeld, Tobias; Schubö, Anna

2014-04-01

Visual search for a target object is faster if the target is embedded in a repeatedly presented invariant configuration of distractors ('contextual cueing'). It has also been shown that the homogeneity of a context affects the efficiency of visual search: targets receive prioritized processing when presented in a homogeneous context compared to a heterogeneous context, presumably due to grouping processes at early stages of visual processing. The present study investigated in three Experiments whether context homogeneity also affects contextual cueing. In Experiment 1, context homogeneity varied on three levels of the task-relevant dimension (orientation) and contextual cueing was most pronounced for context configurations with high orientation homogeneity. When context homogeneity varied on three levels of the task-irrelevant dimension (color) and orientation homogeneity was fixed, no modulation of contextual cueing was observed: high orientation homogeneity led to large contextual cueing effects (Experiment 2) and low orientation homogeneity led to low contextual cueing effects (Experiment 3), irrespective of color homogeneity. Enhanced contextual cueing for homogeneous context configurations suggest that grouping processes do not only affect visual search but also implicit learning. We conclude that memory representation of context configurations are more easily acquired when context configurations can be processed as larger, grouped perceptual units. However, this form of implicit perceptual learning is only improved by stimulus homogeneity when stimulus homogeneity facilitates grouping processes on a dimension that is currently relevant in the task. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Contextual Cueing Effects across the Lifespan

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Merrill, Edward C.; Conners, Frances A.; Roskos, Beverly; Klinger, Mark R.; Klinger, Laura Grofer

2013-01-01

The authors evaluated age-related variations in contextual cueing, which reflects the extent to which visuospatial regularities can facilitate search for a target. Previous research produced inconsistent results regarding contextual cueing effects in young children and in older adults, and no study has investigated the phenomenon across the life…

Where There is Smoke There is Fear-Impaired Contextual Inhibition of Conditioned Fear in Smokers.

PubMed

Haaker, Jan; Lonsdorf, Tina B; Schümann, Dirk; Bunzeck, Nico; Peters, Jan; Sommer, Tobias; Kalisch, Raffael

2017-07-01

The odds-ratio of smoking is elevated in populations with neuropsychiatric diseases, in particular in the highly prevalent diagnoses of post-traumatic stress and anxiety disorders. Yet, the association between smoking and a key dimensional phenotype of these disorders-maladaptive deficits in fear learning and fear inhibition-is unclear. We therefore investigated acquisition and memory of fear and fear inhibition in healthy smoking and non-smoking participants (N=349, 22% smokers). We employed a well validated paradigm of context-dependent fear and safety learning (day 1) including a memory retrieval on day 2. During fear learning, a geometrical shape was associated with an aversive electrical stimulation (classical fear conditioning, in danger context) and fear responses were extinguished within another context (extinction learning, in safe context). On day 2, the conditioned stimuli were presented again in both contexts, without any aversive stimulation. Autonomic physiological measurements of skin conductance responses as well as subjective evaluations of fear and expectancy of the aversive stimulation were acquired. We found that impairment of fear inhibition (extinction) in the safe context during learning (day 1) was associated with the amount of pack-years in smokers. During retrieval of fear memories (day 2), smokers showed an impairment of contextual (safety context-related) fear inhibition as compared with non-smokers. These effects were found in physiological as well as subjective measures of fear. We provide initial evidence that smokers as compared with non-smokers show an impairment of fear inhibition. We propose that smokers have a deficit in integrating contextual signs of safety, which is a hallmark of post-traumatic stress and anxiety disorders.

Implicit sequence learning and contextual cueing do not compete for central cognitive resources.

PubMed

Jiménez, Luis; Vázquez, Gustavo A

2011-02-01

Sequence learning and contextual cueing explore different forms of implicit learning, arising from practice with a structured serial task, or with a search task with informative contexts. We assess whether these two learning effects arise simultaneously when both remain implicit. Experiments 1 and 2 confirm that a cueing effect can be observed under a continuous setting and that there is no interference between contextual cueing and sequence learning. Experiments 3a and 3b tested whether an interference arises specifically when the sequence becomes explicit. Results show that the expression of contextual cueing disappeared in those conditions but that context information is still acquired, and it affects performance when the sequence is removed. The results are discussed in relation to the current debates about the automaticity of implicit learning, and about the role of attention in the acquisition and expression of contextual cueing. (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Contextual cueing: implicit learning and memory of visual context guides spatial attention.

PubMed

Chun, M M; Jiang, Y

1998-06-01

Global context plays an important, but poorly understood, role in visual tasks. This study demonstrates that a robust memory for visual context exists to guide spatial attention. Global context was operationalized as the spatial layout of objects in visual search displays. Half of the configurations were repeated across blocks throughout the entire session, and targets appeared within consistent locations in these arrays. Targets appearing in learned configurations were detected more quickly. This newly discovered form of search facilitation is termed contextual cueing. Contextual cueing is driven by incidentally learned associations between spatial configurations (context) and target locations. This benefit was obtained despite chance performance for recognizing the configurations, suggesting that the memory for context was implicit. The results show how implicit learning and memory of visual context can guide spatial attention towards task-relevant aspects of a scene.

Emotion-induced loss aversion and striatal-amygdala coupling in low-anxious individuals.

PubMed

Charpentier, Caroline J; De Martino, Benedetto; Sim, Alena L; Sharot, Tali; Roiser, Jonathan P

2016-04-01

Adapting behavior to changes in the environment is a crucial ability for survival but such adaptation varies widely across individuals. Here, we asked how humans alter their economic decision-making in response to emotional cues, and whether this is related to trait anxiety. Developing an emotional decision-making task for functional magnetic resonance imaging, in which gambling decisions were preceded by emotional and non-emotional primes, we assessed emotional influences on loss aversion, the tendency to overweigh potential monetary losses relative to gains. Our behavioral results revealed that only low-anxious individuals exhibited increased loss aversion under emotional conditions. This emotional modulation of decision-making was accompanied by a corresponding emotion-elicited increase in amygdala-striatal functional connectivity, which correlated with the behavioral effect across participants. Consistent with prior reports of 'neural loss aversion', both amygdala and ventral striatum tracked losses more strongly than gains, and amygdala loss aversion signals were exaggerated by emotion, suggesting a potential role for this structure in integrating value and emotion cues. Increased loss aversion and striatal-amygdala coupling induced by emotional cues may reflect the engagement of adaptive harm-avoidance mechanisms in low-anxious individuals, possibly promoting resilience to psychopathology. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press.

An update on contextual fear memory mechanisms: Transition between Amygdala and Hippocampus.

PubMed

Chaaya, Nicholas; Battle, Andrew R; Johnson, Luke R

2018-05-09

Context is an ever-present combination of discrete environmental elements capable of influencing many psychological processes. When context is associated with an aversive stimulus, a permanent contextual fear memory is formed. Context is hypothesized to greatly influence the treatability of various fear-based pathologies, in particular, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In order to understand how contextual fear memories are encoded and impact underlying fear pathology, delineation of the underlying neural circuitry of contextual fear memory consolidation and maintenance is essential. Past understandings of contextual fear suggest that the hippocampus only creates a unitary, or single, representation of context. This representation is sent to the amygdala, which creates the associative contextual fear memory. In contrast, here we review new evidence from the literature showing contextual fear memories to be consolidated and maintained by both amygdala and hippocampus. Based on this evidence, we revise the current model of contextual fear memory consolidation, highlighting a larger role for hippocampus. This new model may better explain the role of the hippocampus in PTSD. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A common profile of prefrontal cortical activation following exposure to nicotine- or chocolate-associated contextual cues.

PubMed

Schroeder, B E; Binzak, J M; Kelley, A E

2001-01-01

Conditioning and learning factors are likely to play key roles in the process of addiction and in relapse to drug use. In nicotine addiction, for example, contextual cues associated with smoking can be powerful determinants of craving and relapse, even after considerable periods of abstinence. Using the detection of the immediate-early gene product, Fos, we examined which regions of the brain are activated by environmental cues associated with nicotine administration, and compared this profile to the pattern induced by cues associated with a natural reward, chocolate. In the first experiment, rats were treated with either nicotine (0.4 mg/ml/kg) or saline once per day for 10 days in a test environment distinct from their home cages. In the second experiment, rats were given access to either a bowl of chocolate chips or an empty bowl in the distinct environment for 10 days. After a 4-day interval, rats were re-introduced to the environment where they previously received either nicotine treatment or chocolate access. Nicotine-associated sensory cues elicited marked and specific activation of Fos expression in prefrontal cortical and limbic regions. Moreover, exposure to cues associated with the natural reward, chocolate, induced a pattern of gene expression that showed many similarities with that elicited by drug cues, particularly in prefrontal regions. These observations support the hypothesis that addictive drugs induce long-term neuroadaptations in brain regions subserving normal learning and memory for motivationally salient stimuli.

The impact of uncertain threat on affective bias: Individual differences in response to ambiguity.

PubMed

Neta, Maital; Cantelon, Julie; Haga, Zachary; Mahoney, Caroline R; Taylor, Holly A; Davis, F Caroline

2017-12-01

Individuals who operate under highly stressful conditions (e.g., military personnel and first responders) are often faced with the challenge of quickly interpreting ambiguous information in uncertain and threatening environments. When faced with ambiguity, it is likely adaptive to view potentially dangerous stimuli as threatening until contextual information proves otherwise. One laboratory-based paradigm that can be used to simulate uncertain threat is known as threat of shock (TOS), in which participants are told that they might receive mild but unpredictable electric shocks while performing an unrelated task. The uncertainty associated with this potential threat induces a state of emotional arousal that is not overwhelmingly stressful, but has widespread-both adaptive and maladaptive-effects on cognitive and affective function. For example, TOS is thought to enhance aversive processing and abolish positivity bias. Importantly, in certain situations (e.g., when walking home alone at night), this anxiety can promote an adaptive state of heightened vigilance and defense mobilization. In the present study, we used TOS to examine the effects of uncertain threat on valence bias, or the tendency to interpret ambiguous social cues as positive or negative. As predicted, we found that heightened emotional arousal elicited by TOS was associated with an increased tendency to interpret ambiguous cues negatively. Such negative interpretations are likely adaptive in situations in which threat detection is critical for survival and should override an individual's tendency to interpret ambiguity positively in safe contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Neural Correlates of Contextual Cueing Are Modulated by Explicit Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Westerberg, Carmen E.; Miller, Brennan B.; Reber, Paul J.; Cohen, Neal J.; Paller, Ken A.

2011-01-01

Contextual cueing refers to the facilitated ability to locate a particular visual element in a scene due to prior exposure to the same scene. This facilitation is thought to reflect implicit learning, as it typically occurs without the observer's knowledge that scenes repeat. Unlike most other implicit learning effects, contextual cueing can be…

Emotion-induced loss aversion and striatal-amygdala coupling in low-anxious individuals

PubMed Central

Charpentier, Caroline J.; Martino, Benedetto De; Sim, Alena L.; Sharot, Tali; Roiser, Jonathan P.

2016-01-01

Adapting behavior to changes in the environment is a crucial ability for survival but such adaptation varies widely across individuals. Here, we asked how humans alter their economic decision-making in response to emotional cues, and whether this is related to trait anxiety. Developing an emotional decision-making task for functional magnetic resonance imaging, in which gambling decisions were preceded by emotional and non-emotional primes, we assessed emotional influences on loss aversion, the tendency to overweigh potential monetary losses relative to gains. Our behavioral results revealed that only low-anxious individuals exhibited increased loss aversion under emotional conditions. This emotional modulation of decision-making was accompanied by a corresponding emotion-elicited increase in amygdala-striatal functional connectivity, which correlated with the behavioral effect across participants. Consistent with prior reports of ‘neural loss aversion’, both amygdala and ventral striatum tracked losses more strongly than gains, and amygdala loss aversion signals were exaggerated by emotion, suggesting a potential role for this structure in integrating value and emotion cues. Increased loss aversion and striatal-amygdala coupling induced by emotional cues may reflect the engagement of adaptive harm-avoidance mechanisms in low-anxious individuals, possibly promoting resilience to psychopathology. PMID:26589451

Effects of whole body (56)Fe radiation on contextual freezing and Arc-positive cells in the dentate gyrus.

PubMed

Raber, Jacob; Allen, Antiño R; Rosi, Susanna; Sharma, Sourabh; Dayger, Catherine; Davis, Matthew J; Fike, John R

2013-06-01

The space radiation environment contains high-energy charged particles such as (56)Fe, which could pose a significant hazard to hippocampal function in astronauts during and after the mission(s). The mechanisms underlying impairments in cognition are not clear but might involve alterations in the percentage of neurons in the dentate gyrus expressing the plasticity-related immediate early gene Arc. Previously, we showed effects of cranial (56)Fe irradiation on hippocampus-dependent contextual freezing and on the percentage of Arc-positive cells in the enclosed, but not free, blade. Because it is unclear whether whole body (56)Fe irradiation causes similar effects on these markers of hippocampal function, in the present study we quantified the effects of whole body (56)Fe irradiation (600MeV, 0.5 or 1Gy) on hippocampus-dependent and hippocampus-independent cognitive performance and determined whether these effects were associated with changes in Arc expression in the enclosed and free blades of the dentate gyrus. Whole body (56)Fe irradiation impacted contextual but not cued fear freezing and the percentage of Arc-positive cells in the enclosed and free blades. In mice tested for contextual freezing, there was a correlation between Arc-positive cells in the enclosed and free blades. In addition, in mice irradiated with 0.5Gy, contextual freezing in the absence of aversive stimuli correlated with the percentage of Arc-positive cells in the enclosed blade. In mice tested for cued freezing, there was no correlation between Arc-positive cells in the enclosed and free blades. In contrast, cued freezing in the presence or absence of aversive stimuli correlated with Arc-positive cells in the free blade. In addition, in mice irradiated with 1Gy cued freezing in the absence of aversive stimuli correlated with the percentage of Arc-positive neurons in the free blade. These data indicate that while whole body (56)Fe radiation affects contextual freezing and Arc-positive cells in the dentate gyrus, the enclosed blade might be more important for contextual freezing while the free blade might be more important for cued freezing. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cue-induced reinstatement of cocaine seeking in the rat "conflict model": effect of prolonged home-cage confinement.

PubMed

Barnea-Ygael, Noam; Yadid, Gal; Yaka, Rami; Ben-Shahar, Osnat; Zangen, Abraham

2012-02-01

Drug addiction is not just the repeated administration of drugs, but compulsive drug use maintained despite the accumulation of adverse consequences for the user. In an attempt to introduce adverse consequences of drug seeking to laboratory animals, we have developed the "conflict model," in which the access of rats to a reinforcing lever allowing self-administration requires passing of an electrified grid floor. In this model, the current intensity leading to complete abstinence from drug seeking can be measured individually. The present study was designed to evaluated whether reinstatement of drug or natural reward seeking, despite the presence of the electrical barrier, can be achieved by presentation of discrete cues that were associated with the reward, and whether prolonged home-cage confinement can facilitate such reinstatement in this model. The "conflict model" was used to test cue-induced reinstatement in the presence of the electrical barrier, after 1 or 14 days of home-cage confinement, in groups of rats that were previously trained to self-administer cocaine or sucrose. Although similar shock intensity was required to suppress sucrose or cocaine self-administration, subjects exhibited significantly lower response to sucrose-associated as compared to cocaine-associated cues, during the reinstatement test. Importantly, cue-induced reinstatement of cocaine seeking was attenuated following 14 days of home-cage confinement. The incorporation of aversive consequence in the self-administration model enable detection of what can be interpreted as a compulsive component unique to drug reinforcers. Moreover, the effect of the aversive consequence seems to increase following home-cage confinement.

The impact of distracter-target similarity on contextual cueing effects of children and adults.

PubMed

Yang, Yingying; Merrill, Edward C

2014-05-01

Contextual cueing reflects a memory-based attentional guidance process that develops through repeated exposure to displays in which a target location has been consistently paired with a specific context. In two experiments, we compared 20 younger children's (6-7 years old), 20 older children's (9-10 years old), and 20 young adults' (18-21 years old) abilities to acquire contextual cueing effects from displays in which half of the distracters predicted the location of the target and half did not. Across experiments, we varied the similarity between the predictive and nonpredictive distracters and the target. In Experiment 1, the predictive distracters were visually similar to the target and dissimilar from the nonpredictive distracters. In Experiment 2, the nonpredictive distracters were also similar to the target and predictive distracters. All three age groups exhibited contextual cueing in Experiment 1, although the effect was not as strong for the younger children relative to older children and adults. All participants exhibited weaker contextual cueing effects in Experiment 2, with the younger children not exhibiting significant contextual cueing at all. Apparently, when search processes could not be guided to the predictive distracters on the basis of salient stimulus features, younger children in particular experienced difficulty in implicitly identifying and using aspects of the context to facilitate with the acquisition of contextual cueing effects. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Beyond scene gist: Objects guide search more than scene background.

PubMed

Koehler, Kathryn; Eckstein, Miguel P

2017-06-01

Although the facilitation of visual search by contextual information is well established, there is little understanding of the independent contributions of different types of contextual cues in scenes. Here we manipulated 3 types of contextual information: object co-occurrence, multiple object configurations, and background category. We isolated the benefits of each contextual cue to target detectability, its impact on decision bias, confidence, and the guidance of eye movements. We find that object-based information guides eye movements and facilitates perceptual judgments more than scene background. The degree of guidance and facilitation of each contextual cue can be related to its inherent informativeness about the target spatial location as measured by human explicit judgments about likely target locations. Our results improve the understanding of the contributions of distinct contextual scene components to search and suggest that the brain's utilization of cues to guide eye movements is linked to the cue's informativeness about the target's location. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Anticipatory activation in the amygdala and anterior cingulate in generalized anxiety disorder and prediction of treatment response.

PubMed

Nitschke, Jack B; Sarinopoulos, Issidoros; Oathes, Desmond J; Johnstone, Tom; Whalen, Paul J; Davidson, Richard J; Kalin, Ned H

2009-03-01

The anticipation of adverse outcomes, or worry, is a cardinal symptom of generalized anxiety disorder. Prior work with healthy subjects has shown that anticipating aversive events recruits a network of brain regions, including the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex. This study tested whether patients with generalized anxiety disorder have alterations in anticipatory amygdala function and whether anticipatory activity in the anterior cingulate cortex predicts treatment response. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed with 14 generalized anxiety disorder patients and 12 healthy comparison subjects matched for age, sex, and education. The event-related fMRI paradigm was composed of one warning cue that preceded aversive pictures and a second cue that preceded neutral pictures. Following the fMRI session, patients received 8 weeks of treatment with extended-release venlafaxine. Patients with generalized anxiety disorder showed greater anticipatory activity than healthy comparison subjects in the bilateral dorsal amygdala preceding both aversive and neutral pictures. Building on prior reports of pretreatment anterior cingulate cortex activity predicting treatment response, anticipatory activity in that area was associated with clinical outcome 8 weeks later following treatment with venlafaxine. Higher levels of pretreatment anterior cingulate cortex activity in anticipation of both aversive and neutral pictures were associated with greater reductions in anxiety and worry symptoms. These findings of heightened and indiscriminate amygdala responses to anticipatory signals in generalized anxiety disorder and of anterior cingulate cortex associations with treatment response provide neurobiological support for the role of anticipatory processes in the pathophysiology of generalized anxiety disorder.

Anticipatory Activation in the Amygdala and Anterior Cingulate in Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Prediction of Treatment Response

PubMed Central

Nitschke, Jack B.; Sarinopoulos, Issidoros; Oathes, Desmond J.; Johnstone, Tom; Whalen, Paul J.; Davidson, Richard J.; Kalin, Ned H.

2009-01-01

Objective The anticipation of adverse outcomes, or worry, is a cardinal symptom of generalized anxiety disorder. Prior work with healthy subjects has shown that anticipating aversive events recruits a network of brain regions, including the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex. This study tested whether patients with generalized anxiety disorder have alterations in anticipatory amygdala function and whether anticipatory activity in the anterior cingulate cortex predicts treatment response. Method Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed with 14 generalized anxiety disorder patients and 12 healthy comparison subjects matched for age, sex, and education. The event-related fMRI paradigm was composed of one warning cue that preceded aversive pictures and a second cue that preceded neutral pictures. Following the fMRI session, patients received 8 weeks of treatment with extended-release venlafaxine. Results Patients with generalized anxiety disorder showed greater anticipatory activity than healthy comparison subjects in the bilateral dorsal amygdala preceding both aversive and neutral pictures. Building on prior reports of pretreatment anterior cingulate cortex activity predicting treatment response, anticipatory activity in that area was associated with clinical outcome 8 weeks later following treatment with venlafaxine. Higher levels of pretreatment anterior cingulate cortex activity in anticipation of both aversive and neutral pictures were associated with greater reductions in anxiety and worry symptoms. Conclusions These findings of heightened and indiscriminate amygdala responses to anticipatory signals in generalized anxiety disorder and of anterior cingulate cortex associations with treatment response provide neurobiological support for the role of anticipatory processes in the pathophysiology of generalized anxiety disorder. PMID:19122007

Optogenetic Activation of Presynaptic Inputs in Lateral Amygdala Forms Associative Fear Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kwon, Jeong-Tae; Nakajima, Ryuichi; Hyung-Su, Kim; Jeong, Yire; Augustine, George J.; Han, Jin-Hee

2014-01-01

In Pavlovian fear conditioning, the lateral amygdala (LA) has been highlighted as a key brain site for association between sensory cues and aversive stimuli. However, learning-related changes are also found in upstream sensory regions such as thalamus and cortex. To isolate the essential neural circuit components for fear memory association, we…

Transfer of contextual cueing in full-icon display remapping.

PubMed

Shi, Zhuanghua; Zang, Xuelian; Jia, Lina; Geyer, Thomas; Müller, Hermann J

2013-02-25

Invariant spatial context can expedite visual search, an effect that is known as contextual cueing (e.g., Chun & Jiang, 1998). However, disrupting learned display configurations abolishes the effect. In current touch-based mobile devices, such as the iPad, icons are shuffled and remapped when the display mode is changed. However, such remapping also disrupts the spatial relationships between icons. This may hamper usability. In the present study, we examined the transfer of contextual cueing in four different methods of display remapping: position-order invariant, global rotation, local invariant, and central invariant. We used full-icon landscape mode for training and both landscape and portrait modes for testing, to check whether the cueing transfers to portrait mode. The results showed transfer of contextual cueing but only with the local invariant and the central invariant remapping methods. We take the results to mean that the predictability of target locations is a crucial factor for the transfer of contextual cueing and thus icon remapping design for mobile devices.

Flexible attention deployment in threatening contexts: an instructed fear conditioning study.

PubMed

Shechner, Tomer; Pelc, Tatiana; Pine, Daniel S; Fox, Nathan A; Bar-Haim, Yair

2012-10-01

Factors leading humans to shift attention away from danger cues remain poorly understood. Two laboratory experiments reported here show that context interacts with learning experiences to shape attention avoidance of mild danger cues. The first experiment exposed 18 participants to contextual threat of electric shock. Attention allocation to mild danger cues was then assessed with the dot-probe task. Results showed that contextual threat caused subjects to avert attention from danger cues. In the second experiment, 36 participants were conditioned to the same contextual threat used in Experiment 1. These subjects then were randomly assigned to either an experimental group, trained to shift attention toward danger cues, or a placebo group exposed to the same stimuli without the training component. As in Experiment 1, contextual threat again caused attention allocation away from danger in the control group. However, this did not occur in the experimental group. These experiments show that acute contextual threat and learning experiences interact to shape the deployment of attention away from danger cues.

Context-specific attentional sampling: Intentional control as a pre-requisite for contextual control.

PubMed

Brosowsky, Nicholaus P; Crump, Matthew J C

2016-08-01

Recent work suggests that environmental cues associated with previous attentional control settings can rapidly and involuntarily adjust attentional priorities. The current study tests predictions from adaptive-learning and memory-based theories of contextual control about the role of intentions for setting attentional priorities. To extend the empirical boundaries of contextual control phenomena, and to determine whether theoretical principles of contextual control are generalizable we used a novel bi-dimensional stimulus sampling task. Subjects viewed briefly presented arrays of letters and colors presented above or below fixation, and identified specific stimuli according to a dimensional (letter or color) and positional cue. Location was predictive of the cued dimension, but not the position or identity. In contrast to previous findings, contextual control failed to develop through automatic, adaptive-learning processes. Instead, previous experience with intentionally changing attentional sampling priorities between different contexts was required for contextual control to develop. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Activation of alpha2 adrenergic receptors suppresses fear conditioning: expression of c-Fos and phosphorylated CREB in mouse amygdala.

PubMed

Davies, M Frances; Tsui, Janet; Flannery, Judy A; Li, Xiangqi; DeLorey, Timothy M; Hoffman, Brian B

2004-02-01

alpha(2) adrenergic agonists such as dexmedetomidine generally suppress noradrenergic transmission and have sedative, analgesic, and antihypertensive properties. Considering the importance of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine in forming memories for fearful events, we have investigated the acute and chronic effects of dexmedetomidine on discrete cue and contextual fear conditioning in mice. When administered before training, dexmedetomidine (10-20 microg/kg, i.p.) selectively suppressed discrete cue fear conditioning without affecting contextual memory. This behavioral change was associated with a decrease in memory retrieval-induced expression of c-Fos and P-CREB in the lateral, basolateral, and central nuclei of the amygdala. Dexmedetomidine's action on discrete cue memory did not occur in alpha(2A) adrenoceptor knockout (KO) mice. When dexmedetomidine was administered after training, it suppressed contextual memory, an effect that did not occur in alpha(2A) adrenoceptor KO mice. We conclude that dexmedetomidine, acting at alpha(2A) adrenoceptors, must be present during the encoding process to decrease discrete cue fear memory; however, its ability to suppress contextual memory is likely the result of blocking the consolidation process. The ability of alpha(2) agonists to suppress fear memory may be a valuable property clinically in order to suppress the formation of memories during stressful situations.

Aversive workplace conditions and absenteeism: taking referent group norms and supervisor support into account.

PubMed

Biron, Michal; Bamberger, Peter

2012-07-01

Past research reveals inconsistent findings regarding the association between aversive workplace conditions and absenteeism, suggesting that other, contextual factors may play a role in this association. Extending contemporary models of absence, we draw from the social identity theory of attitude-behavior relations to examine how peer absence-related norms and leader support combine to explain the effect of aversive workplace conditions on absenteeism. Using a prospective design and a random sample of transit workers, we obtained results indicating that perceived job hazards and exposure to critical incidents are positively related to subsequent absenteeism, but only under conditions of more permissive peer absence norms. Moreover, this positive impact of peer norms on absenteeism is amplified among employees perceiving their supervisor to be less supportive and is attenuated to the point of nonsignificance among those viewing their supervisor as more supportive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

Intra-accumbal blockade of endocannabinoid CB1 receptors impairs learning but not retention of conditioned relief.

PubMed

Bergado Acosta, Jorge R; Schneider, Miriam; Fendt, Markus

2017-10-01

Humans and animals are able to associate an environmental cue with the feeling of relief from an aversive event, a phenomenon called relief learning. Relief from an aversive event is rewarding and a relief-associated cue later induces an attenuation of the startle magnitude or approach behavior. Previous studies demonstrated that the nucleus accumbens is essential for relief learning. Here, we asked whether accumbal cannabinoid type 1 (CB1) receptors are involved in relief learning. In rats, we injected the CB1 receptor antagonist/inverse agonist SR141716A (rimonabant) directly into the nucleus accumbens at different time points during a relief learning experiment. SR141716A injections immediately before the conditioning inhibited relief learning. However, SR141716A injected immediately before the retention test was not effective when conditioning was without treatment. These findings indicate that accumbal CB1 receptors play an important role in the plasticity processes underlying relief learning. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A cocaine context renews drug seeking preferentially in a subset of individuals.

PubMed

Saunders, Benjamin T; O'Donnell, Elizabeth G; Aurbach, Elyse L; Robinson, Terry E

2014-11-01

Addiction is characterized by a high propensity for relapse, in part because cues associated with drugs can acquire Pavlovian incentive motivational properties, and acting as incentive stimuli, such cues can instigate and invigorate drug-seeking behavior. There is, however, considerable individual variation in the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. Discrete and localizable reward cues act as much more effective incentive stimuli in some rats ('sign-trackers', STs), than others ('goal-trackers', GTs). We asked whether similar individual variation exists for contextual cues associated with cocaine. Cocaine context conditioned motivation was quantified in two ways: (1) the ability of a cocaine context to evoke conditioned hyperactivity and (2) the ability of a context in which cocaine was previously self-administered to renew cocaine-seeking behavior. Finally, we assessed the effects of intra-accumbens core flupenthixol, a nonselective dopamine receptor antagonist, on context renewal. In contrast to studies using discrete cues, a cocaine context spurred greater conditioned hyperactivity, and more robustly renewed extinguished cocaine seeking in GTs than STs. In addition, cocaine context renewal was blocked by antagonism of dopamine receptors in the accumbens core. Thus, contextual cues associated with cocaine preferentially acquire motivational control over behavior in different individuals than do discrete cues, and in these individuals the ability of a cocaine context to create conditioned motivation for cocaine requires dopamine in the core of the nucleus accumbens. We speculate that different individuals may be preferentially sensitive to different 'triggers' of relapse.

The use of contextual cues to improve warning symbol comprehension: making the connection for older adults.

PubMed

Lesch, Mary F; Powell, W Ryan; Horrey, William J; Wogalter, Michael S

2013-01-01

This study teased apart the effects of comprehensibility and complexity on older adults' comprehension of warning symbols by manipulating the relevance of additional information in further refining the meaning of the symbol. Symbols were systematically altered such that increased visual complexity (in the form of contextual cues) resulted in increased comprehensibility. One hundred older adults, aged 50-71 years, were tested on their comprehension of these symbols before and after training. High comprehensibility-complexity symbols were found to be better understood than low- or medium-comprehensibility-complexity symbols and the effectiveness of the contextual cues varied as a function of training. Therefore, the nature of additional detail determines whether increased complexity is detrimental or beneficial to older adults' comprehension - if the additional details provide 'cues to knowledge', older adults' comprehension improves as a result of the increased complexity. However, some cues may require training in order to be effective. Research suggests that older adults have greater difficulty in understanding more complex symbols. However, we found that when the complexity of symbols was increased through the addition of contextual cues, older adults' comprehension actually improved. Contextual cues aid older adults in making the connection between the symbol and its referent.

Dual-state modulation of the contextual cueing effect: Evidence from eye movement recordings.

PubMed

Zhao, Guang; Liu, Qiang; Jiao, Jun; Zhou, Peiling; Li, Hong; Sun, Hong-jin

2012-06-08

The repeated configurations of random elements induce a better search performance than that of the displays of novel random configurations. The mechanism of such contextual cueing effect has been investigated through the use of the RT × Set Size function. There are divergent views on whether the contextual cueing effect is driven by attentional guidance or facilitation of initial perceptual processing or response selection. To explore this question, we used eye movement recording in this study, which offers information about the substages of the search task. The results suggest that the contextual cueing effect is contributed mainly by attentional guidance, and facilitation of response selection also plays a role.

Empathy and contextual social cognition.

PubMed

Melloni, Margherita; Lopez, Vladimir; Ibanez, Agustin

2014-03-01

Empathy is a highly flexible and adaptive process that allows for the interplay of prosocial behavior in many different social contexts. Empathy appears to be a very situated cognitive process, embedded with specific contextual cues that trigger different automatic and controlled responses. In this review, we summarize relevant evidence regarding social context modulation of empathy for pain. Several contextual factors, such as stimulus reality and personal experience, affectively link with other factors, emotional cues, threat information, group membership, and attitudes toward others to influence the affective, sensorimotor, and cognitive processing of empathy. Thus, we propose that the frontoinsular-temporal network, the so-called social context network model (SCNM), is recruited during the contextual processing of empathy. This network would (1) update the contextual cues and use them to construct fast predictions (frontal regions), (2) coordinate the internal (body) and external milieus (insula), and (3) consolidate the context-target associative learning of empathic processes (temporal sites). Furthermore, we propose these context-dependent effects of empathy in the framework of the frontoinsular-temporal network and examine the behavioral and neural evidence of three neuropsychiatric conditions (Asperger syndrome, schizophrenia, and the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia), which simultaneously present with empathy and contextual integration impairments. We suggest potential advantages of a situated approach to empathy in the assessment of these neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as their relationship with the SCNM.

Reward modulation of contextual cueing: Repeated context overshadows repeated target location.

PubMed

Sharifian, Fariba; Contier, Oliver; Preuschhof, Claudia; Pollmann, Stefan

2017-10-01

Contextual cueing can be enhanced by reward. However, there is a debate if reward is associated with the repeated target-distractor configurations or with the repeated target locations that occur in both repeated and new displays. Based on neuroimaging evidence, we hypothesized that reward becomes associated with the target location only in new displays, but not in repeated displays, where the repeated target location is overshadowed by the more salient repeated target-distractor configuration. To test this hypothesis, we varied the reward value associated with the same target location in repeated and new displays. The results confirmed the overshadowing hypothesis in that search facilitation in repeated target-distractor configurations was modulated by the variable value associated with the target location. This effect was observed mainly in early learning.

Anticipation of high arousal aversive and positive movie clips engages common and distinct neural substrates

PubMed Central

Carlson, Joshua M.; Rubin, Denis; Cha, Jiook; Mujica-Parodi, Lilianne

2015-01-01

The neural correlates of anxious anticipation have been primarily studied with aversive and neutral stimuli. In this study, we examined the effect of valence on anticipation by using high arousal aversive and positive stimuli and a condition of uncertainty (i.e. either positive or aversive). The task consisted of predetermined cues warning participants of upcoming aversive, positive, ‘uncertain’ (either aversive or positive) and neutral movie clips. Anticipation of all affective clips engaged common regions including the anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, thalamus, caudate, inferior parietal and prefrontal cortex that are associated with emotional experience, sustained attention and appraisal. In contrast, the nucleus accumbens and medial prefrontal cortex, regions implicated in reward processing, were selectively engaged during anticipation of positive clips (depicting sexually explicit content) and the mid-insula, which has been linked to processing aversive stimuli, was selectively engaged during anticipation of aversive clips (depicting graphic medical procedures); these three areas were also activated during anticipation of ‘uncertain’ clips reflecting a broad preparatory response for both aversive and positive stimuli. These results suggest that a common circuitry is recruited in anticipation of affective clips regardless of valence, with additional areas preferentially engaged depending on whether expected stimuli are negative or positive. PMID:24984958

Contextual Cueing Effects Across the Lifespan

PubMed Central

MERRILL, EDWARD C.; CONNERS, FRANCES A.; ROSKOS, BEVERLY; KLINGER, MARK R.; KLINGER, LAURA GROFER

2018-01-01

The authors evaluated age-related variations in contextual cueing, which reflects the extent to which visuospatial regularities can facilitate search for a target. Previous research produced inconsistent results regarding contextual cueing effects in young children and in older adults, and no study has investigated the phenomenon across the life span. Three groups (6, 20, and 70 years old) were compared. Participants located a designated target stimulus embedded in a context of distractor stimuli. During exposure, the location of the target could be predicted from the location of the distracters in each display. During test, these predictable displays were intermixed with new displays that did not predict the target location. Response times to locating predictable relative to unpredictable targets were compared. All groups exhibited facilitation effects greater than 0 (95% CIs [.02, .11], d = .4; [.01, .12], d = .4; and [.01, .10], d = .4, for the children, young adults, and older adults, respectively) indicating that contextual cueing is robust across a wide age range. The relative magnitude of contextual cueing effects was essentially identical across the age range tested, F(2, 103) = 1.71,ηρ2 = .02. The authors argue that a mechanism that uses environmental covariation is available to all age ranges, but the expression of the contextual cueing may depend on the way it is measured. PMID:23991612

Frozen with fear: Conditioned suppression in a virtual reality model of human anxiety.

PubMed

Allcoat, Devon; Greville, W James; Newton, Philip M; Dymond, Simon

2015-09-01

Freezing-like topographies of behavior are elicited in conditioned suppression tasks whereby appetitive behavior is reduced by presentations of an aversively conditioned threat cue relative to a safety cue. Conditioned suppression of operant behavior by a Pavlovian threat cue is an established laboratory model of quantifying the response impairment seen in anxiety disorders. Little is known however about how different response topographies indicative of conditioned suppression are elicited in humans. Here, we refined a novel virtual reality (VR) paradigm in which presentations of a threat cue of unpredictable duration occurred while participants performed an operant response of shooting and destroying boxes searching for hidden gold. The VR paradigm detected significant suppression of response topographies (shots, hits and breaks) for a Pavlovian threat cue relative to a safety cue and novel cue presentations. Implications of the present findings for translational research on appetitive and aversive conflict in anxiety disorders are discussed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Perceiving speech in context: Compensation for contextual variability during acoustic cue encoding and categorization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Toscano, Joseph Christopher

Several fundamental questions about speech perception concern how listeners understand spoken language despite considerable variability in speech sounds across different contexts (the problem of lack of invariance in speech). This contextual variability is caused by several factors, including differences between individual talkers' voices, variation in speaking rate, and effects of coarticulatory context. A number of models have been proposed to describe how the speech system handles differences across contexts. Critically, these models make different predictions about (1) whether contextual variability is handled at the level of acoustic cue encoding or categorization, (2) whether it is driven by feedback from category-level processes or interactions between cues, and (3) whether listeners discard fine-grained acoustic information to compensate for contextual variability. Separating the effects of cue- and category-level processing has been difficult because behavioral measures tap processes that occur well after initial cue encoding and are influenced by task demands and linguistic information. Recently, we have used the event-related brain potential (ERP) technique to examine cue encoding and online categorization. Specifically, we have looked at differences in the auditory N1 as a measure of acoustic cue encoding and the P3 as a measure of categorization. This allows us to examine multiple levels of processing during speech perception and can provide a useful tool for studying effects of contextual variability. Here, I apply this approach to determine the point in processing at which context has an effect on speech perception and to examine whether acoustic cues are encoded continuously. Several types of contextual variability (talker gender, speaking rate, and coarticulation), as well as several acoustic cues (voice onset time, formant frequencies, and bandwidths), are examined in a series of experiments. The results suggest that (1) at early stages of speech processing, listeners encode continuous differences in acoustic cues, independent of phonological categories; (2) at post-perceptual stages, fine-grained acoustic information is preserved; and (3) there is preliminary evidence that listeners encode cues relative to context via feedback from categories. These results are discussed in relation to proposed models of speech perception and sources of contextual variability.

The use of contextual cues to improve warning symbol comprehension: making the connection for older adults

PubMed Central

Lesch, Mary F.; Powell, W. Ryan; Horrey, William J.; Wogalter, Michael S.

2013-01-01

This study teased apart the effects of comprehensibility and complexity on older adults' comprehension of warning symbols by manipulating the relevance of additional information in further refining the meaning of the symbol. Symbols were systematically altered such that increased visual complexity (in the form of contextual cues) resulted in increased comprehensibility. One hundred older adults, aged 50–71 years, were tested on their comprehension of these symbols before and after training. High comprehensibility–complexity symbols were found to be better understood than low- or medium-comprehensibility–complexity symbols and the effectiveness of the contextual cues varied as a function of training. Therefore, the nature of additional detail determines whether increased complexity is detrimental or beneficial to older adults' comprehension – if the additional details provide ‘cues to knowledge’, older adults' comprehension improves as a result of the increased complexity. However, some cues may require training in order to be effective. Practitioner Summary: Research suggests that older adults have greater difficulty in understanding more complex symbols. However, we found that when the complexity of symbols was increased through the addition of contextual cues, older adults' comprehension actually improved. Contextual cues aid older adults in making the connection between the symbol and its referent. PMID:23767856

Use of context in emotion perception: The role of top-down control, cue type, and perceiver's age.

PubMed

Ngo, Nhi; Isaacowitz, Derek M

2015-06-01

Although context is crucial to emotion perception, there are various factors that can modulate contextual influence. The current research investigated how cue type, top-down control, and the perceiver's age influence attention to context in facial emotion perception. In 2 experiments, younger and older adults identified facial expressions contextualized by other faces, isolated objects, and scenes. In the first experiment, participants were instructed to ignore face, object, and scene contexts. Face context was found to influence perception the least, whereas scene context produced the most contextual effect. Older adults were more influenced by context than younger adults, but both age groups were similarly influenced by different types of contextual cues, even when they were instructed to ignore the context. In the second experiment, when explicitly instructed that the context had no meaningful relationship to the target, younger and older adults both were less influenced by context than when they were instructed that the context was relevant to the target. Results from both studies indicate that contextual influence on emotion perception is not constant, but can vary based on the type of contextual cue, cue relevance, and the perceiver's age. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Role of dorsal hippocampus κ opioid receptors in contextual aversive memory consolidation in rats.

PubMed

Vanz, Felipe; Bicca, Maíra Assunção; Linartevichi, Vagner Fagnani; Giachero, Marcelo; Bertoglio, Leandro José; Monteiro de Lima, Thereza C

2018-06-01

The main κ opioid receptors (κORs) subtypes already described (κ 1 ORs and κ 2 ORs) are expressed in brain regions involved in aversive memory consolidation, including the dorsal hippocampus (DH). However, the role of DH κORs in consolidation of aversive memories with varied intensity and specificity is still uncertain. The present study aimed to investigate this question using pharmacological agents in rats subjected to a weak, moderate or strong contextual aversive conditioning (CAC) protocol. Antagonizing DH κORs with nor-binaltorphimine (nor-BNI), immediately after, but not 6 h later, a moderate CAC leads to intensified freezing behavior in the re-exposure to the paired context. Thus, indicating that DH κORs have an inhibitory role in the consolidation of an aversive memory. Increased DH κORs expression 1 h and 3 h after the moderate CAC was also observed. This up-regulation was absent in animals only exposed to the shock or to the context, indicating that this phenomenon requires a shock-context pairing to occur. Intra-DH nor-BNI infusion induced no changes following a weak CAC, but it was able to potentiate the expression of freezing behavior in novel and unpaired context after a strong CAC, indicating that DH κORs also modulate the consolidation of a more intense and generalized memory. Moreover, infusing the κ 2 ORs agonist GR 89696, but not the κ 1 ORs agonist U-69593, into the DH reduced the conditioned freezing expression. Nor-BNI pretreatment in a sub-effective dose prevented the κ 2 ORs agonist effects. Altogether, the present findings provide convergent evidence that κORs activation negatively modulates contextual aversive memory consolidation in rat dorsal hippocampus. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

On the role of working memory in spatial contextual cueing.

PubMed

Travis, Susan L; Mattingley, Jason B; Dux, Paul E

2013-01-01

The human visual system receives more information than can be consciously processed. To overcome this capacity limit, we employ attentional mechanisms to prioritize task-relevant (target) information over less relevant (distractor) information. Regularities in the environment can facilitate the allocation of attention, as demonstrated by the spatial contextual cueing paradigm. When observers are exposed repeatedly to a scene and invariant distractor information, learning from earlier exposures enhances the search for the target. Here, we investigated whether spatial contextual cueing draws on spatial working memory resources and, if so, at what level of processing working memory load has its effect. Participants performed 2 tasks concurrently: a visual search task, in which the spatial configuration of some search arrays occasionally repeated, and a spatial working memory task. Increases in working memory load significantly impaired contextual learning. These findings indicate that spatial contextual cueing utilizes working memory resources.

Pavlovian-conditioned alcohol-seeking behavior in rats is invigorated by the interaction between discrete and contextual alcohol cues: implications for relapse

PubMed Central

Remedios, Jessica; Woods, Catherine; Tardif, Catherine; Janak, Patricia H; Chaudhri, Nadia

2014-01-01

Introduction Drug craving can be independently stimulated by cues that are directly associated with drug intake (discrete drug cues), as well as by environmental contexts in which drug use occurs (contextual drug cues). We tested the hypothesis that the context in which a discrete alcohol-predictive cue is experienced can influence how robustly that cue stimulates alcohol-seeking behavior. Methods Male, Long-Evans rats received Pavlovian discrimination training (PDT) sessions in which one conditioned stimulus (CS+; 16 trials/session) was paired with ethanol (0.2 mL/CS+) and a second stimulus (CS−; 16 trials/session) was not. PDT occurred in a specific context, and entries into a fluid port where ethanol was delivered were measured during each CS. Next, rats were acclimated to an alternate (nonalcohol) context where cues and ethanol were withheld. Responses to the nonextinguished CS+ and CS− were then tested without ethanol in the alcohol-associated PDT context, the nonalcohol context or a third, novel context. Results Across PDT the CS+ elicited more port entries than the CS−, indicative of Pavlovian discrimination learning. At test, the CS+ elicited more port entries than the CS− in all three contexts: however, alcohol seeking driven by the CS+ was more robust in the alcohol-associated context. In a separate experiment, extinguishing the context-alcohol association did not influence subsequent CS+ responding but reduced alcohol seeking during non-CS+ intervals during a spontaneous recovery test. Conclusion These results indicate that alcohol-seeking behavior driven by a discrete Pavlovian alcohol cue is strongly invigorated by an alcohol context, and suggest that contexts may function as excitatory Pavlovian conditioned stimuli that directly trigger alcohol-seeking behavior. PMID:24683519

Learning to selectively attend from context-specific attentional histories: A demonstration and some constraints.

PubMed

Crump, Matthew J C

2016-03-01

Multiple lines of evidence from the attention and performance literature show that attention filtering can be controlled by higher level voluntary processes and lower-level cue-driven processes (for recent reviews see Bugg, 2012; Bugg & Crump, 2012; Egner, 2008). The experiments were designed to test a general hypothesis that cue-driven control learns from context-specific histories of prior acts of selective attention. Several web-based flanker studies were conducted via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Attention filtering demands were induced by a secondary one-back memory task after each trial prompting recall of the last target or distractor letter. Blocking recall demands produced larger flanker effects for the distractor than target recall conditions. Mixing recall demands and associating them with particular stimulus-cues (location, colour, letter, and font) sometimes showed rapid, contextual control of flanker interference, and sometimes did not. The results show that subtle methodological parameters can influence whether or not contextual control is observed. More generally, the results show that contextual control phenomena can be influenced by other sources of control, including other cue-driven sources competing for control. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

An Exploratory Study of the Impact of Contextual Cues of Violence in an Active Videogame.

PubMed

Peng, Wei; Pfeiffer, Karin; Winn, Brian

2014-04-01

With the expanded genres of active videogames, one inevitably raises the question of whether it is worthwhile to use active videogames to promote physical activity if games involve violent themes. The purpose of the current study was to explore the effects of contextual cues of violence in an active videogame on (1) state hostility, (2) perceived arousal, (3) game enjoyment, (4) perceived effort in the game, and (5) activity intensity in the game. A one-factor between-subjects experiment with three conditions (minimal, moderate, and extreme contextual cues of violence) of playing an in-house-developed active videogame was conducted. Activity intensity was objectively measured using the ActiGraph (Pensacola, FL) model GT3X accelerometer. Psychological outcomes were measured using established scales. We did not find that the level of contextual cues of violence had any effect on the outcome variables, although the moderate level of contextual cues of violence resulted in a greater amount of feeling mean (P=0.011) and unsociable (P=0.038) among the players immediately after gameplay than players in the minimal contextual cues of violence condition. We did not find any statistically significant difference among the three conditions in terms of enjoyment, perceived arousal, or activity intensity. This study empirically examined the effects of contextual cues of violence in active videogames on player hostility, arousal, and enjoyment after gameplay as well as their physical activity intensity during gameplay. These findings provide some initial evidence to guide active videogame designers and researchers on how to design the games to be more engaging and thus elicit more activities among the players.

Investigating implicit statistical learning mechanisms through contextual cueing.

PubMed

Goujon, Annabelle; Didierjean, André; Thorpe, Simon

2015-09-01

Since its inception, the contextual cueing (CC) paradigm has generated considerable interest in various fields of cognitive sciences because it constitutes an elegant approach to understanding how statistical learning (SL) mechanisms can detect contextual regularities during a visual search. In this article we review and discuss five aspects of CC: (i) the implicit nature of learning, (ii) the mechanisms involved in CC, (iii) the mediating factors affecting CC, (iv) the generalization of CC phenomena, and (v) the dissociation between implicit and explicit CC phenomena. The findings suggest that implicit SL is an inherent component of ongoing processing which operates through clustering, associative, and reinforcement processes at various levels of sensory-motor processing, and might result from simple spike-timing-dependent plasticity. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Central and peripheral vision loss differentially affects contextual cueing in visual search.

PubMed

Geringswald, Franziska; Pollmann, Stefan

2015-09-01

Visual search for targets in repeated displays is more efficient than search for the same targets in random distractor layouts. Previous work has shown that this contextual cueing is severely impaired under central vision loss. Here, we investigated whether central vision loss, simulated with gaze-contingent displays, prevents the incidental learning of contextual cues or the expression of learning, that is, the guidance of search by learned target-distractor configurations. Visual search with a central scotoma reduced contextual cueing both with respect to search times and gaze parameters. However, when the scotoma was subsequently removed, contextual cueing was observed in a comparable magnitude as for controls who had searched without scotoma simulation throughout the experiment. This indicated that search with a central scotoma did not prevent incidental context learning, but interfered with search guidance by learned contexts. We discuss the role of visuospatial working memory load as source of this interference. In contrast to central vision loss, peripheral vision loss was expected to prevent spatial configuration learning itself, because the restricted search window did not allow the integration of invariant local configurations with the global display layout. This expectation was confirmed in that visual search with a simulated peripheral scotoma eliminated contextual cueing not only in the initial learning phase with scotoma, but also in the subsequent test phase without scotoma. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

L-type Ca2+ channel blockade with antihypertensive medication disrupts VTA synaptic plasticity and drug-associated contextual memory

PubMed Central

Degoulet, Mickael; Stelly, Claire E.; Ahn, Kee-Chan; Morikawa, Hitoshi

2015-01-01

Drug addiction is driven, in part, by powerful and enduring memories of sensory cues associated with drug intake. As such, relapse to drug use during abstinence is frequently triggered by an encounter with drug-associated cues, including the drug itself. L-type Ca2+ channels (LTCCs) are known to regulate different forms of synaptic plasticity, the major neural substrate for learning and memory, in various brain areas. Long-term potentiation (LTP) of NMDA receptor (NMDAR)-mediated glutamatergic transmission in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) may contribute to the increased motivational valence of drug-associated cues triggering relapse. In this study, using rat brain slices, we found that isradipine, a general LTCC antagonist used as antihypertensive medication, not only blocks the induction of NMDAR LTP but also promotes the reversal of previously induced LTP in the VTA. In behaving rats, isradipine injected into the VTA suppressed the acquisition of cocaine-paired contextual cue memory assessed using a conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Furthermore, administration of isradipine or a CaV1.3 subtype-selective LTCC antagonist (systemic or intra-VTA) before a single extinction or reinstatement session, while having no immediate effect at the time of administration, abolished previously acquired cocaine and alcohol (ethanol) CPP on subsequent days. Notably, CPP thus extinguished cannot be reinstated by drug re-exposure, even after 2 weeks of withdrawal. These results suggest that LTCC blockade during exposure to drug-associated cues may cause unlearning of the increased valence of those cues, presumably via reversal of glutamatergic synaptic plasticity in the VTA. PMID:26100537

L-type Ca²⁺ channel blockade with antihypertensive medication disrupts VTA synaptic plasticity and drug-associated contextual memory.

PubMed

Degoulet, M; Stelly, C E; Ahn, K-C; Morikawa, H

2016-03-01

Drug addiction is driven, in part, by powerful and enduring memories of sensory cues associated with drug intake. As such, relapse to drug use during abstinence is frequently triggered by an encounter with drug-associated cues, including the drug itself. L-type Ca(2+) channels (LTCCs) are known to regulate different forms of synaptic plasticity, the major neural substrate for learning and memory, in various brain areas. Long-term potentiation (LTP) of NMDA receptor (NMDAR)-mediated glutamatergic transmission in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) may contribute to the increased motivational valence of drug-associated cues triggering relapse. In this study, using rat brain slices, we found that isradipine, a general LTCC antagonist used as antihypertensive medication, not only blocks the induction of NMDAR LTP but also promotes the reversal of previously induced LTP in the VTA. In behaving rats, isradipine injected into the VTA suppressed the acquisition of cocaine-paired contextual cue memory assessed using a conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Furthermore, administration of isradipine or a CaV1.3 subtype-selective LTCC antagonist (systemic or intra-VTA) before a single extinction or reinstatement session, while having no immediate effect at the time of administration, abolished previously acquired cocaine and alcohol (ethanol) CPP on subsequent days. Notably, CPP thus extinguished cannot be reinstated by drug re-exposure, even after 2 weeks of withdrawal. These results suggest that LTCC blockade during exposure to drug-associated cues may cause unlearning of the increased valence of those cues, presumably via reversal of glutamatergic synaptic plasticity in the VTA.

Negative emotional stimuli reduce contextual cueing but not response times in inefficient search.

PubMed

Kunar, Melina A; Watson, Derrick G; Cole, Louise; Cox, Angeline

2014-02-01

In visual search, previous work has shown that negative stimuli narrow the focus of attention and speed reaction times (RTs). This paper investigates these two effects by first asking whether negative emotional stimuli narrow the focus of attention to reduce the learning of a display context in a contextual cueing task and, second, whether exposure to negative stimuli also reduces RTs in inefficient search tasks. In Experiment 1, participants viewed either negative or neutral images (faces or scenes) prior to a contextual cueing task. In a typical contextual cueing experiment, RTs are reduced if displays are repeated across the experiment compared with novel displays that are not repeated. The results showed that a smaller contextual cueing effect was obtained after participants viewed negative stimuli than when they viewed neutral stimuli. However, in contrast to previous work, overall search RTs were not faster after viewing negative stimuli (Experiments 2 to 4). The findings are discussed in terms of the impact of emotional content on visual processing and the ability to use scene context to help facilitate search.

Neuro-economics in chicks: foraging choices based on amount, delay and cost.

PubMed

Matsushima, Toshiya; Kawamori, Ai; Bem-Sojka, Tiaza

2008-06-15

Studies on the foraging choices are reviewed, with an emphasis on the neural representations of elementary factors of food (i.e., amount, delay and consumption time) in the avian brain. Domestic chicks serve as an ideal animal model in this respect, as they quickly associate cue colors with subsequently supplied food rewards, and their choices are quantitatively linked with the rewards. When a pair of such color cues was simultaneously presented, the trained chicks reliably made choices according to the profitability of food associated with each color. Two forebrain regions are involved in distinct aspects of choices; i.e., nucleus accumbens-medial striatum (Ac-MSt) and arcopallium intermedium (AI), an association area in the lateral forebrain. Localized lesions of Ac-MSt enhanced delay aversion, and the ablated chicks made impulsive choices of immediate reward more frequently than sham controls. On the other hand, lesions of AI enhanced consumption-time aversion, and the ablated chicks shifted their choices toward easily consumable reward with their impulsiveness unchanged; delay and consumption time are thus doubly dissociated. Furthermore, chicks showed distinct patterns of risk-sensitive choices depending on the factor that varied at trials. Risk aversion occurred when food amount varied, whereas consistent risk sensitivity was not found when the delay varied; amount and delay were not interchangeable. Choices are thus deviated from those predicted as optima. Instead, factors such as amount, delay and consumption time could be separately represented and processed to yield economically sub-optimal choices.

Orbitofrontal cortex and basolateral amygdala lesions result in suboptimal and dissociable reward choices on cue-guided effort in rats

PubMed Central

Ostrander, Serena; Cazares, Victor A.; Kim, Charissa; Cheung, Shauna; Gonzalez, Isabel; Izquierdo, Alicia

2011-01-01

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) are important neural regions in responding adaptively to changes in the incentive value of reward. Recent evidence suggests these structures may be differentially engaged in effort and cue-guided choice behavior. In two t-maze experiments, we examined the effects of bilateral lesions of either BLA or OFC on 1) effortful choices where rats could climb a barrier for a high reward or select a low reward with no effort and 2) effortful choices when a visual cue signaled changes in reward magnitude. In both experiments, BLA rats displayed transient work aversion, choosing the effortless low reward option. OFC rats were work averse only in the no cue conditions, displaying a pattern of attenuated recovery from the cue conditions signaling reward unavailability in the effortful arm. Control measures rule out an inability to discriminate the cue in either lesion group. PMID:21639604

Mechanisms of contextual risk for adolescent self-injury: invalidation and conflict escalation in mother-child interactions.

PubMed

Crowell, Sheila E; Baucom, Brian R; McCauley, Elizabeth; Potapova, Natalia V; Fitelson, Martha; Barth, Heather; Smith, Cindy J; Beauchaine, Theodore P

2013-01-01

According to developmental theories of self-injury, both child characteristics and environmental contexts shape and maintain problematic behaviors. Although progress has been made toward identifying biological vulnerabilities to self-injury, mechanisms underlying psychosocial risk have received less attention. In the present study, we compared self-injuring adolescents (n = 17) with typical controls (n = 20) during a mother-child conflict discussion. Dyadic interactions were coded using both global and microanalytic systems, allowing for a highly detailed characterization of mother-child interactions. We also assessed resting state psychophysiological regulation, as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Global coding revealed that maternal invalidation was associated with adolescent anger. Furthermore, maternal invalidation and coerciveness were both related to adolescent opposition/defiance. Results from the microanalytic system indicated that self-injuring dyads were more likely to escalate conflict, suggesting a potential mechanism through which emotion dysregulation is shaped and maintained over time. Finally, mother and teen aversiveness interacted to predict adolescent resting RSA. Low-aversive teens with highly aversive mothers had the highest RSA, whereas teens in high-high dyads showed the lowest RSA. These findings are consistent with theories that emotion invalidation and conflict escalation are possible contextual risk factors for self-injury.

Mechanisms of Contextual Risk for Adolescent Self-Injury: Invalidation and Conflict Escalation in Mother-Child Interactions

PubMed Central

Crowell, Sheila E.; Baucom, Brian R.; McCauley, Elizabeth; Potapova, Natalia V.; Fitelson, Martha; Barth, Heather; Smith, Cindy J.; Beauchaine, Theodore P.

2013-01-01

OBJECTIVE According to developmental theories of self-injury, both child characteristics and environmental contexts shape and maintain problematic behaviors. Although progress has been made toward identifying biological vulnerabilities to self-injury, mechanisms underlying psychosocial risk have received less attention. METHOD In the present study, we compared self-injuring adolescents (n=17) with typical controls (n=20) during a mother-child conflict discussion. Dyadic interactions were coded using both global and microanalytic systems, allowing for a highly detailed characterization of mother-child interactions. We also assessed resting state psychophysiological regulation, as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). RESULTS Global coding revealed that maternal invalidation was associated with adolescent anger. Furthermore, maternal invalidation and coerciveness were both related to adolescent opposition/defiance. Results from the microanalytic system indicated that self-injuring dyads were more likely to escalate conflict, suggesting a potential mechanism through which emotion dysregulation is shaped and maintained over time. Finally, mother and teen aversiveness interacted to predict adolescent resting RSA. Low-aversive teens with highly aversive mothers had the highest RSA, whereas teens in high-high dyads showed the lowest RSA. CONCLUSIONS These findings are consistent with theories that emotion invalidation and conflict escalation are possible contextual risk factors for self-injury. PMID:23581508

Pain in context: Cues predicting a reward decrease fear of movement related pain and avoidance behavior.

PubMed

Claes, Nathalie; Vlaeyen, Johan W S; Crombez, Geert

2016-09-01

Previous research shows that goal-directed behavior might be modulated by cues that predict (dis)similar outcomes. However, the literature investigating this modulation with pain outcomes is scarce. Therefore, this experiment investigated whether environmental cues predicting pain or reward modulate defensive pain responding. Forty-eight healthy participants completed a joystick movement task with two different movement orientations. Performing one movement was associated with a painful stimulus, whereas performance of another movement was associated with reward, i.e. lottery tickets. In a subsequent task, participants learned to associate three different cues withpain, reward, or neither of the two. Next, these cues were integrated in the movement task. This study demonstrates that in general, aversive cues enhance and appetitive cues reduce pain-related fear. Furthermore, we found that incongruence between the outcomes predicted by the movement and the cue results in more oscillatory behavior, i.e., participants were more willing to perform a painful movement when a cue predicting reward was simultaneously presented, and vice versa. Similarly, when given a choice, participants preferred to perform the reward movement, unless there was an incongruence between the outcomes predicted by the movements and cues. Taken together, these results provide experimental evidence that environmental cues are capable of modulating pain-related fear and avoidance behavior. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Anticipation of high arousal aversive and positive movie clips engages common and distinct neural substrates.

PubMed

Greenberg, Tsafrir; Carlson, Joshua M; Rubin, Denis; Cha, Jiook; Mujica-Parodi, Lilianne

2015-04-01

The neural correlates of anxious anticipation have been primarily studied with aversive and neutral stimuli. In this study, we examined the effect of valence on anticipation by using high arousal aversive and positive stimuli and a condition of uncertainty (i.e. either positive or aversive). The task consisted of predetermined cues warning participants of upcoming aversive, positive, 'uncertain' (either aversive or positive) and neutral movie clips. Anticipation of all affective clips engaged common regions including the anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, thalamus, caudate, inferior parietal and prefrontal cortex that are associated with emotional experience, sustained attention and appraisal. In contrast, the nucleus accumbens and medial prefrontal cortex, regions implicated in reward processing, were selectively engaged during anticipation of positive clips (depicting sexually explicit content) and the mid-insula, which has been linked to processing aversive stimuli, was selectively engaged during anticipation of aversive clips (depicting graphic medical procedures); these three areas were also activated during anticipation of 'uncertain' clips reflecting a broad preparatory response for both aversive and positive stimuli. These results suggest that a common circuitry is recruited in anticipation of affective clips regardless of valence, with additional areas preferentially engaged depending on whether expected stimuli are negative or positive. © The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Social cognitive conflict resolution: Contributions of domain general and domain specific neural systems

PubMed Central

Zaki, Jamil; Hennigan, Kelly; Weber, Jochen; Ochsner, Kevin N.

2010-01-01

Cognitive control mechanisms allow individuals to behave adaptively in the face of complex and sometimes conflicting information. While the neural bases of these control mechanisms have been examined in many contexts, almost no attention has been paid to their role in resolving conflicts between competing social cues, which is surprising, given that cognitive conflicts are part of many social interactions. Evidence about the neural processing of social information suggests that two systems—the mirror neuron system (MNS) and mental state attribution system (MSAS)—are specialized for processing nonverbal and contextual social cues, respectively. This could support a model of social cognitive conflict resolution in which competition between social cues would recruit domain-general cognitive control mechanisms, which in turn would bias processing towards the MNS or MSAS. Such biasing could also alter social behaviors, such as inferences made about the internal states of others. We tested this model by scanning participants using fMRI while they drew inferences about social targets' emotional states based on congruent or incongruent nonverbal and contextual social cues. Conflicts between social cues recruited the anterior cingulate and lateral prefrontal cortex, brain areas associated with domain-general control processes. This activation was accompanied by biasing of neural activity towards areas in the MNS or MSAS, which tracked, respectively, with perceivers' behavioral reliance on nonverbal or contextual cues when drawing inferences about targets' emotions. Together, these data provide evidence about both domain general and domain specific mechanisms involved in resolving social cognitive conflicts. PMID:20573895

Visual cues that are effective for contextual saccade adaptation

PubMed Central

Azadi, Reza

2014-01-01

The accuracy of saccades, as maintained by saccade adaptation, has been shown to be context dependent: able to have different amplitude movements to the same retinal displacement dependent on motor contexts such as orbital starting location. There is conflicting evidence as to whether purely visual cues also effect contextual saccade adaptation and, if so, what function this might serve. We tested what visual cues might evoke contextual adaptation. Over 5 experiments, 78 naive subjects made saccades to circularly moving targets, which stepped outward or inward during the saccade depending on target movement direction, speed, or color and shape. To test if the movement or context postsaccade were critical, we stopped the postsaccade target motion (experiment 4) or neutralized the contexts by equating postsaccade target speed to an intermediate value (experiment 5). We found contextual adaptation in all conditions except those defined by color and shape. We conclude that some, but not all, visual cues before the saccade are sufficient for contextual adaptation. We conjecture that this visual contextuality functions to allow for different motor states for different coordinated movement patterns, such as coordinated saccade and pursuit motor planning. PMID:24647429

Incubation of extinction responding and cue-induced reinstatement, but not context- or drug priming-induced reinstatement, after withdrawal from methamphetamine.

PubMed

Adhikary, Sweta; Caprioli, Daniele; Venniro, Marco; Kallenberger, Paige; Shaham, Yavin; Bossert, Jennifer M

2017-07-01

In rats trained to self-administer methamphetamine, extinction responding in the presence of drug-associated contextual and discrete cues progressively increases after withdrawal (incubation of methamphetamine craving). The conditioning factors underlying this incubation are unknown. Here, we studied incubation of methamphetamine craving under different experimental conditions to identify factors contributing to this incubation. We also determined whether the rats' response to methamphetamine priming incubates after withdrawal. We trained rats to self-administer methamphetamine in a distinct context (context A) for 14 days (6 hours/day). Lever presses were paired with a discrete light cue. We then tested groups of rats in context A or a different non-drug context (context B) after 1 day, 1 week or 1 month for extinction responding with or without the discrete cue. Subsequently, we tested the rats for reinstatement of drug seeking induced by exposure to contextual, discrete cue, or drug priming (0, 0.25 and 0.5 mg/kg). Operant responding in the extinction sessions in contexts A or B was higher after 1 week and 1 month of withdrawal than after 1 day; this effect was context-independent. Independent of the withdrawal period, operant responding in the extinction sessions was higher when responding led to contingent delivery of the discrete cue. After extinction, discrete cue-induced reinstatement, but not context- or drug priming-induced reinstatement, progressively increased after withdrawal. Together, incubation of methamphetamine craving, as assessed in extinction tests, is primarily mediated by time-dependent increases in non-reinforced operant responding, and this effect is potentiated by exposure to discrete, but not contextual, cues. Published 2016. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Incubation of extinction responding and cue-induced reinstatement, but not context- or drug priming-induced reinstatement, after withdrawal from methamphetamine

PubMed Central

Adhikary, Sweta; Caprioli, Daniele; Venniro, Marco; Kallenberger, Paige; Shaham, Yavin; Bossert, Jennifer M.

2016-01-01

In rats trained to self-administer methamphetamine, extinction responding in the presence of drug-associated contextual and discrete cues progressively increases after withdrawal (incubation of methamphetamine craving). The conditioning factors underlying this incubation are unknown. Here, we studied incubation of methamphetamine craving under different experimental conditions to identify factors contributing to this incubation. We also determined whether the rats’ response to methamphetamine priming incubates after withdrawal. We trained rats to self-administer methamphetamine in a distinct context (context A) for 14 days (6-h/day). Lever presses were paired with a discrete light cue. We then tested groups of rats in context A or a different non-drug context (context B) after 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month for extinction responding with or without the discrete cue. Subsequently, we tested the rats for reinstatement of drug seeking induced by exposure to contextual, discrete cue, or drug priming (0, 0.25, and 0.5 mg/kg). Operant responding in the extinction sessions in contexts A or B was higher after 1 week and 1 month of withdrawal than after 1 day; this effect was context-independent. Independent of the withdrawal period, operant responding in the extinction sessions was higher when responding led to contingent delivery of the discrete cue. After extinction, discrete cue-induced reinstatement, but not context- or drug priming-induced reinstatement, progressively increased after withdrawal. Together, incubation of methamphetamine craving, as assessed in extinction tests, is primarily mediated by time-dependent increases in non-reinforced operant responding, and this effect is potentiated by exposure to discrete, but not contextual, cues. PMID:26989042

Cue-induced reinstatement of cocaine seeking in the rat ‘conflict model’: Effect of prolonged home-cage confinement

PubMed Central

Barnea-Ygael, N; Yadid, G; Yaka, R; Ben-Shahar, O; Zangen, A

2011-01-01

Rationale and Objectives Drug addiction is not just the repeated administration of drugs, but compulsive drug use maintained despite the accumulation of adverse consequences for the user. In an attempt to introduce adverse consequences of drug seeking to laboratory animals, we have developed the ‘conflict model’ in which the access of rats to a reinforcing lever allowing self-administration requires passing of an electrified grid floor. In this model, the current intensity leading to complete abstinence from drug seeking can be measured individually. The present study was designed to evaluated whether reinstatement of drug or natural reward seeking, despite the presence of the electrical barrier, can be achieved by presentation of discrete cues that were associated with the reward, and whether prolonged home-cage confinement can facilitate such reinstatement in this model. Methods The ‘conflict model’ was used to test cue-induced reinstatement in the presence of the electrical barrier, after 1 or 14 days of home-cage confinement, in groups of rats that were previously trained to self-administer cocaine or sucrose. Results Although similar shock intensity was required to suppress sucrose or cocaine self-administration, subjects exhibited significantly lower response to sucrose-, as compared to cocaine-, associated cues, during the reinstatement test. Importantly, cue-induced reinstatement of cocaine seeking was attenuated following 14 days of home-cage confinement. Conclusions The incorporation of aversive consequence in the self-administration model enable detection of what can be interpreted as a compulsive component unique to drug reinforcers. Moreover, the effect of the aversive consequence seems to increase following home-cage confinement. PMID:21792542

Contextual Cues Aid Recovery from Interruption: The Role of Associative Activation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hodgetts, Helen M.; Jones, Dylan M.

2006-01-01

A series of experiments introduced interruptions to the execution phase of simple Tower of London problems and found that the opportunity for preparation before the break in task reduced the time cost at resumption. Retrieval of the suspended goal was facilitated when participants were given the opportunity to encode retrieval cues during an…

Retrosplenial Cortex Is Required for the Retrieval of Remote Memory for Auditory Cues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Todd, Travis P.; Mehlman, Max L.; Keene, Christopher S.; DeAngeli, Nicole E.; Bucci, David J.

2016-01-01

The retrosplenial cortex (RSC) has a well-established role in contextual and spatial learning and memory, consistent with its known connectivity with visuo-spatial association areas. In contrast, RSC appears to have little involvement with delay fear conditioning to an auditory cue. However, all previous studies have examined the contribution of…

Cognitive processes facilitated by contextual cueing: evidence from event-related brain potentials.

PubMed

Schankin, Andrea; Schubö, Anna

2009-05-01

Finding a target in repeated search displays is faster than finding the same target in novel ones (contextual cueing). It is assumed that the visual context (the arrangement of the distracting objects) is used to guide attention efficiently to the target location. Alternatively, other factors, e.g., facilitation in early visual processing or in response selection, may play a role as well. In a contextual cueing experiment, participant's electrophysiological brain activity was recorded. Participants identified the target faster and more accurately in repeatedly presented displays. In this condition, the N2pc, a component reflecting the allocation of visual-spatial attention, was enhanced, indicating that attention was allocated more efficiently to those targets. However, also response-related processes, reflected by the LRP, were facilitated, indicating that guidance of attention cannot account for the entire contextual cueing benefit.

Localization and Behaviors in Null Mice Suggest that ASIC1 and ASIC2 Modulate Responses to Aversive Stimuli

PubMed Central

Price, Margaret P.; Gong, Huiyu; Parsons, Meredith G.; Kundert, Jacob R.; Reznikov, Leah R.; Bernardinelli, Luisa; Chaloner, Kathryn; Buchanan, Gordon F.; Wemmie, John A.; Richerson, George B.; Cassell, Martin D.; Welsh, Michael J.

2014-01-01

Acid sensing ion channels (ASICs) generate H+-gated Na+ currents that contribute to neuronal function and animal behavior. Like ASIC1, ASIC2 subunits are expressed in the brain and multimerize with ASIC1 to influence acid-evoked currents and facilitate ASIC1 localization to dendritic spines. To better understand how ASIC2 contributes to brain function, we localized the protein and tested the behavioral consequences of ASIC2 gene disruption. For comparison, we also localized ASIC1 and studied ASIC1−/− mice. ASIC2 was prominently expressed in areas of high synaptic density, and with a few exceptions, ASIC1 and ASIC2 localization exhibited substantial overlap. Loss of ASIC1 or ASIC2 decreased freezing behavior in contextual and auditory cue fear conditioning assays, in response to predator odor, and in response to CO2 inhalation. In addition, loss of ASIC1 or ASIC2 increased activity in a forced swim assay. These data suggest that ASIC2, like ASIC1, plays a key role in determining the defensive response to aversive stimuli. They also raise the question of whether gene variations in both ASIC1 and ASIC2 might affect fear and panic in humans. PMID:24256442

Transfer of Old "Reactivated" Memory Retrieval Cues in Rats

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Briggs, James F.; Riccio, David C.

2008-01-01

The present studies examined whether the retrieval of an old "reactivated" memory could be brought under the control of new contextual cues. In Experiment 1 rats trained in one context were exposed to different contextual cues either immediately, 60 or 120 min after a cued reactivation of the training memory. When tested in the shifted context,…

Implicit Sequence Learning and Contextual Cueing Do Not Compete for Central Cognitive Resources

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jimenez, Luis; Vazquez, Gustavo A.

2011-01-01

Sequence learning and contextual cueing explore different forms of implicit learning, arising from practice with a structured serial task, or with a search task with informative contexts. We assess whether these two learning effects arise simultaneously when both remain implicit. Experiments 1 and 2 confirm that a cueing effect can be observed…

Eliciting conditioned taste aversion in lizards: Live toxic prey are more effective than scent and taste cues alone.

PubMed

Ward-Fear, Georgia; Thomas, Jai; Webb, Jonathan K; Pearson, David J; Shine, Richard

2017-03-01

Conditioned taste aversion (CTA) is an adaptive learning mechanism whereby a consumer associates the taste of a certain food with symptoms caused by a toxic substance, and thereafter avoids eating that type of food. Recently, wildlife researchers have employed CTA to discourage native fauna from ingesting toxic cane toads (Rhinella marina), a species that is invading tropical Australia. In this paper, we compare the results of 2 sets of CTA trials on large varanid lizards ("goannas," Varanus panoptes). One set of trials (described in this paper) exposed recently-captured lizards to sausages made from cane toad flesh, laced with a nausea-inducing chemical (lithium chloride) to reinforce the aversion response. The other trials (in a recently-published paper, reviewed herein) exposed free-ranging lizards to live juvenile cane toads. The effectiveness of the training was judged by how long a lizard survived in the wild before it was killed (fatally poisoned) by a cane toad. Both stimuli elicited rapid aversion to live toads, but the CTA response did not enhance survival rates of the sausage-trained goannas after they were released into the wild. In contrast, the goannas exposed to live juvenile toads exhibited higher long-term survival rates than did untrained conspecifics. Our results suggest that although it is relatively easy to elicit short-term aversion to toad cues in goannas, a biologically realistic stimulus (live toads, encountered by free-ranging predators) is most effective at buffering these reptiles from the impact of invasive toxic prey. © 2016 International Society of Zoological Sciences, Institute of Zoology/Chinese Academy of Sciences and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Variation in the Williams syndrome GTF2I gene and anxiety proneness interactively affect prefrontal cortical response to aversive stimuli.

PubMed

Jabbi, M; Chen, Q; Turner, N; Kohn, P; White, M; Kippenhan, J S; Dickinson, D; Kolachana, B; Mattay, V; Weinberger, D R; Berman, K F

2015-08-18

Characterizing the molecular mechanisms underlying the heritability of complex behavioral traits such as human anxiety remains a challenging endeavor for behavioral neuroscience. Copy-number variation (CNV) in the general transcription factor gene, GTF2I, located in the 7q11.23 chromosomal region that is hemideleted in Williams syndrome and duplicated in the 7q11.23 duplication syndrome (Dup7), is associated with gene-dose-dependent anxiety in mouse models and in both Williams syndrome and Dup7. Because of this recent preclinical and clinical identification of a genetic influence on anxiety, we examined whether sequence variation in GTF2I, specifically the single-nucleotide polymorphism rs2527367, interacts with trait and state anxiety to collectively impact neural response to anxiety-laden social stimuli. Two hundred and sixty healthy adults completed the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire Harm Avoidance (HA) subscale, a trait measure of anxiety proneness, and underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while matching aversive (fearful or angry) facial identity. We found an interaction between GTF2I allelic variations and HA that affects brain response: in individuals homozygous for the major allele, there was no correlation between HA and whole-brain response to aversive cues, whereas in heterozygotes and individuals homozygous for the minor allele, there was a positive correlation between HA sub-scores and a selective dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) responsivity during the processing of aversive stimuli. These results demonstrate that sequence variation in the GTF2I gene influences the relationship between trait anxiety and brain response to aversive social cues in healthy individuals, supporting a role for this neurogenetic mechanism in anxiety.

People, clothing, music, and arousal as contextual retrieval cues in verbal memory.

PubMed

Standing, Lionel G; Bobbitt, Kristin E; Boisvert, Kathryn L; Dayholos, Kathy N; Gagnon, Anne M

2008-10-01

Four experiments (N = 164) on context-dependent memory were performed to explore the effects on verbal memory of incidental cues during the test session which replicated specific features of the learning session. These features involved (1) bystanders, (2) the clothing of the experimenter, (3) background music, and (4) the arousal level of the subject. Social contextual cues (bystanders or experimenter clothing) improved verbal recall or recognition. However, recall decreased when the contextual cue was a different stimulus taken from the same conceptual category (piano music by Chopin) that was heard during learning. Memory was unaffected by congruent internal cues, produced by the same physiological arousal level (low, moderate, or high heart rate) during the learning and test sessions. However, recall increased with the level of arousal across the three congruent conditions. The results emphasize the effectiveness as retrieval cues of stimuli which are socially salient, concrete, and external.

Transfer of Old ‘Reactivated’ Memory Retrieval Cues in Rats

PubMed Central

Briggs, James F.; Riccio, David C.

2008-01-01

The present studies examined whether the retrieval of an old ‘reactivated’ memory could be brought under the control of new contextual cues. In Experiment 1 rats trained in one context were exposed to different contextual cues either immediately, 60 min, or 120 min after a cued reactivation of the training memory. When tested in the shifted context, subjects exposed shortly after reactivation treated the shifted context as the original context. This transfer diminished with longer post-reactivation delays. Experiment 2 replicated the basic finding and demonstrated that the transfer of the old retrieval cues was specific to the contextual cues present during exposure. These findings are consistent with previous research (i.e., Briggs, Fitz, & Riccio, in press) showing the transfer of retrieval cues for a new memory, and demonstrating a similarity (in this case) between newly acquired and old reactivated memories. PMID:19190707

The Influence of Contextual Cues in Judgment Formation: An Ecologically Valid Test

PubMed Central

Jacoby, Jacob; Galak, Jeff

2016-01-01

An ecologically valid experiment investigated the propositions that (a) people’s judgments are influenced by contextual cues, (b) that they are often unaware that those cues influenced them, and (c) that even when they know the cues should influence them, they do not readily incorporate those cues into their judgment formation. After participating in a realistic simulation of a shopping experience, 405 consumers made judgments about whether the product they examined contained fresh or preserved grapefruit sections. Our findings show that despite being aware that contextual cues (such as the location within a store where the product is sold, the type of container it is sold in, and whether the container is chilled or not) generally influence the judgment at hand, people generally fail to realize that their specific judgments were influenced at all. These findings replicate prior studies, thereby extending the generalizability and robustness of prior research. PMID:27105148

The Influence of Contextual Cues in Judgment Formation: An Ecologically Valid Test.

PubMed

Jacoby, Jacob; Galak, Jeff

2016-01-01

An ecologically valid experiment investigated the propositions that (a) people's judgments are influenced by contextual cues, (b) that they are often unaware that those cues influenced them, and (c) that even when they know the cues should influence them, they do not readily incorporate those cues into their judgment formation. After participating in a realistic simulation of a shopping experience, 405 consumers made judgments about whether the product they examined contained fresh or preserved grapefruit sections. Our findings show that despite being aware that contextual cues (such as the location within a store where the product is sold, the type of container it is sold in, and whether the container is chilled or not) generally influence the judgment at hand, people generally fail to realize that their specific judgments were influenced at all. These findings replicate prior studies, thereby extending the generalizability and robustness of prior research.

Context controls access to working and reference memory in the pigeon (Columba livia).

PubMed

Roberts, William A; Macpherson, Krista; Strang, Caroline

2016-01-01

The interaction between working and reference memory systems was examined under conditions in which salient contextual cues were presented during memory retrieval. Ambient colored lights (red or green) bathed the operant chamber during the presentation of comparison stimuli in delayed matching-to-sample training (working memory) and during the presentation of the comparison stimuli as S+ and S- cues in discrimination training (reference memory). Strong competition between memory systems appeared when the same contextual cue appeared during working and reference memory training. When different contextual cues were used, however, working memory was completely protected from reference memory interference. © 2016 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

Victimization experiences and the stabilization of victim sensitivity

PubMed Central

Gollwitzer, Mario; Süssenbach, Philipp; Hannuschke, Marianne

2015-01-01

People reliably differ in the extent to which they are sensitive to being victimized by others. Importantly, “victim sensitivity” predicts how people behave in social dilemma situations: Victim-sensitive individuals are less likely to trust others and more likely to behave uncooperatively—especially in socially uncertain situations. This pattern can be explained with the sensitivity to mean intentions (SeMI) model, according to which victim sensitivity entails a specific and asymmetric sensitivity to contextual cues that are associated with untrustworthiness. Recent research is largely in line with the model’s prediction, but some issues have remained conceptually unresolved so far. For instance, it is unclear why and how victim sensitivity becomes a stable trait and which developmental and cognitive processes are involved in such stabilization. In the present article, we will discuss the psychological processes that contribute to a stabilization of victim sensitivity within persons, both across the life span (“ontogenetic stabilization”) and across social situations (“actual-genetic stabilization”). Our theoretical framework starts from the assumption that experiences of being exploited threaten a basic need, the need to trust. This need is so fundamental that experiences that threaten it receive a considerable amount of attention and trigger strong affective reactions. Associative learning processes can then explain (a) how certain contextual cues (e.g., facial expressions) become conditioned stimuli that elicit equally strong responses, (b) why these contextual untrustworthiness cues receive much more attention than, for instance, trustworthiness cues, and (c) how these cues shape spontaneous social expectations (regarding other people’s intentions). Finally, avoidance learning can explain why these cognitive processes gradually stabilize and become a trait: the trait which is referred to as victim sensitivity. PMID:25926806

Memory retrieval in response to partial cues requires NMDA receptor-dependent neurotransmission in the medial prefrontal cortex.

PubMed

Jo, Yong Sang; Choi, June-Seek

2014-03-01

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has been suggested to play a crucial role in retrieving detailed contextual information about a previous learning episode in response to a single retrieval cue. However, few studies investigated the neurochemical mechanisms that mediate the prefrontal retrieval process. In the current study, we examined whether N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) in the mPFC were necessary for retrieval of a well-learned spatial location on the basis of partial or degraded spatial cues. Rats were initially trained to find a hidden platform in the Morris water maze using four extramaze cues in the surrounding environment. Their retrieval performance was subsequently tested under different cue conditions. Infusions of DL-2-amino-5-phosphonovaleric acid (APV), a NMDAR antagonist, significantly disrupted memory retrieval when three of the original cues were removed. By contrast, APV injections into the mPFC did not affect animals' retrieval performance when the original cues were presented or when three novels landmarks were added alongside the original cues. These results indicate that prefrontal NMDARs are required for memory retrieval when allocentric spatial information is degraded. NMDAR-dependent neurotransmission in the mPFC may facilitate an active retrieval process to reactivate complete contextual representations associated with partial retrieval cues. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Learning shapes the aversion and reward responses of lateral habenula neurons

PubMed Central

Wang, Daqing; Li, Yi; Feng, Qiru; Guo, Qingchun; Zhou, Jingfeng; Luo, Minmin

2017-01-01

The lateral habenula (LHb) is believed to encode negative motivational values. It remains unknown how LHb neurons respond to various stressors and how learning shapes their responses. Here, we used fiber-photometry and electrophysiology to track LHb neuronal activity in freely-behaving mice. Bitterness, pain, and social attack by aggressors intensively excite LHb neurons. Aversive Pavlovian conditioning induced activation by the aversion-predicting cue in a few trials. The experience of social defeat also conditioned excitatory responses to previously neutral social stimuli. In contrast, fiber photometry and single-unit recordings revealed that sucrose reward inhibited LHb neurons and often produced excitatory rebound. It required prolonged conditioning and high reward probability to induce inhibition by reward-predicting cues. Therefore, LHb neurons can bidirectionally process a diverse array of aversive and reward signals. Importantly, their responses are dynamically shaped by learning, suggesting that the LHb participates in experience-dependent selection of behavioral responses to stressors and rewards. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.23045.001 PMID:28561735

Context Memory Formation Requires Activity-Dependent Protein Degradation in the Hippocampus

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cullen, Patrick K.; Ferrara, Nicole C.; Pullins, Shane E.; Helmstetter, Fred J.

2017-01-01

Numerous studies have indicated that the consolidation of contextual fear memories supported by an aversive outcome like footshock requires de novo protein synthesis as well as protein degradation mediated by the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS). Context memory formed in the absence of an aversive stimulus by simple exposure to a novel…

From avoidance to approach: The influence of threat-of-shock on reward-based decision making.

PubMed

Bublatzky, Florian; Alpers, Georg W; Pittig, Andre

2017-09-01

Potential threat can prime defensive responding and avoidance behavior, which may result in the loss of rewards. When aversive consequences do not occur, avoidance should, thus, be quickly overcome in healthy individuals. This study examined the impact of threat anticipation on reward-based decisions. Sixty-five participants completed a decision-making task in which they had to choose between high- and low-reward options. To model an approach-avoidance conflict, the high-reward option was contingent with a threat-of-shock cue; the low-reward option was contingent with a safety cue. In control trials, decisions were made without threat/safety instructions. Overall, behavioral data documented a typical preference for the profitable option. Importantly, under threat-of-shock, participants initially avoided the profitable option (i.e., safe, but less profitable choices). However, when they experienced that shocks did actually not occur, participants overcame initial avoidance in favor of larger gains. Furthermore, autonomic arousal (skin conductance and heart rate responses) was elevated during threat cues compared to safety and non-threatening control cues. Taken together, threat-of-shock was associated with behavioral consequences: initially, participants avoided threat-related options but made more profitable decisions as they experienced no aversive consequences. Although socially acquired threat contingencies are typically stable, incentives for approach can help to overcome threat-related avoidance. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Visual cues that are effective for contextual saccade adaptation.

PubMed

Azadi, Reza; Harwood, Mark R

2014-06-01

The accuracy of saccades, as maintained by saccade adaptation, has been shown to be context dependent: able to have different amplitude movements to the same retinal displacement dependent on motor contexts such as orbital starting location. There is conflicting evidence as to whether purely visual cues also effect contextual saccade adaptation and, if so, what function this might serve. We tested what visual cues might evoke contextual adaptation. Over 5 experiments, 78 naive subjects made saccades to circularly moving targets, which stepped outward or inward during the saccade depending on target movement direction, speed, or color and shape. To test if the movement or context postsaccade were critical, we stopped the postsaccade target motion (experiment 4) or neutralized the contexts by equating postsaccade target speed to an intermediate value (experiment 5). We found contextual adaptation in all conditions except those defined by color and shape. We conclude that some, but not all, visual cues before the saccade are sufficient for contextual adaptation. We conjecture that this visual contextuality functions to allow for different motor states for different coordinated movement patterns, such as coordinated saccade and pursuit motor planning. Copyright © 2014 the American Physiological Society.

Inactivation of the Ventrolateral Orbitofrontal Cortex Impairs Flexible Use of Safety Signals.

PubMed

Sarlitto, Mary C; Foilb, Allison R; Christianson, John P

2018-05-21

Survival depends on adaptation to shifting environmental risks and opportunities. Regarding risks, the mechanisms which permit acquisition, recall, and flexible use of aversive associations is poorly understood. Drawing on the evidence that the orbital frontal cortex is critical to integrating outcome expectancies with flexible appetitive behavioral responses, we hypothesized that OFC would contribute to behavioral flexibility within an aversive learning domain. We introduce a fear conditioning procedure in which adult male rats were presented with shock-paired conditioned stimulus (CS+) or a safety cue (CS-). In a recall test, rats exhibit greater freezing to the CS+ than the CS-. Temporary inactivation of the ventrolateral OFC with muscimol prior to conditioning did not affect later discrimination, but inactivation after learning and prior to recall impaired discrimination between safety and danger cues. This result complements prior research in the appetitive domain and suggests that the OFC plays a general role in behavioral flexibility regardless of the valence of the CS. Copyright © 2018 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cocaine-conditioned odor cues without chronic exposure: Implications for the development of addiction vulnerability.

PubMed

Lowen, Steven B; Rohan, Michael L; Gillis, Timothy E; Thompson, Britta S; Wellons, Clara B W; Andersen, Susan L

2015-01-01

Adolescents are highly vulnerable to addiction and are four times more likely to become addicted at first exposure than at any other age. The dopamine D1 receptor, which is typically overexpressed in the normal adolescent prefrontal cortex, is involved in drug cue responses and is associated with relapse in animal models. In human drug addicts, imaging methods have detected increased activation in response to drug cues in reward- and habit-associated brain regions. These same methods can be applied more quantitatively to rodent models. Here, changes in neuronal activation in response to cocaine-conditioned cues were observed using functional magnetic resonance imaging in juvenile rats that were made to over-express either D1 receptors or green fluorescent protein by viral-mediated transduction. Reduced activation was observed in the amygdala and dopamine cell body regions in the low cue-preferring/control juvenile rats in response to cocaine cues. In contrast, increased activation was observed in the dorsal striatum, nucleus accumbens, prefrontal cortex, and dopamine cell bodies in high cue-preferring/D1 juveniles. The increase in cue salience that is mediated by increased D1 receptor density, rather than excessive cocaine experience, appears to underlie the transition from aversion to reward in cue-induced neural response and may form the basis for habit-forming vulnerability.

Priming memories of past wins induces risk seeking.

PubMed

Ludvig, Elliot A; Madan, Christopher R; Spetch, Marcia L

2015-02-01

People are often risk averse when making decisions under uncertainty. When those decisions are based on past experience, people necessarily rely on their memories. Thus, what is remembered at the time of the choice should influence risky choice. We tested this hypothesis by priming memory for past outcomes in a simple risky-choice task. In the task, people repeatedly chose between a safe option and a risky option that paid off with a larger or smaller reward with a 50/50 chance. Some trials were preceded by a priming cue that was previously paired with one of the outcomes. We found that priming cues associated with wins caused people to become risk seeking, whereas priming cues associated with relative losses had little effect. These results suggest that people can be induced to be more risk seeking through subtle reminders of previous winning experiences.

Dopamine and Octopamine Influence Avoidance Learning of Honey Bees in a Place Preference Assay

PubMed Central

Agarwal, Maitreyi; Giannoni Guzmán, Manuel; Morales-Matos, Carla; Del Valle Díaz, Rafael Alejandro; Abramson, Charles I.; Giray, Tugrul

2011-01-01

Biogenic amines are widely characterized in pathways evaluating reward and punishment, resulting in appropriate aversive or appetitive responses of vertebrates and invertebrates. We utilized the honey bee model and a newly developed spatial avoidance conditioning assay to probe effects of biogenic amines octopamine (OA) and dopamine (DA) on avoidance learning. In this new protocol non-harnessed bees associate a spatial color cue with mild electric shock punishment. After a number of experiences with color and shock the bees no longer enter the compartment associated with punishment. Intrinsic aspects of avoidance conditioning are associated with natural behavior of bees such as punishment (lack of food, explosive pollination mechanisms, danger of predation, heat, etc.) and their association to floral traits or other spatial cues during foraging. The results show that DA reduces the punishment received whereas octopamine OA increases the punishment received. These effects are dose-dependent and specific to the acquisition phase of training. The effects during acquisition are specific as shown in experiments using the antagonists Pimozide and Mianserin for DA and OA receptors, respectively. This study demonstrates the integrative role of biogenic amines in aversive learning in the honey bee as modeled in a novel non-appetitive avoidance learning assay. PMID:21980435

Integration of contextual cues into memory depends on "prefrontal" N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors.

PubMed

Starosta, Sarah; Bartetzko, Isabelle; Stüttgen, Maik C; Güntürkün, Onur

2017-10-01

Every learning event is embedded in a context, but not always does the context become an integral part of the memory; however, for extinction learning it usually does, resulting in context-specific conditioned responding. The neuronal mechanisms underlying contextual control have been mainly investigated for Pavlovian fear extinction with a focus on hippocampal structures. However, the initial acquisition of novel responses can be subject to contextual control as well, although the neuronal mechanisms are mostly unknown. Here, we tested the hypothesis that contextual control of acquisition depends on glutamatergic transmission underlying executive functions in forebrain areas, e.g. by shifting attention to critical cues. Thus, we antagonized N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors with 2-amino-5-phosphonovaleric acid (AP5) in the pigeon nidopallium caudolaterale, the functional analogue of mammalian prefrontal cortex, during the concomitant acquisition and extinction of conditioned responding to two different stimuli. This paradigm has previously been shown to lead to contextual control over extinguished as well as non-extinguished responding. NMDA receptor blockade resulted in an impairment of extinction learning, but left the acquisition of responses to a novel stimulus unaffected. Critically, when responses were tested in a different context in the retrieval phase, we observed that NMDA receptor blockade led to the abolishment of contextual control over acquisition performance. This result is predicted by a model describing response inclination as the product of associative strength and contextual gain. In this model, learning under AP5 leads to a change in the contextual gain on the learned association, possibly via the modulation of attentional mechanisms. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Working memory dependence of spatial contextual cueing for visual search.

PubMed

Pollmann, Stefan

2018-05-10

When spatial stimulus configurations repeat in visual search, a search facilitation, resulting in shorter search times, can be observed that is due to incidental learning. This contextual cueing effect appears to be rather implicit, uncorrelated with observers' explicit memory of display configurations. Nevertheless, as I review here, this search facilitation due to contextual cueing depends on visuospatial working memory resources, and it disappears when visuospatial working memory is loaded by a concurrent delayed match to sample task. However, the search facilitation immediately recovers for displays learnt under visuospatial working memory load when this load is removed in a subsequent test phase. Thus, latent learning of visuospatial configurations does not depend on visuospatial working memory, but the expression of learning, as memory-guided search in repeated displays, does. This working memory dependence has also consequences for visual search with foveal vision loss, where top-down controlled visual exploration strategies pose high demands on visuospatial working memory, in this way interfering with memory-guided search in repeated displays. Converging evidence for the contribution of working memory to contextual cueing comes from neuroimaging data demonstrating that distinct cortical areas along the intraparietal sulcus as well as more ventral parieto-occipital cortex are jointly activated by visual working memory and contextual cueing. © 2018 The British Psychological Society.

Spatial working memory in aging and mild cognitive impairment: effects of task load and contextual cueing.

PubMed

Kessels, Roy P C; Meulenbroek, Olga; Fernández, Guillén; Olde Rikkert, Marcel G M

2010-09-01

Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is characterized by episodic memory deficits, while aspects of working memory may also be implicated, but studies into this latter domain are scarce and results are inconclusive. Using a computerized search paradigm, this study compares 25 young adults, 25 typically aging older adults and 15 amnestic MCI patients as to their working-memory capacities for object-location information and potential differential effects of memory load and additional context cues. An age-related deficit in visuospatial working-memory maintenance was found that became more pronounced with increasing task demands. The MCI group additionally showed reduced maintenance of bound information, i.e., object-location associations, again especially at elevated memory load. No effects of contextual cueing were found. The current findings indicate that working memory should be considered when screening patients for suspected MCI and monitoring its progression.

Innate food aversions and culturally transmitted food taboos in pregnant women in rural southwest India: separate systems to protect the fetus?

PubMed

Placek, Caitlyn D; Madhivanan, Purnima; Hagen, Edward H

2017-11-01

Pregnancy increases women's nutritional requirements, yet causes aversions to nutritious foods. Most societies further restrict pregnant women's diet with food taboos. Pregnancy food aversions are theorized to protect mothers and fetuses from teratogens and pathogens or increase dietary diversity in response to resource scarcity. Tests of these hypotheses have had mixed results, perhaps because many studies are in Westernized populations with reliable access to food and low exposure to pathogens. If pregnancy food aversions are adaptations, however, then they likely evolved in environments with uncertain access to food and high exposure to pathogens. Pregnancy food taboos, on the other hand, have been theorized to limit resource consumption, mark social identity, or also protect mothers and fetuses from dangerous foods. There have been few tests of evolutionary theories of culturally transmitted food taboos. We investigated these and other theories of psychophysiological food aversions and culturally transmitted food taboos among two non-Western populations of pregnant women in Mysore, India, that vary in food insecurity and exposure to infectious disease. The first was a mixed caste rural farming population ( N = 72), and the second was the Jenu Kurubas , a resettled population of former hunter-gatherers ( N = 30). Women rated their aversions to photos of 31 foods and completed structured interviews that assessed aversions and socially learned avoidances of foods, pathogen exposure, food insecurity, sources of culturally acquired dietary advice, and basic sociodemographic information. Aversions to spicy foods were associated with early trimester and nausea and vomiting, supporting a protective role against plant teratogens. Variation in exposure to pathogens did not explain variation in meat aversions or avoidances, however, raising some doubts about the importance of pathogen avoidance. Aversions to staple foods were common, but were not associated with resource stress, providing mixed support for the role of dietary diversification. Avoided foods outnumbered aversive foods, were believed to be abortifacients or otherwise harmful to the fetus, influenced diet throughout pregnancy, and were largely distinct from aversive foods. These results suggest that aversions target foods with cues of toxicity early in pregnancy, and taboos target suspected abortifacients throughout pregnancy.

Disentangling the Effects of Context Change and Context Familiarity on Latent Inhibition with a Conditioned Taste Aversion Procedure

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De la Casa, L. G.; Mena, A.; Orgaz, A.; Fernandez, A.

2013-01-01

Contextual specificity of Latent Inhibition (LI) has been demonstrated using an ample range of experimental procedures. Context dependence has not been consistently obtained, however, when LI has been induced using a Conditioned Taste Aversion (CTA) procedure. This paper presents two experiments designed to analyze whether the context plays the…

The Role of Search Speed in the Contextual Cueing of Children's Attention.

PubMed

Darby, Kevin; Burling, Joseph; Yoshida, Hanako

2014-01-01

The contextual cueing effect is a robust phenomenon in which repeated exposure to the same arrangement of random elements guides attention to relevant information by constraining search. The effect is measured using an object search task in which a target (e.g., the letter T) is located within repeated or nonrepeated visual contexts (e.g., configurations of the letter L). Decreasing response times for the repeated configurations indicates that contextual information has facilitated search. Although the effect is robust among adult participants, recent attempts to document the effect in children have yielded mixed results. We examined the effect of search speed on contextual cueing with school-aged children, comparing three types of stimuli that promote different search times in order to observe how speed modulates this effect. Reliable effects of search time were found, suggesting that visual search speed uniquely constrains the role of attention toward contextually cued information.

The Role of Search Speed in the Contextual Cueing of Children’s Attention

PubMed Central

Darby, Kevin; Burling, Joseph; Yoshida, Hanako

2013-01-01

The contextual cueing effect is a robust phenomenon in which repeated exposure to the same arrangement of random elements guides attention to relevant information by constraining search. The effect is measured using an object search task in which a target (e.g., the letter T) is located within repeated or nonrepeated visual contexts (e.g., configurations of the letter L). Decreasing response times for the repeated configurations indicates that contextual information has facilitated search. Although the effect is robust among adult participants, recent attempts to document the effect in children have yielded mixed results. We examined the effect of search speed on contextual cueing with school-aged children, comparing three types of stimuli that promote different search times in order to observe how speed modulates this effect. Reliable effects of search time were found, suggesting that visual search speed uniquely constrains the role of attention toward contextually cued information. PMID:24505167

Transfer of memory retrieval cues in rats.

PubMed

Briggs, James F; Fitz, Kelly I; Riccio, David C

2007-06-01

Two experiments using rats were conducted to determine whether the retrieval of a memory could be brought under the control of new contextual cues that had not been present at the time of training. In Experiment 1, rats were trained in one context and then exposed to different contextual cues immediately, 60 min, or 120 min after training. When tested in the shifted context, rats that had been exposed shortly after training treated the shifted context as if it were the original context. The control that the previously neutral context had over retrieval disappeared with longer posttraining delays, suggesting the importance of an active memory representation during exposure. Experiment 2 replicated the basic finding and demonstrated that the transfer of retrieval cues was specific to the contextual cues present during exposure. These findings with rats are consistent with findings from infant research (see, e.g., Boller & Rovee-Collier, 1992) that have shown that a neutral context can come to serve as a retrieval cue for an episode experienced elsewhere.

Explanations for side effect aversion in preventive medical treatment decisions

PubMed Central

Waters, Erika A.; Weinstein, Neil D.; Colditz, Graham A.; Emmons, Karen

2008-01-01

Objective Many laypeople demonstrate excessive sensitivity to negative side effects of medical treatments, which may lead them to refuse beneficial therapies. This Internet-based experiment investigated three possible explanations for such “side effect aversion.” One was derived from mental accounting, one examined the mere presence of a side effect, and one focused on computational difficulties. Design Participants (N = 5,379) were presented with a hypothetical cancer preventive treatment situation that was or was not accompanied by one or two small side effects. The side effects were either beneficial or harmful. In all conditions the net absolute risk reduction associated with the treatment was 15%. Main Outcome Measures Participants indicated their willingness to accept treatment and their perceptions of the treatment’s effects on their overall cancer risk. Results Data were consistent only with the “mere presence” explanation of side effect aversion, the idea that side effects act as a strong negative cue that directly affects treatment appraisal. The number of negative side effects did not influence treatment willingness. Conclusion Side effect aversion is a challenge to informed decision making. Specific mechanisms that produce side effect aversion should be identified. PMID:19290712

Levodopa administration modulates striatal processing of punishment-associated items in healthy participants.

PubMed

Wittmann, Bianca C; D'Esposito, Mark

2015-01-01

Appetitive and aversive processes share a number of features such as their relevance for action and learning. On a neural level, reward and its predictors are associated with increased firing of dopaminergic neurons, whereas punishment processing has been linked to the serotonergic system and to decreases in dopamine transmission. Recent data indicate, however, that the dopaminergic system also responds to aversive stimuli and associated actions. In this pharmacological functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we investigated the contribution of the dopaminergic system to reward and punishment processing in humans. Two groups of participants received either placebo or the dopamine precursor levodopa and were scanned during alternating reward and punishment anticipation blocks. Levodopa administration increased striatal activations for cues presented in punishment blocks. In an interaction with individual personality scores, levodopa also enhanced striatal activation for punishment-predictive compared with neutral cues in participants scoring higher on the novelty-seeking dimension. These data support recent indications that dopamine contributes to punishment processing and suggest that the novelty-seeking trait is a measure of susceptibility to drug effects on motivation. These findings are also consistent with the possibility of an inverted U-shaped response function of dopamine in the striatum, suggesting an optimal level of dopamine release for motivational processing.

Levodopa administration modulates striatal processing of punishment-associated items in healthy participants

PubMed Central

Wittmann, Bianca C.; D’Esposito, Mark

2014-01-01

Rationale Appetitive and aversive processes share a number of features such as their relevance for action and learning. On a neural level, reward and its predictors are associated with increased firing of dopaminergic neurons, whereas punishment processing has been linked to the serotonergic system and to decreases in dopamine transmission. Recent data indicate, however, that the dopaminergic system also responds to aversive stimuli and associated actions. Objectives In this pharmacological functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we investigated the contribution of the dopaminergic system to reward and punishment processing in humans. Methods Two groups of participants received either placebo or the dopamine precursor levodopa and were scanned during alternating reward and punishment anticipation blocks. Results Levodopa administration increased striatal activations for cues presented in punishment blocks. In an interaction with individual personality scores, levodopa also enhanced striatal activation for punishment-predictive compared to neutral cues in participants scoring higher on the novelty-seeking dimension. Conclusions These data support recent indications that dopamine contributes to punishment processing and suggest that the novelty-seeking trait is a measure of susceptibility to drug effects on motivation. These findings are also consistent with the possibility of an inverted U-shaped response function of dopamine in the striatum, suggesting an optimal level of dopamine release for motivational processing. PMID:24923987

A configural dominant account of contextual cueing: Configural cues are stronger than colour cues.

PubMed

Kunar, Melina A; John, Rebecca; Sweetman, Hollie

2014-01-01

Previous work has shown that reaction times to find a target in displays that have been repeated are faster than those for displays that have never been seen before. This learning effect, termed "contextual cueing" (CC), has been shown using contexts such as the configuration of the distractors in the display and the background colour. However, it is not clear how these two contexts interact to facilitate search. We investigated this here by comparing the strengths of these two cues when they appeared together. In Experiment 1, participants searched for a target that was cued by both colour and distractor configural cues, compared with when the target was only predicted by configural information. The results showed that the addition of a colour cue did not increase contextual cueing. In Experiment 2, participants searched for a target that was cued by both colour and distractor configuration compared with when the target was only cued by colour. The results showed that adding a predictive configural cue led to a stronger CC benefit. Experiments 3 and 4 tested the disruptive effects of removing either a learned colour cue or a learned configural cue and whether there was cue competition when colour and configural cues were presented together. Removing the configural cue was more disruptive to CC than removing colour, and configural learning was shown to overshadow the learning of colour cues. The data support a configural dominant account of CC, where configural cues act as the stronger cue in comparison to colour when they are presented together.

Compound Stimulus Presentation Does Not Deepen Extinction in Human Causal Learning

PubMed Central

Griffiths, Oren; Holmes, Nathan; Westbrook, R. Fred

2017-01-01

Models of associative learning have proposed that cue-outcome learning critically depends on the degree of prediction error encountered during training. Two experiments examined the role of error-driven extinction learning in a human causal learning task. Target cues underwent extinction in the presence of additional cues, which differed in the degree to which they predicted the outcome, thereby manipulating outcome expectancy and, in the absence of any change in reinforcement, prediction error. These prediction error manipulations have each been shown to modulate extinction learning in aversive conditioning studies. While both manipulations resulted in increased prediction error during training, neither enhanced extinction in the present human learning task (one manipulation resulted in less extinction at test). The results are discussed with reference to the types of associations that are regulated by prediction error, the types of error terms involved in their regulation, and how these interact with parameters involved in training. PMID:28232809

A Drosophila model for alcohol reward

PubMed Central

Kaun, K.R.; Azanchi, R.; Maung, Z.; Hirsh, J.; Heberlein, U.

2014-01-01

The rewarding properties of drugs contribute to the development of abuse and addiction. Here we present a new assay to investigate the motivational properties of ethanol in the genetically tractable model, Drosophila melanogaster. Flies learn to associate cues with ethanol intoxication and, although transiently aversive, the experience leads to a long-lasting attraction for the ethanol-paired cue, implying that intoxication is rewarding. Temporally blocking transmission in dopaminergic neurons revealed that flies require activation of these neurons to express, but not develop, conditioned preference for ethanol-associated cues. Moreover, flies acquire, consolidate, and retrieve these rewarding memories using distinct sets of neurons of the mushroom body. Finally, mutations in scabrous, encoding a fibrinogen-related peptide that regulates Notch signaling, disrupt the formation of memories for ethanol reward. Our results thus establish that Drosophila can be useful in understanding the molecular, genetic and neural mechanisms underling the rewarding properties of ethanol. PMID:21499254

Beyond Stimulus Cues and Reinforcement Signals: A New Approach to Animal Metacognition

PubMed Central

Couchman, Justin J.; Coutinho, Mariana V. C.; Beran, Michael J.; Smith, J. David

2010-01-01

Some metacognition paradigms for nonhuman animals encourage the alternative explanation that animals avoid difficult trials based only on reinforcement history and stimulus aversion. To explore this possibility, we placed humans and monkeys in successive uncertainty-monitoring tasks that were qualitatively different, eliminating many associative cues that might support transfer across tasks. In addition, task transfer occurred under conditions of deferred and rearranged feedback—both species completed blocks of trials followed by summary feedback. This ensured that animals received no trial-by-trial reinforcement. Despite distancing performance from associative cues, humans and monkeys still made adaptive uncertainty responses by declining the most difficult trials. These findings suggest that monkeys’ uncertainty responses could represent a higher-level, decisional process of cognitive monitoring, though that process need not involve full self-awareness or consciousness. The dissociation of performance from reinforcement has theoretical implications concerning the status of reinforcement as the critical binding force in animal learning. PMID:20836592

Differential effects of cannabinoid receptor agonist on social discrimination and contextual fear in amygdala and hippocampus.

PubMed

Segev, Amir; Akirav, Irit

2011-04-01

We examined whether the cannabinoid receptor agonist WIN55,212-2 (WIN; 5 µg/side) microinjected into the hippocampus or the amygdala would differentially affect memory processes in a neutral vs. an aversive task. In the aversive contextual fear task, WIN into the basolateral amygdala impaired fear acquisition/consolidation, but not retrieval. In the ventral subiculum (vSub), WIN impaired fear retrieval. In the neutral social discrimination task, WIN into the vSub impaired both acquisition/consolidation and retrieval, whereas in the medial amygdala WIN impaired acquisition. The results suggest that cannabinoid signaling differentially affects memory in a task-, region-, and memory stage-dependent manner.

Neurocognitive Development of Risk Aversion from Early Childhood to Adulthood

PubMed Central

Paulsen, David J.; Carter, R. McKell; Platt, Michael L.; Huettel, Scott A.; Brannon, Elizabeth M.

2012-01-01

Human adults tend to avoid risk. In behavioral economic studies, risk aversion is manifest as a preference for sure gains over uncertain gains. However, children tend to be less averse to risk than adults. Given that many of the brain regions supporting decision-making under risk do not reach maturity until late adolescence or beyond it is possible that mature risk-averse behavior may emerge from the development of decision-making circuitry. To explore this hypothesis, we tested 5- to 8-year-old children, 14- to 16-year-old adolescents, and young adults in a risky-decision task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquisition. To our knowledge, this is the youngest sample of children in an fMRI decision-making task. We found a number of decision-related brain regions to increase in activation with age during decision-making, including areas associated with contextual memory retrieval and the incorporation of prior outcomes into the current decision-making strategy, e.g., insula, hippocampus, and amygdala. Further, children who were more risk-averse showed increased activation during decision-making in ventromedial prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum. Our findings indicate that the emergence of adult levels of risk aversion co-occurs with the recruitment of regions supporting decision-making under risk, including the integration of prior outcomes into current decision-making behavior. This pattern of results suggests that individual differences in the development of risk aversion may reflect differences in the maturation of these neural processes. PMID:22291627

Neurocognitive development of risk aversion from early childhood to adulthood.

PubMed

Paulsen, David J; Carter, R McKell; Platt, Michael L; Huettel, Scott A; Brannon, Elizabeth M

2011-01-01

Human adults tend to avoid risk. In behavioral economic studies, risk aversion is manifest as a preference for sure gains over uncertain gains. However, children tend to be less averse to risk than adults. Given that many of the brain regions supporting decision-making under risk do not reach maturity until late adolescence or beyond it is possible that mature risk-averse behavior may emerge from the development of decision-making circuitry. To explore this hypothesis, we tested 5- to 8-year-old children, 14- to 16-year-old adolescents, and young adults in a risky-decision task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquisition. To our knowledge, this is the youngest sample of children in an fMRI decision-making task. We found a number of decision-related brain regions to increase in activation with age during decision-making, including areas associated with contextual memory retrieval and the incorporation of prior outcomes into the current decision-making strategy, e.g., insula, hippocampus, and amygdala. Further, children who were more risk-averse showed increased activation during decision-making in ventromedial prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum. Our findings indicate that the emergence of adult levels of risk aversion co-occurs with the recruitment of regions supporting decision-making under risk, including the integration of prior outcomes into current decision-making behavior. This pattern of results suggests that individual differences in the development of risk aversion may reflect differences in the maturation of these neural processes.

Circadian timed episodic-like memory - a bee knows what to do when, and also where.

PubMed

Pahl, Mario; Zhu, Hong; Pix, Waltraud; Tautz, Juergen; Zhang, Shaowu

2007-10-01

This study investigates how the colour, shape and location of patterns could be memorized within a time frame. Bees were trained to visit two Y-mazes, one of which presented yellow vertical (rewarded) versus horizontal (non-rewarded) gratings at one site in the morning, while another presented blue horizontal (rewarded) versus vertical (non-rewarded) gratings at another site in the afternoon. The bees could perform well in the learning tests and various transfer tests, in which (i) all contextual cues from the learning test were present; (ii) the colour cues of the visual patterns were removed, but the location cue, the orientation of the visual patterns and the temporal cue still existed; (iii) the location cue was removed, but other contextual cues, i.e. the colour and orientation of the visual patterns and the temporal cue still existed; (iv) the location cue and the orientation cue of the visual patterns were removed, but the colour cue and temporal cue still existed; (v) the location cue, and the colour cue of the visual patterns were removed, but the orientation cue and the temporal cue still existed. The results reveal that the honeybee can recall the memory of the correct visual patterns by using spatial and/or temporal information. The relative importance of different contextual cues is compared and discussed. The bees' ability to integrate elements of circadian time, place and visual stimuli is akin to episodic-like memory; we have therefore named this kind of memory circadian timed episodic-like memory.

Modulation of Gene Expression in Contextual Fear Conditioning in the Rat

PubMed Central

Macchi, Monica; Ciampini, Cristina; Bernardi, Rodolfo; Baldi, Elisabetta; Bucherelli, Corrado; Brunelli, Marcello; Scuri, Rossana

2013-01-01

In contextual fear conditioning (CFC) a single training leads to long-term memory of context-aversive electrical foot-shocks association. Mid-temporal regions of the brain of trained and naive rats were obtained 2 days after conditioning and screened by two-directional suppression subtractive hybridization. A pool of differentially expressed genes was identified and some of them were randomly selected and confirmed with qRT-PCR assay. These transcripts showed high homology for rat gene sequences coding for proteins involved in different cellular processes. The expression of the selected transcripts was also tested in rats which had freely explored the experimental apparatus (exploration) and in rats to which the same number of aversive shocks had been administered in the same apparatus, but temporally compressed so as to make the association between painful stimuli and the apparatus difficult (shock-only). Some genes resulted differentially expressed only in the rats subjected to CFC, others only in exploration or shock-only rats, whereas the gene coding for translocase of outer mitochondrial membrane 20 protein and nardilysin were differentially expressed in both CFC and exploration rats. For example, the expression of stathmin 1 whose transcripts resulted up regulated was also tested to evaluate the transduction and protein localization after conditioning. PMID:24278235

Hippocampal Erk Mechanisms Linking Prediction Error to Fear Extinction: Roles of Shock Expectancy and Contextual Aversive Valence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huh, Kyu Hwan; Guzman, Yomayra F.; Tronson, Natalie C.; Guedea, Anita L.; Gao, Can; Radulovic, Jelena

2009-01-01

Extinction of fear requires learning that anticipated aversive events no longer occur. Animal models reveal that sustained phosphorylation of the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (Erk) in hippocampal CA1 neurons plays an important role in this process. However, the key signals triggering and regulating the activity of Erk are not known. By…

Food Avoidance Learning in Squirrel Monkeys and Common Marmosets

PubMed Central

Laska, Matthias; Metzker, Karin

1998-01-01

Using a conditioned food avoidance learning paradigm, six squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) and six common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) were tested for their ability to (1) reliably form associations between visual or olfactory cues of a potential food and its palatability and (2) remember such associations over prolonged periods of time. We found (1) that at the group level both species showed one-trial learning with the visual cues color and shape, whereas only the marmosets were able to do so with the olfactory cue, (2) that all individuals from both species learned to reliably avoid the unpalatable food items within 10 trials, (3) a tendency in both species for quicker acquisition of the association with the visual cues compared with the olfactory cue, (4) a tendency for quicker acquisition and higher reliability of the aversion by the marmosets compared with the squirrel monkeys, and (5) that all individuals from both species were able to reliably remember the significance of the visual cues, color and shape, even after 4 months, whereas only the marmosets showed retention of the significance of the olfactory cues for up to 4 weeks. Furthermore, the results suggest that in both species tested, illness is not a necessary prerequisite for food avoidance learning but that the presumably innate rejection responses toward highly concentrated but nontoxic bitter and sour tastants are sufficient to induce robust learning and retention. PMID:10454364

I don't want the money, I just want your time: How moral identity overcomes the aversion to giving time to prosocial causes.

PubMed

Reed, Americus; Kay, Adam; Finnel, Stephanie; Aquino, Karl; Levy, Eric

2016-03-01

Four studies show that moral identity reduces people's aversion to giving time-particularly as the psychological costs of doing so increase. In Study 1, we demonstrate that even when the cost of time and money are held equivalent, a moral cue enhances the expected self-expressivity of giving time-especially when it is given to a moral cause. We found that a moral cue reduces time aversion even when giving time was perceived to be unpleasant (Study 2), or when the time to be given was otherwise seen to be scarce (Study 3). Study 4 builds on these studies by examining actual giving while accounting for the real costs of time. In this study, we found that the chronic salience of moral identity serves as a buffer to time aversion, specifically as giving time becomes increasingly costly. These findings are discussed in terms of the time-versus-money literature and the identity literature. We also discuss policy implications for prosocial cause initiatives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

DAT genotype modulates striatal processing and long-term memory for items associated with reward and punishment☆

PubMed Central

Wittmann, Bianca C.; Tan, Geoffrey C.; Lisman, John E.; Dolan, Raymond J.; Düzel, Emrah

2013-01-01

Previous studies have shown that appetitive motivation enhances episodic memory formation via a network including the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area (SN/VTA), striatum and hippocampus. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study now contrasted the impact of aversive and appetitive motivation on episodic long-term memory. Cue pictures predicted monetary reward or punishment in alternating experimental blocks. One day later, episodic memory for the cue pictures was tested. We also investigated how the neural processing of appetitive and aversive motivation and episodic memory were modulated by dopaminergic mechanisms. To that end, participants were selected on the basis of their genotype for a variable number of tandem repeat polymorphism of the dopamine transporter (DAT) gene. The resulting groups were carefully matched for the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism of the serotonin transporter gene. Recognition memory for cues from both motivational categories was enhanced in participants homozygous for the 10-repeat allele of the DAT, the functional effects of which are not known yet, but not in heterozygous subjects. In comparison with heterozygous participants, 10-repeat homozygous participants also showed increased striatal activity for anticipation of motivational outcomes compared to neutral outcomes. In a subsequent memory analysis, encoding activity in striatum and hippocampus was found to be higher for later recognized items in 10-repeat homozygotes compared to 9/10-repeat heterozygotes. These findings suggest that processing of appetitive and aversive motivation in the human striatum involve the dopaminergic system and that dopamine plays a role in memory for both types of motivational information. In accordance with animal studies, these data support the idea that encoding of motivational events depends on dopaminergic processes in the hippocampus. PMID:23911780

Previous Institutionalization Is Followed by Broader Amygdala-Hippocampal-PFC Network Connectivity during Aversive Learning in Human Development.

PubMed

Silvers, Jennifer A; Lumian, Daniel S; Gabard-Durnam, Laurel; Gee, Dylan G; Goff, Bonnie; Fareri, Dominic S; Caldera, Christina; Flannery, Jessica; Telzer, Eva H; Humphreys, Kathryn L; Tottenham, Nim

2016-06-15

Early institutional care can be profoundly stressful for the human infant, and, as such, can lead to significant alterations in brain development. In animal models, similar variants of early adversity have been shown to modify amygdala-hippocampal-prefrontal cortex development and associated aversive learning. The current study examined this rearing aberration in human development. Eighty-nine children and adolescents who were either previously institutionalized (PI youth; N = 46; 33 females and 13 males; age range, 7-16 years) or were raised by their biological parents from birth (N = 43; 22 females and 21 males; age range, 7-16 years) completed an aversive-learning paradigm while undergoing functional neuroimaging, wherein visual cues were paired with either an aversive sound (CS+) or no sound (CS-). For the PI youth, better aversive learning was associated with higher concurrent trait anxiety. Both groups showed robust learning and amygdala activation for CS+ versus CS- trials. However, PI youth also exhibited broader recruitment of several regions and increased hippocampal connectivity with prefrontal cortex. Stronger connectivity between the hippocampus and ventromedial PFC predicted significant improvements in future anxiety (measured 2 years later), and this was particularly true within the PI group. These results suggest that for humans as well as for other species, early adversity alters the neurobiology of aversive learning by engaging a broader prefrontal-subcortical circuit than same-aged peers. These differences are interpreted as ontogenetic adaptations and potential sources of resilience. Prior institutionalization is a significant form of early adversity. While nonhuman animal research suggests that early adversity alters aversive learning and associated neurocircuitry, no prior work has examined this in humans. Here, we show that youth who experienced prior institutionalization, but not comparison youth, recruit the hippocampus during aversive learning. Among youth who experienced prior institutionalization, individual differences in aversive learning were associated with worse current anxiety. However, connectivity between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex prospectively predicted significant improvements in anxiety 2 years following scanning for previously institutionalized youth. Among youth who experienced prior institutionalization, age-atypical engagement of a distributed set of brain regions during aversive learning may serve a protective function. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/366421-11$15.00/0.

Encoding and retrieval processes involved in the access of source information in the absence of item memory.

PubMed

Ball, B Hunter; DeWitt, Michael R; Knight, Justin B; Hicks, Jason L

2014-09-01

The current study sought to examine the relative contributions of encoding and retrieval processes in accessing contextual information in the absence of item memory using an extralist cuing procedure in which the retrieval cues used to query memory for contextual information were related to the target item but never actually studied. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants studied 1 category member (e.g., onion) from a variety of different categories and at test were presented with an unstudied category label (e.g., vegetable) to probe memory for item and source information. In Experiments 3 and 4, 1 member of unidirectional (e.g., credit or card) or bidirectional (e.g., salt or pepper) associates was studied, whereas the other unstudied member served as a test probe. When recall failed, source information was accessible only when items were processed deeply during encoding (Experiments 1 and 2) and when there was strong forward associative strength between the retrieval cue and target (Experiments 3 and 4). These findings suggest that a retrieval probe diagnostic of semantically related item information reinstantiates information bound in memory during encoding that results in reactivation of associated contextual information, contingent upon sufficient learning of the item itself and the association between the item and its context information.

The Future of Contextual Fear Learning for PTSD Research: A Methodological Review of Neuroimaging Studies.

PubMed

Glenn, Daniel E; Risbrough, Victoria B; Simmons, Alan N; Acheson, Dean T; Stout, Daniel M

2017-10-21

There has been a great deal of recent interest in human models of contextual fear learning, particularly due to the use of such paradigms for investigating neural mechanisms related to the etiology of posttraumatic stress disorder. However, the construct of "context" in fear conditioning research is broad, and the operational definitions and methods used to investigate contextual fear learning in humans are wide ranging and lack specificity, making it difficult to interpret findings about neural activity. Here we will review neuroimaging studies of contextual fear acquisition in humans. We will discuss the methodology associated with four broad categories of how contextual fear learning is manipulated in imaging studies (colored backgrounds, static picture backgrounds, virtual reality, and configural stimuli) and highlight findings for the primary neural circuitry involved in each paradigm. Additionally, we will offer methodological recommendations for human studies of contextual fear acquisition, including using stimuli that distinguish configural learning from discrete cue associations and clarifying how context is experimentally operationalized.

The role of meaning in contextual cueing: evidence from chess expertise.

PubMed

Brockmole, James R; Hambrick, David Z; Windisch, David J; Henderson, John M

2008-01-01

In contextual cueing, the position of a search target is learned over repeated exposures to a visual display. The strength of this effect varies across stimulus types. For example, real-world scene contexts give rise to larger search benefits than contexts composed of letters or shapes. We investigated whether such differences in learning can be at least partially explained by the degree of semantic meaning associated with a context independently of the nature of the visual information available (which also varies across stimulus types). Chess boards served as the learning context as their meaningfulness depends on the observer's knowledge of the game. In Experiment 1, boards depicted actual game play, and search benefits for repeated boards were 4 times greater for experts than for novices. In Experiment 2, search benefits among experts were halved when less meaningful randomly generated boards were used. Thus, stimulus meaningfulness independently contributes to learning context-target associations.

Proactive interference and cuing effects in short-term cued recall: does foil context matter?

PubMed

Goh, Winston D; Tan, Huiqin

2006-07-01

Tehan and Humphreys's (1995, 1996) short-term cued recall paradigm showed that recall in short-term memory is cue driven. In critical trials, the participants studied two blocks of four words each and were required to forget the first block while remembering the second block. A foil in the first block (e.g., orange) was related to a target (e.g., carrot) in the second block. Proactive interference (PI) was evident when a retrieval cue was used that subsumed the foil and the target (e.g., type of juice), but not when a cue was used that subsumed only the target (e.g., type of vegetable). Four experiments were performed to examine the extent to which contextual organization in the foil block would enhance or diminish the foil's efficacy in creating PI. A novel condition was included in which the words in the foil block were studied in a phonologically related context but the target was cued semantically, and vice versa with a semantic context and phonological cue. There were no differences in recall accuracy between conditions with and without contextual organization, but reliable increases in foil intrusions were observed when contextual organization was present. Contextual organization enhanced the foil, rather than diminished it, but the strengthened foil generated PI only when the cue subsumed the foil and the target and had no effect when the cue subsumed only the target. The results are consistent with a cue-driven retrieval interpretation of short-term recall.

Developmental emergence of fear/threat learning: neurobiology, associations and timing

PubMed Central

Tallot, L.; Doyère, V.; Sullivan, R. M.

2016-01-01

Pavlovian fear or threat conditioning, where a neutral stimulus takes on aversive properties through pairing with an aversive stimulus, has been an important tool for exploring the neurobiology of learning. In the past decades, this neurobehavioral approach has been expanded to include the developing infant. Indeed, protracted postnatal brain development permits the exploration of how incorporating the amygdala, prefrontal cortex and hippocampus into this learning system impacts the acquisition and expression of aversive conditioning. Here, we review the developmental trajectory of these key brain areas involved in aversive conditioning and relate it to pups’ transition to independence through weaning. Overall, the data suggests that adult-like features of threat learning emerge as the relevant brain areas become incorporated into this learning. Specifically, the developmental emergence of the amygdala permits cue learning and the emergence of the hippocampus permits context learning. We also describe unique features of learning in early life that block threat learning and enhance interaction with the mother or exploration of the environment. Finally, we describe the development of a sense of time within this learning and its involvement in creating associations. Together these data suggest that the development of threat learning is a useful tool for dissecting adult-like functioning of brain circuits, as well as providing unique insights into ecologically relevant developmental changes. PMID:26534899

Behavioral Cues in the Judgment of Marital Satisfaction: A Linear Regression Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Royce, W. Stephen; Weiss, Robert L.

1975-01-01

Forty undergraduate judges watched videotaped interactions of couples and rated their marital satisfaction based on certain behavioral cues. Results indicate: untrained judges were able to discriminate marital satisfaction/distress with significant validity; judges' ratings were correlated with couples' aversive behavior; and the actuarial…

Excitotoxic lesions of the infralimbic, but not prelimbic cortex facilitate reversal of appetitive discriminative context conditioning: the role of the infralimbic cortex in context generalization

PubMed Central

Ashwell, Rachel; Ito, Rutsuko

2014-01-01

The prelimbic and infralimbic regions of the rat medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) are important components of the limbic cortico-striatal circuit, receiving converging projections from the hippocampus (HPC) and amygdala. Mounting evidence points to these regions having opposing roles in the regulation of the expression of contextual fear and context-induced cocaine-seeking. To investigate this functional differentiation in motivated behavior further, this study employed a novel radial maze task previously shown to be dependent on the integrity of the hippocampus and its functional connection to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) shell, to investigate the effects of selective excitotoxic lesions of the prelimbic (PL) and infralimbic (IL) upon the spatial contextual control over reward learning. To this end, rats were trained to develop discriminative responding towards a reward-associated discrete cue presented in three out of six spatial locations (3 arms out of 6 radial maze arms), and to avoid the same discrete cue presented in the other three spatial locations. Once acquired, the reward contingencies of the spatial locations were reversed, such that responding to the cue presented in a previously rewarded location was no longer rewarded. Furthermore, the acquisition of spatial learning was probed separately using conditioned place preference (CPP) and the monitoring of arm selection at the beginning of each training session. Lesions of the PL transiently attenuated the acquisition of the initial cue approach training and spatial learning, while leaving reversal learning intact. In contrast, IL lesions led to a significantly superior performance of spatial context-dependent discriminative cue approach and reversal learning, in the absence of a significant preference for the new reward-associated spatial locations. These results indicate that the PL and IL have functionally dissociative, and potentially opposite roles in the regulation of spatial contextual control over appetitive learning. PMID:24616678

Retrieving autobiographical memories: How different retrieval strategies associated with different cues explain reaction time differences.

PubMed

Uzer, Tugba

2016-02-01

Previous research has shown that memories cued by concrete concepts, such as objects, are retrieved faster than those cued by more abstract concepts, such as emotions. This effect has been explained by the fact that more memories are directly retrieved from object versus emotion cues. In the present study, we tested whether RT differences between memories cued by emotion versus object terms occur not only because object cues elicit direct retrieval of more memories (Uzer, Lee, & Brown, 2012), but also because of differences in memory generation in response to emotions versus objects. One hundred university students retrieved memories in response to basic-level (e.g. orange), superordinate-level (e.g. plant), and emotion (e.g. surprised) cues. Retrieval speed was measured and participants reported whether memories were directly retrieved or generated on each trial. Results showed that memories were retrieved faster in response to basic-level versus superordinate-level and emotion cues because a) basic-level cues elicited more directly retrieved memories, and b) generating memories was more difficult when cues were abstract versus concrete. These results suggest that generative retrieval is a cue generation process in which additional cues that provide contextual information including the target event are produced. Memories are retrieved more slowly in response to emotion cues in part because emotion labels are less effective cues of appropriate contextual information. This particular finding is inconsistent with the idea that emotion is a primary organizational unit for autobiographical memories. In contrast, the difficulty of emotional memory generation implies that emotions represent low-level event information in the organization of autobiographical memory. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

When fear forms memories: threat of shock and brain potentials during encoding and recognition.

PubMed

Weymar, Mathias; Bradley, Margaret M; Hamm, Alfons O; Lang, Peter J

2013-03-01

The anticipation of highly aversive events is associated with measurable defensive activation, and both animal and human research suggests that stress-inducing contexts can facilitate memory. Here, we investigated whether encoding stimuli in the context of anticipating an aversive shock affects recognition memory. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured during a recognition test for words that were encoded in a font color that signaled threat or safety. At encoding, cues signaling threat of shock, compared to safety, prompted enhanced P2 and P3 components. Correct recognition of words encoded in the context of threat, compared to safety, was associated with an enhanced old-new ERP difference (500-700 msec; centro-parietal), and this difference was most reliable for emotional words. Moreover, larger old-new ERP differences when recognizing emotional words encoded in a threatening context were associated with better recognition, compared to words encoded in safety. Taken together, the data indicate enhanced memory for stimuli encoded in a context in which an aversive event is merely anticipated, which could assist in understanding effects of anxiety and stress on memory processes. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

On the motivational properties of reward cues: Individual differences.

PubMed

Robinson, Terry E; Yager, Lindsay M; Cogan, Elizabeth S; Saunders, Benjamin T

2014-01-01

Cues associated with rewards, such as food or drugs of abuse, can themselves acquire motivational properties. Acting as incentive stimuli, such cues can exert powerful control over motivated behavior, and in the case of cues associated with drugs, they can goad continued drug-seeking behavior and relapse. However, recent studies reviewed here suggest that there are large individual differences in the extent to which food and drug cues are attributed with incentive salience. Rats prone to approach reward cues (sign-trackers) attribute greater motivational value to discrete localizable cues and interoceptive cues than do rats less prone to approach reward cues (goal-trackers). In contrast, contextual cues appear to exert greater control over motivated behavior in goal-trackers than sign-trackers. It is possible to predict, therefore, before any experience with drugs, in which animals specific classes of drug cues will most likely reinstate drug-seeking behavior. The finding that different individuals may be sensitive to different triggers capable of motivating behavior and producing relapse suggests there may be different pathways to addiction, and has implications for thinking about individualized treatment. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled 'NIDA 40th Anniversary Issue'. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Self-construal differences in neural responses to negative social cues.

PubMed

Liddell, Belinda J; Felmingham, Kim L; Das, Pritha; Whitford, Thomas J; Malhi, Gin S; Battaglini, Eva; Bryant, Richard A

2017-10-01

Cultures differ substantially in representations of the self. Whereas individualistic cultural groups emphasize an independent self, reflected in processing biases towards centralized salient objects, collectivistic cultures are oriented towards an interdependent self, attending to contextual associations between visual cues. It is unknown how these perceptual biases may affect brain activity in response to negative social cues. Moreover, while some studies have shown that individual differences in self-construal moderate cultural group comparisons, few have examined self-construal differences separate to culture. To investigate these issues, a final sample of a group of healthy participants high in trait levels of collectivistic self-construal (n=16) and individualistic self-construal (n=19), regardless of cultural background, completed a negative social cue evaluation task designed to engage face/object vs context-specific neural processes whilst undergoing fMRI scanning. Between-group analyses revealed that the collectivistic group exclusively engaged the parahippocampal gyrus (parahippocampal place area) - a region critical to contextual integration - during negative face processing - suggesting compensatory activations when contextual information was missing. The collectivist group also displayed enhanced negative context dependent brain activity involving the left superior occipital gyrus/cuneus and right anterior insula. By contrast, the individualistic group did not engage object or localized face processing regions as predicted, but rather demonstrated heightened appraisal and self-referential activations in medial prefrontal and temporoparietal regions to negative contexts - again suggesting compensatory processes when focal cues were absent. While individualists also appeared more sensitive to negative faces in the scenes, activating the right middle cingulate gyrus, dorsal prefrontal and parietal activations, this activity was observed relative to the scrambled baseline, and given that prefrontal and occipital regions were also engaged to neutral stimuli, may suggest an individualistic pattern to processing all social cues more generally. These findings suggest that individual differences in self-construal may be an important organizing framework facilitating perceptual processes to emotionally salient social cues, beyond the boundary of cultural group comparisons. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Context cue focality influences strategic prospective memory monitoring.

PubMed

Hunter Ball, B; Bugg, Julie M

2018-02-12

Monitoring the environment for the occurrence of prospective memory (PM) targets is a resource-demanding process that produces cost (e.g., slower responding) to ongoing activities. However, research suggests that individuals are able to monitor strategically by using contextual cues to reduce monitoring in contexts in which PM targets are not expected to occur. In the current study, we investigated the processes supporting context identification (i.e., determining whether or not the context is appropriate for monitoring) by testing the context cue focality hypothesis. This hypothesis predicts that the ability to monitor strategically depends on whether the ongoing task orients attention to the contextual cues that are available to guide monitoring. In Experiment 1, participants performed an ongoing lexical decision task and were told that PM targets (TOR syllable) would only occur in word trials (focal context cue condition) or in items starting with consonants (nonfocal context cue condition). In Experiment 2, participants performed an ongoing first letter judgment (consonant/vowel) task and were told that PM targets would only occur in items starting with consonants (focal context cue condition) or in word trials (nonfocal context cue condition). Consistent with the context cue focality hypothesis, strategic monitoring was only observed during focal context cue conditions in which the type of ongoing task processing automatically oriented attention to the relevant features of the contextual cue. These findings suggest that strategic monitoring is dependent on limited-capacity processing resources and may be relatively limited when the attentional demands of context identification are sufficiently high.

Nipping cue reactivity in the bud: baclofen prevents limbic activation elicited by subliminal drug cues.

PubMed

Young, Kimberly A; Franklin, Teresa R; Roberts, David C S; Jagannathan, Kanchana; Suh, Jesse J; Wetherill, Reagan R; Wang, Ze; Kampman, Kyle M; O'Brien, Charles P; Childress, Anna Rose

2014-04-02

Relapse is a widely recognized and difficult to treat feature of the addictions. Substantial evidence implicates cue-triggered activation of the mesolimbic dopamine system as an important contributing factor. Even drug cues presented outside of conscious awareness (i.e., subliminally) produce robust activation within this circuitry, indicating the sensitivity and vulnerability of the brain to potentially problematic reward signals. Because pharmacological agents that prevent these early cue-induced responses could play an important role in relapse prevention, we examined whether baclofen-a GABAB receptor agonist that reduces mesolimbic dopamine release and conditioned drug responses in laboratory animals-could inhibit mesolimbic activation elicited by subliminal cocaine cues in cocaine-dependent individuals. Twenty cocaine-dependent participants were randomized to receive baclofen (60 mg/d; 20 mg t.i.d.) or placebo. Event-related BOLD fMRI and a backward-masking paradigm were used to examine the effects of baclofen on subliminal cocaine (vs neutral) cues. Sexual and aversive cues were included to examine specificity. We observed that baclofen-treated participants displayed significantly less activation in response to subliminal cocaine (vs neutral) cues, but not sexual or aversive (vs neutral) cues, than placebo-treated participants in a large interconnected bilateral cluster spanning the ventral striatum, ventral pallidum, amygdala, midbrain, and orbitofrontal cortex (voxel threshold p < 0.005; cluster corrected at p < 0.05). These results suggest that baclofen may inhibit the earliest type of drug cue-induced motivational processing-that which occurs outside of awareness-before it evolves into a less manageable state.

Nipping Cue Reactivity in the Bud: Baclofen Prevents Limbic Activation Elicited by Subliminal Drug Cues

PubMed Central

Young, Kimberly A.; Franklin, Teresa R.; Roberts, David C.S.; Jagannathan, Kanchana; Suh, Jesse J.; Wetherill, Reagan R.; Wang, Ze; Kampman, Kyle M.; O'Brien, Charles P.

2014-01-01

Relapse is a widely recognized and difficult to treat feature of the addictions. Substantial evidence implicates cue-triggered activation of the mesolimbic dopamine system as an important contributing factor. Even drug cues presented outside of conscious awareness (i.e., subliminally) produce robust activation within this circuitry, indicating the sensitivity and vulnerability of the brain to potentially problematic reward signals. Because pharmacological agents that prevent these early cue-induced responses could play an important role in relapse prevention, we examined whether baclofen—a GABAB receptor agonist that reduces mesolimbic dopamine release and conditioned drug responses in laboratory animals—could inhibit mesolimbic activation elicited by subliminal cocaine cues in cocaine-dependent individuals. Twenty cocaine-dependent participants were randomized to receive baclofen (60 mg/d; 20 mg t.i.d.) or placebo. Event-related BOLD fMRI and a backward-masking paradigm were used to examine the effects of baclofen on subliminal cocaine (vs neutral) cues. Sexual and aversive cues were included to examine specificity. We observed that baclofen-treated participants displayed significantly less activation in response to subliminal cocaine (vs neutral) cues, but not sexual or aversive (vs neutral) cues, than placebo-treated participants in a large interconnected bilateral cluster spanning the ventral striatum, ventral pallidum, amygdala, midbrain, and orbitofrontal cortex (voxel threshold p < 0.005; cluster corrected at p < 0.05). These results suggest that baclofen may inhibit the earliest type of drug cue-induced motivational processing—that which occurs outside of awareness—before it evolves into a less manageable state. PMID:24695721

Contextual Cueing in Multiconjunction Visual Search Is Dependent on Color- and Configuration-Based Intertrial Contingencies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Geyer, Thomas; Shi, Zhuanghua; Muller, Hermann J.

2010-01-01

Three experiments examined memory-based guidance of visual search using a modified version of the contextual-cueing paradigm (Jiang & Chun, 2001). The target, if present, was a conjunction of color and orientation, with target (and distractor) features randomly varying across trials (multiconjunction search). Under these conditions, reaction times…

Central and Peripheral Vision Loss Differentially Affects Contextual Cueing in Visual Search

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Geringswald, Franziska; Pollmann, Stefan

2015-01-01

Visual search for targets in repeated displays is more efficient than search for the same targets in random distractor layouts. Previous work has shown that this contextual cueing is severely impaired under central vision loss. Here, we investigated whether central vision loss, simulated with gaze-contingent displays, prevents the incidental…

Adolescent Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Self-Processes and Contextual Cues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wentzel, Kathryn R.; Filisetti, Laurence; Looney, Lisa

2007-01-01

Peer- and teacher-reported prosocial behavior of 339 6th-grade (11-12 years) and 8th-grade (13-14 years) students was examined in relation to prosocial goals, self-processes (reasons for behavior, empathy, perspective taking, depressive affect, perceived competence), and contextual cues (expectations of peers and teachers). Goal pursuit…

Misleading contextual cues: how do they affect visual search?

PubMed

Manginelli, Angela A; Pollmann, Stefan

2009-03-01

Contextual cueing occurs when repetitions of the distractor configuration are implicitly learned. This implicit learning leads to faster search times in repeated displays. Here, we investigated how search adapts to a change of the target location in old displays from a consistent location in the learning phase to a consistent new location in the transfer phase. In agreement with the literature, contextual cueing was accompanied by fewer fixations, a more efficient scan path and, specifically, an earlier onset of a monotonic gaze approach phase towards the target location in repeated displays. When the repeated context was no longer predictive of the old target location, search times and number of fixations for old displays increased to the level of novel displays. Along with this, scan paths for old and new displays became equally efficient. After the target location change, there was a bias of exploration towards the old target location, which soon disappeared. Thus, change of implicitly learned spatial relations between target and distractor configuration eliminated the advantageous effects of contextual cueing, but did not lead to a lasting impairment of search in repeated displays relative to novel displays.

How is spatial context learning integrated over signal versus noise? A primacy effect in contextual cueing.

PubMed

Jungé, Justin A; Scholl, Brian J; Chun, Marvin M

2007-01-01

Over repeated exposure to particular visual search displays, subjects are able to implicitly extract regularities that then make search more efficient-a phenomenon known as contextual cueing. Here we explore how the learning involved in contextual cueing is formed, maintained, and updated over experience. During an initial training phase, a group of signal first subjects searched through a series of predictive displays (where distractor locations were perfectly correlated with the target location), followed with no overt break by a series of unpredictive displays (where repeated contexts were uncorrelated with target locations). A second noise first group of subjects encountered the unpredictive displays followed by the predictive displays. Despite the fact that both groups had the same overall exposure to signal and noise, only the signal first group demonstrated subsequent contextual cueing. This primacy effect indicates that initial experience can result in hypotheses about regularities in displays-or the lack thereof-which then become resistant to updating. The absence of regularities in early stages of training even blocked observers from learning predictive regularities later on.

How is spatial context learning integrated over signal versus noise? A primacy effect in contextual cueing

PubMed Central

Jungé, Justin A.; Scholl, Brian J.; Chun, Marvin M.

2008-01-01

Over repeated exposure to particular visual search displays, subjects are able to implicitly extract regularities that then make search more efficient—a phenomenon known as contextual cueing. Here we explore how the learning involved in contextual cueing is formed, maintained, and updated over experience. During an initial training phase, a group of signal first subjects searched through a series of predictive displays (where distractor locations were perfectly correlated with the target location), followed with no overt break by a series of unpredictive displays (where repeated contexts were uncorrelated with target locations). A second noise first group of subjects encountered the unpredictive displays followed by the predictive displays. Despite the fact that both groups had the same overall exposure to signal and noise, only the signal first group demonstrated subsequent contextual cueing. This primacy effect indicates that initial experience can result in hypotheses about regularities in displays—or the lack thereof—which then become resistant to updating. The absence of regularities in early stages of training even blocked observers from learning predictive regularities later on. PMID:18725966

Sexual behavior modulates contextual fear memory through dopamine D1/D5 receptors.

PubMed

Bai, Hua-Yi; Cao, Jun; Liu, Na; Xu, Lin; Luo, Jian-Hong

2009-03-01

Traumatic events always lead to aversive emotional memory, i.e., fear memory. In contrast, positive events in daily life such as sex experiences seem to reduce aversive memory after aversive events. Thus, we hypothesized that post-traumatic pleasurable experiences, especially instinctive behaviors such as sex, might modulate traumatic memory through a memory competition mechanism. Here, we first report that male rats persistently expressed much lower fear responses when exposed to females, but not when exposed to males, for 24 h immediately after contextual fear conditioning. Remarkably, this effect of sexual behavior was blocked by either systemic or intrahippocampal injection of the dopamine D1/D5 receptor antagonist R(+)-7-chloro-8-hydroxy-3-methyl-1-phenyl-2,3,4,5-tetrahydro-1H-3-benzazepine hydrochloride (SCH23390) and was mimicked by systemic but not intrahippocampal injection of the D1/D5 receptor agonist R(+)-1-phenyl-2,3,4,5-tetrahydro-1H-3-benzazepine-7,8-diol hydrochloride (SKF39393). Furthermore, as a candidate mechanism underlying contextual fear memory, the impaired induction of hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) elicited by conditioned fear was rescued in male rats immediately exposed to female but not male rats for 24 h. Systemic injection of the dopamine D1/D5 receptor antagonist SCH23390 or agonist SKF38393 prevented or mimicked the effect of sexual behavior on the impaired induction of hippocampal LTP. Thus, our finding suggests that dopaminergic functions may, at least partially, govern competition between contextual fear and enjoyable memories through the modulation of hippocampal LTP.

Eliciting nicotine craving with virtual smoking cues.

PubMed

Gamito, Pedro; Oliveira, Jorge; Baptista, André; Morais, Diogo; Lopes, Paulo; Rosa, Pedro; Santos, Nuno; Brito, Rodrigo

2014-08-01

Craving is a strong desire to consume that emerges in every case of substance addiction. Previous studies have shown that eliciting craving with an exposure cues protocol can be a useful option for the treatment of nicotine dependence. Thus, the main goal of this study was to develop a virtual platform in order to induce craving in smokers. Fifty-five undergraduate students were randomly assigned to two different virtual environments: high arousal contextual cues and low arousal contextual cues scenarios (17 smokers with low nicotine dependency were excluded). An eye-tracker system was used to evaluate attention toward these cues. Eye fixation on smoking-related cues differed between smokers and nonsmokers, indicating that smokers focused more often on smoking-related cues than nonsmokers. Self-reports of craving are in agreement with these results and suggest a significant increase in craving after exposure to smoking cues. In sum, these data support the use of virtual environments for eliciting craving.

Contextual cueing of tactile search is coded in an anatomical reference frame.

PubMed

Assumpção, Leonardo; Shi, Zhuanghua; Zang, Xuelian; Müller, Hermann J; Geyer, Thomas

2018-04-01

This work investigates the reference frame(s) underlying tactile context memory, a form of statistical learning in a tactile (finger) search task. In this task, if a searched-for target object is repeatedly encountered within a stable spatial arrangement of task-irrelevant distractors, detecting the target becomes more efficient over time (relative to nonrepeated arrangements), as learned target-distractor spatial associations come to guide tactile search, thus cueing attention to the target location. Since tactile search displays can be represented in several reference frames, including multiple external and an anatomical frame, in Experiment 1 we asked whether repeated search displays are represented in tactile memory with reference to an environment-centered or anatomical reference frame. In Experiment 2, we went on examining a hand-centered versus anatomical reference frame of tactile context memory. Observers performed a tactile search task, divided into a learning and test session. At the transition between the two sessions, we introduced postural manipulations of the hands (crossed ↔ uncrossed in Expt. 1; palm-up ↔ palm-down in Expt. 2) to determine the reference frame of tactile contextual cueing. In both experiments, target-distractor associations acquired during learning transferred to the test session when the placement of the target and distractors was held constant in anatomical, but not external, coordinates. In the latter, RTs were even slower for repeated displays. We conclude that tactile contextual learning is coded in an anatomical reference frame. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Contextual match and cue-independence of retrieval-induced forgetting: Testing the prediction of the model by Norman, Newman, and Detre (2007).

PubMed

Hanczakowski, Maciej; Mazzoni, Giuliana

2013-05-01

Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) is the finding of impaired memory performance for information stored in long-term memory due to retrieval of a related set of information. This phenomenon is often assigned to operations of a specialized mechanism recruited to resolve interference during retrieval by deactivating competing memory representations. This inhibitory account is supported by, among others, findings showing that RIF occurs with independent cues not used during retrieval practice. However, these findings are not always consistent. Recently, Norman, Newman, and Detre (2007) have proposed a model that aims at resolving discrepancies concerning cue-independence of RIF. The model predicts that RIF should be present with independent cues when episodic associations are created between independent cues and their targets in the same episodic context that is later used to cue memory during retrieval practice. In the present study we aimed to test this prediction. We associated studied items with semantically unrelated words during the main study phase of the retrieval practice paradigm, and we tested memory with both cues used during retrieval practice (Experiment 2) and episodic associates serving as independent cues (Experiments 3a and 3b). Although RIF was present when the same cues were used during retrieval practice and a final test, contrary to the prediction formulated by Norman et al., RIF failed to emerge when episodic associates were employed as independent cues.

Distinct Contributions of Ventromedial and Dorsolateral Subregions of the Human Substantia Nigra to Appetitive and Aversive Learning

PubMed Central

Larsen, Tobias; Collette, Sven; Tyszka, Julian M.; Seymour, Ben; O'Doherty, John P.

2015-01-01

The role of neurons in the substantia nigra (SN) and ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain in contributing to the elicitation of reward prediction errors during appetitive learning has been well established. Less is known about the differential contribution of these midbrain regions to appetitive versus aversive learning, especially in humans. Here we scanned human participants with high-resolution fMRI focused on the SN and VTA while they participated in a sequential Pavlovian conditioning paradigm involving an appetitive outcome (a pleasant juice), as well as an aversive outcome (an unpleasant bitter and salty flavor). We found a degree of regional specialization within the SN: Whereas a region of ventromedial SN correlated with a temporal difference reward prediction error during appetitive Pavlovian learning, a dorsolateral area correlated instead with an aversive expected value signal in response to the most distal cue, and to a reward prediction error in response to the most proximal cue to the aversive outcome. Furthermore, participants' affective reactions to both the appetitive and aversive conditioned stimuli more than 1 year after the fMRI experiment was conducted correlated with activation in the ventromedial and dorsolateral SN obtained during the experiment, respectively. These findings suggest that, whereas the human ventromedial SN contributes to long-term learning about rewards, the dorsolateral SN may be particularly important for long-term learning in aversive contexts. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The role of the substantia nigra (SN) and ventral tegmental area (VTA) in appetitive learning is well established, but less is known about their contribution to aversive compared with appetitive learning, especially in humans. We used high-resolution fMRI to measure activity in the SN and VTA while participants underwent higher-order Pavlovian learning. We found a regional specialization within the SN: a ventromedial area was selectively engaged during appetitive learning, and a dorsolateral area during aversive learning. Activity in these areas predicted affective reactions to appetitive and aversive conditioned stimuli over 1 year later. These findings suggest that, whereas the human ventromedial SN contributes to long-term learning about rewards, the dorsolateral SN may be particularly important for long-term learning in aversive contexts. PMID:26490862

"Kind and Grateful": A Context-Sensitive Smartphone App Utilizing Inspirational Content to Promote Gratitude.

PubMed

Ghandeharioun, Asma; Azaria, Asaph; Taylor, Sara; Picard, Rosalind W

Previous research has shown that gratitude positively influences psychological wellbeing and physical health. Grateful people are reported to feel more optimistic and happy, to better mitigate aversive experiences, and to have stronger interpersonal bonds. Gratitude interventions have been shown to result in improved sleep, more frequent exercise and stronger cardiovascular and immune systems. These findings call for the development of technologies that would inspire gratitude. This paper presents a novel system designed toward this end. We leverage pervasive technologies to naturally embed inspiration to express gratitude in everyday life. Novel to this work, mobile sensor data is utilized to infer optimal moments for stimulating contextually relevant thankfulness and appreciation. Sporadic mood measurements are inventively obtained through the smartphone lock screen, investigating their interplay with grateful expressions. Both momentary thankful emotion and dispositional gratitude are measured. To evaluate our system, we ran two rounds of randomized control trials (RCT), including a pilot study (N = 15, 2 weeks) and a main study (N = 27, 5 weeks). Studies' participants were provided with a newly developed smartphone app through which they were asked to express gratitude; the app displayed inspirational content to only the intervention group, while measuring contextual cues for all users. In both rounds of the RCT, the intervention was associated with improved thankful behavior. Significant increase was observed in multiple facets of practicing gratitude in the intervention groups. The average frequency of practicing thankfulness increased by more than 120 %, comparing the baseline weeks with the intervention weeks of the main study. In contrast, the control group of the same study exhibited a decrease of 90 % in the frequency of thankful expressions. In the course of the study's 5 weeks, increases in dispositional gratitude and in psychological wellbeing were also apparent. Analyzing the relation between mood and gratitude expressions, our data suggest that practicing gratitude increases the probability of going up in terms of emotional valence and down in terms of emotional arousal. The influences of inspirational content and contextual cues on promoting thankful behavior were also analyzed: We present data suggesting that the more successful times for eliciting expressions of gratitude tend to be shortly after a social experience, shortly after location change, and shortly after physical activity. The results support our intervention as an impactful method to promote grateful affect and behavior. Moreover, they provide insights into design and evaluation of general behavioral intervention technologies.

Examining assortativity in the mental lexicon: Evidence from word associations.

PubMed

Van Rensbergen, Bram; Storms, Gert; De Deyne, Simon

2015-12-01

Words are characterized by a variety of lexical and psychological properties, such as their part of speech, word-frequency, concreteness, or affectivity. In this study, we examine how these properties relate to a word's connectivity in the mental lexicon, the structure containing a person's knowledge of words. In particular, we examine the extent to which these properties display assortative mixing, that is, the extent to which words in the lexicon are more likely to be connected to words that share these properties. We investigated three types of word properties: 1) subjective word covariates: valence, dominance, arousal, and concreteness; 2) lexical information: part of speech; and 3) distributional word properties: age-of-acquisition, word frequency, and contextual diversity. We assessed which of these factors exhibit assortativity using a word association task, where the probability of producing a certain response to a cue is a measure of the associative strength between the cue and response in the mental lexicon. Our results show that the extent to which these aspects exhibit assortativity varies considerably, with a high cue-response correspondence on valence, dominance, arousal, concreteness, and part of speech, indicating that these factors correspond to the words people deem as related. In contrast, we find that cues and responses show only little correspondence on word frequency, contextual diversity, and age-of-acquisition, indicating that, compared to subjective and lexical word covariates, distributional properties exhibit only little assortativity in the mental lexicon. Possible theoretical accounts and implications of these findings are discussed.

Contextual influences on eating behaviours: heuristic processing and dietary choices.

PubMed

Cohen, D A; Babey, S H

2012-09-01

This paper reviews some of the evidence that dietary behaviours are, in large part, the consequence of automatic responses to contextual food cues, many of which lead to increased caloric consumption and poor dietary choices. We describe studies that illustrate how these automatic mechanisms underlie eating behaviours, as well as evidence that individuals are subject to inherent cognitive limitations, and mostly lack the capacity to consistently recognize, ignore or resist contextual cues that encourage eating. Restaurants and grocery stores are the primary settings from which people obtain food. These settings are often designed to maximize sales of food by strategically placing and promoting items to encourage impulse purchases. Although a great deal of marketing research is proprietary, this paper describes some of the published studies that indicate that changes in superficial characteristics of food products, including packaging and portion sizes, design, salience, health claims and labelling, strongly influence food choices and consumption in ways for which people generally lack insight. We discuss whether contextual influences might be considered environmental risk factors from which individuals may need the kinds of protections that fall under the mission of public health. © 2012 The Authors. obesity reviews © 2012 International Association for the Study of Obesity.

Impairment of contextual conditioned fear extinction after microinjection of alpha-1-adrenergic blocker prazosin into the medial prefrontal cortex.

PubMed

Do-Monte, Fabrício H M; Allensworth, Melody; Carobrez, Antônio P

2010-07-29

Long-lasting memories of aversive or stressful events have been associated with the noradrenergic system activation. Alpha-1-adrenergic antagonist prazosin has successfully been used in the last years to treat anxiety disorders related to aversive memories recurrence in humans. Contextual conditioned fear extinction paradigm in rats has been used to better understand the mechanisms involved in the attenuation of defensive behaviour after a traumatic situation. Here we investigated the effects of systemic administration of prazosin in the fear extinction processes. Rats were previously paired in a contextual fear conditioning box (1 footshock, 1 mA, 2s duration), further returning to the same box during three consecutive days receiving an intraperitoneal injection of vehicle or prazosin 30 min before (acquisition of extinction; 0.1 or 0.5mg/kg) or immediately after (consolidation of extinction, 0.5 or 1.5mg/kg) each extinction session (10 min). On the last day, all animals were re-exposed undrugged to the apparatus. Since the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has been described as a key structure in the modulation of conditioned fear extinction, the effects of intra-mPFC microinjection (0.2 microl per side) of vehicle (PBS) or prazosin (0.75 or 2.5 nmol) in the acquisition of fear extinction (10 min before extinction session 1) were further evaluated. Subjects were drug-free re-exposed to the same box in the next day (extinction session 2). The percentage of freezing time was used as the memory retention parameter. The results showed that either systemic or intra-mPFC-alpha-1-adrenergic blockade increased the freezing time in the last extinction sessions, suggesting impairment of the extinction of contextual conditioned fear in rats. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The hippocampus integrates context and shock into a configural memory in contextual fear conditioning.

PubMed

Chang, Shih-Dar; Liang, K C

2017-02-01

Contextual fear conditioning involves forming a representation for the context and associating it with a shock, which were attributed by the prevailing view to functions of the hippocampus and amygdala, respectively. Yet our recent evidence suggested that both processes require integrity of the dorsal hippocampus (DH). In view of the DH involvement in uniting multiple stimuli into a configuration, this study examined whether the DH would integrate context and shock into a shocked-context representation. Male Wistar rats were trained on a two-phase training paradigm of contextual fear conditioning. They explored a novel context on the first day to acquire a contextual representation, and received a shock in that context on the second day to form the context-shock memory. Tests of conditioned freezing given on the following days revealed two properties of configural memory-direct and mediated pattern completion: First, the contextual fear memory was retrieved in a novel context by a cue embedded in the configural set-a shock that did not elicit significant freezing on its own. Second, freezing was also elicited in a novel context by a transportation chamber that was not directly paired with the shock but could activate the fear memory inferentially. The effects were specific to the cue and not due to context generalization. Infusion of lidocaine into the DH, but not the amygdala, immediately after context-shock training impaired conditioned freezing elicited through either type of pattern completion. Our data suggest that the DH in contextual fear conditioning associates context and shock in parallel with the amygdala by incorporating the shock into an otherwise neutral context representation and turning it into a shocked-context representation. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Young Children's Visual Attention to Environmental Print as Measured by Eye Tracker Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neumann, Michelle M.; Acosta, Camillia; Neumann, David L.

2014-01-01

Environmental print, such as signs and product labels, consist of both print and contextual cues designed to attract the visual attention of the reader. However, contextual cues may draw young children's attention away from the print, thus questioning the value of environmental print in early reading development. Eye tracker technology was used to…

Can Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders Extract Emotions out of Contextual Cues?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Da Fonseca, David; Santos, Andreia; Bastard-Rosset, Delphine; Rondan, Cecilie; Poinso, Francois; Deruelle, Christine

2009-01-01

The aim of the present study was to determine whether children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are able to recognize facial expressions of emotion and objects missing on the basis of contextual cues. While most of these studies focused on facial emotion recognition, here we examined the ability to extract emotional information on the basis…

Ethanol-induced conditioned taste avoidance: reward or aversion?

PubMed

Liu, Chuang; Showalter, John; Grigson, Patricia Sue

2009-03-01

Rats avoid intake of a palatable taste cue when paired with all drugs of abuse tested. Evidence suggests that, at least for morphine and cocaine, rats avoid the taste cue because they are anticipating the rewarding properties of the drug. Thus, the suppressive effects of a rewarding sucrose solution and cocaine, but not those of the putatively aversive agent, lithium chloride (LiCl), are exaggerated in drug-sensitive Lewis rats. Likewise, the suppressive effects of sucrose and morphine, but not those of LiCl, are eliminated by bilateral lesions of the gustatory thalamus. Unlike morphine and cocaine, it is less clear whether rewarding or aversive drug properties are responsible for ethanol-induced suppression of intake of a taste cue. The present set of studies tests whether, like cocaine, ethanol-induced suppression of intake of a taste cue also is greater in the drug-sensitive Lewis rats and whether the suppressive effects of the drug are prevented by bilateral lesions of the taste thalamus. In Experiment 1, fluid-deprived Lewis and Fischer rats were given 5-minute access to 0.15% saccharin and then injected with saline or a range of doses of ethanol (0.5, 0.75, 1.0, or 1.5 g/kg). There was a total of 6 such pairings. In Experiments 2 and 3, Sprague-Dawley rats received bilateral electrophysiologically guided lesions of the gustatory thalamus. After recovery, suppression of intake of the saccharin cue was evaluated following repeated daily pairings with either a high (1.5 g/kg) or a low (0.75 g/kg) dose of ethanol. Ethanol-induced suppression of intake of the saccharin conditioned stimulus (CS) did not differ between the drug-sensitive Lewis rats relative to the less-sensitive Fischer rats. Lesions of the taste thalamus, however, prevented the suppressive effect of the 0.75 g/kg dose of the drug, but had no impact on the suppressive effect of the 1.5 g/kg dose of ethanol. The results suggest that the suppressive effects of ethanol on CS intake are mediated by both rewarding and aversive consequences, varying as a function of dose.

Complexity and Competition in Appetitive and Aversive Neural Circuits

PubMed Central

Barberini, Crista L.; Morrison, Sara E.; Saez, Alex; Lau, Brian; Salzman, C. Daniel

2012-01-01

Decision-making often involves using sensory cues to predict possible rewarding or punishing reinforcement outcomes before selecting a course of action. Recent work has revealed complexity in how the brain learns to predict rewards and punishments. Analysis of neural signaling during and after learning in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex, two brain areas that process appetitive and aversive stimuli, reveals a dynamic relationship between appetitive and aversive circuits. Specifically, the relationship between signaling in appetitive and aversive circuits in these areas shifts as a function of learning. Furthermore, although appetitive and aversive circuits may often drive opposite behaviors – approaching or avoiding reinforcement depending upon its valence – these circuits can also drive similar behaviors, such as enhanced arousal or attention; these processes also may influence choice behavior. These data highlight the formidable challenges ahead in dissecting how appetitive and aversive neural circuits interact to produce a complex and nuanced range of behaviors. PMID:23189037

Hippocampal Processing of Ambiguity Enhances Fear Memory

PubMed Central

Amadi, Ugwechi; Lim, Seh Hong; Liu, Elizabeth; Baratta, Michael V.; Goosens, Ki Ann

2016-01-01

Despite the ubiquitous use of Pavlovian fear conditioning as a model for fear learning, the highly predictable conditions used in the laboratory do not resemble real-world conditions, where dangerous situations can lead to unpleasant outcomes in unpredictable ways. Here we varied the timing of aversive events following predictive cues in rodents and discovered that temporal ambiguity of aversive events greatly enhances fear. During fear conditioning with unpredictably timed aversive events, pharmacological inactivation of the dorsal hippocampus or optogenetic silencing of CA1 cells during aversive negative prediction errors prevented this enhancement of fear without impacting fear learning for predictable events. Dorsal hippocampal inactivation also prevented ambiguity-related enhancement of fear during auditory fear conditioning under a partial reinforcement schedule. These results reveal that information about the timing and occurrence of aversive events is rapidly acquired and that unexpectedly timed or omitted aversive events generate hippocampal signals to enhance fear learning. PMID:28182526

Hippocampal Processing of Ambiguity Enhances Fear Memory.

PubMed

Amadi, Ugwechi; Lim, Seh Hong; Liu, Elizabeth; Baratta, Michael V; Goosens, Ki A

2017-02-01

Despite the ubiquitous use of Pavlovian fear conditioning as a model for fear learning, the highly predictable conditions used in the laboratory do not resemble real-world conditions, in which dangerous situations can lead to unpleasant outcomes in unpredictable ways. In the current experiments, we varied the timing of aversive events after predictive cues in rodents and discovered that temporal ambiguity of aversive events greatly enhances fear. During fear conditioning with unpredictably timed aversive events, pharmacological inactivation of the dorsal hippocampus or optogenetic silencing of cornu ammonis 1 cells during aversive negative prediction errors prevented this enhancement of fear without affecting fear learning for predictable events. Dorsal hippocampal inactivation also prevented ambiguity-related enhancement of fear during auditory fear conditioning under a partial-reinforcement schedule. These results reveal that information about the timing and occurrence of aversive events is rapidly acquired and that unexpectedly timed or omitted aversive events generate hippocampal signals to enhance fear learning.

Cognition and balance control: does processing of explicit contextual cues of impending perturbations modulate automatic postural responses?

PubMed

Coelho, Daniel Boari; Teixeira, Luis Augusto

2017-08-01

Processing of predictive contextual cues of an impending perturbation is thought to induce adaptive postural responses. Cueing in previous research has been provided through repeated perturbations with a constant foreperiod. This experimental strategy confounds explicit predictive cueing with adaptation and non-specific properties of temporal cueing. Two experiments were performed to assess those factors separately. To perturb upright balance, the base of support was suddenly displaced backwards in three amplitudes: 5, 10 and 15 cm. In Experiment 1, we tested the effect of cueing the amplitude of the impending postural perturbation by means of visual signals, and the effect of adaptation to repeated exposures by comparing block versus random sequences of perturbation. In Experiment 2, we evaluated separately the effects of cueing the characteristics of an impending balance perturbation and cueing the timing of perturbation onset. Results from Experiment 1 showed that the block sequence of perturbations led to increased stability of automatic postural responses, and modulation of magnitude and onset latency of muscular responses. Results from Experiment 2 showed that only the condition cueing timing of platform translation onset led to increased balance stability and modulation of onset latency of muscular responses. Conversely, cueing platform displacement amplitude failed to induce any effects on automatic postural responses in both experiments. Our findings support the interpretation of improved postural responses via optimized sensorimotor processes, at the same time that cast doubt on the notion that cognitive processing of explicit contextual cues advancing the magnitude of an impending perturbation can preset adaptive postural responses.

The prelimbic cortex directs attention toward predictive cues during fear learning.

PubMed

Sharpe, Melissa J; Killcross, Simon

2015-06-01

The prelimbic cortex is argued to promote conditioned fear expression, at odds with appetitive research implicating this region in attentional processing. Consistent with an attentional account, we report that the effect of prelimbic lesions on fear expression depends on the degree of competition between contextual and discrete cues. Further, when competition from contextual cues is low, we found that PL inactivation resulted in animals expressing fear toward irrelevant discrete cues; an effect selective to inactivation during the learning phase and not during retrieval. These data demonstrate that the prelimbic cortex modulates attention toward cues to preferentially direct fear responding on the basis of their predictive value. © 2015 Sharpe and Killcross; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

Electrolytic lesions of the bilateral ventrolateral orbital cortex inhibit methamphetamine-associated contextual memory formation in rats.

PubMed

Zhao, Yan; Liu, Peng; Chu, Zheng; Liu, Fei; Han, Wei; Xun, Xi; Dang, Yong-Hui

2015-10-22

The memories that are formed between rewarding and drug-associated contextual cues have been suggested to contribute to drug addiction relapse. Recent evidence has indicated that the ventrolateral orbital cortex (VLO) plays important roles in reward-based learning and reversal learning. However, whether the VLO is required for methamphetamine-induced contextual memory formation is not well understood. In the present study, a three-phase methamphetamine-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) model was used to investigate the effects of VLO lesions on the formation of drug-associated contextual memories in rats. We found that the VLO lesions themselves elicited no observable effects on place preferences. However, the VLO lesions delayed the acquisition and extinction phases of CPP without affecting the expression level. Furthermore, the VLO lesions did not have an obvious influence on CPP reinstatement. These results indicate that electrolytic lesions of the bilateral ventrolateral orbital cortex can inhibit the formation of methamphetamine-induced contextual memories in rats. Moreover, VLO may not be critically involved in memory storage and retrieval. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Chronic fluoxetine dissociates contextual from auditory fear memory.

PubMed

Sanders, Jeff; Mayford, Mark

2016-10-06

Fluoxetine is a medication used to treat Major Depressive Disorder and other psychiatric conditions. These experiments studied the effects of chronic fluoxetine treatment on the contextual versus auditory fear memory of mice. We found that chronic fluoxetine treatment of adult mice impaired their contextual fear memory, but spared auditory fear memory. Hippocampal perineuronal nets, which are involved in contextual fear memory plasticity, were unaltered by fluoxetine treatment. These data point to a selective inability to form contextual fear memory as a result of fluoxetine treatment, and they suggest that a blunting of hippocampal-mediated aversive memory may be a therapeutic action for this medication. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Inhibiting reactions to emotional versus non-emotional response cues in schizophrenia: Insights from a motor-process paradigm.

PubMed

Patrick, Regan E; Christensen, Bruce K; Smolewska, Kathy

2016-03-01

Recent models of schizophrenia suggest deficient use of contextual response cues when confronted with countermanding emotional cues. It is important to clinically validate these models by testing patients diagnosed with schizophrenia on tasks with competing emotional and contextual response determinants. Control and schizophrenia groups completed a novel task that elicited motor responses consistent with, or in opposition to, pre-potent emotional actions (i.e., approach vs. avoidance). An analogous non-emotional task was also used to examine cue-conflict impairment more generally. The groups demonstrated statistically equivalent performance decrements on incongruent versus congruent trials on both tasks. However, within the schizophrenia group, the incongruency effect was significantly greater in the emotional versus non-emotional task. These data suggest that, while patients with schizophrenia were able to employ contextual response cues to override competing emotional responses, they were slower to resolve emotional versus non-emotional response conflict. When patients were subdivided according to the presence or absence of disorganized symptoms, this effect was confined to patients with disorganized symptoms. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.

Neural correlates of contextual cueing are modulated by explicit learning.

PubMed

Westerberg, Carmen E; Miller, Brennan B; Reber, Paul J; Cohen, Neal J; Paller, Ken A

2011-10-01

Contextual cueing refers to the facilitated ability to locate a particular visual element in a scene due to prior exposure to the same scene. This facilitation is thought to reflect implicit learning, as it typically occurs without the observer's knowledge that scenes repeat. Unlike most other implicit learning effects, contextual cueing can be impaired following damage to the medial temporal lobe. Here we investigated neural correlates of contextual cueing and explicit scene memory in two participant groups. Only one group was explicitly instructed about scene repetition. Participants viewed a sequence of complex scenes that depicted a landscape with five abstract geometric objects. Superimposed on each object was a letter T or L rotated left or right by 90°. Participants responded according to the target letter (T) orientation. Responses were highly accurate for all scenes. Response speeds were faster for repeated versus novel scenes. The magnitude of this contextual cueing did not differ between the two groups. Also, in both groups repeated scenes yielded reduced hemodynamic activation compared with novel scenes in several regions involved in visual perception and attention, and reductions in some of these areas were correlated with response-time facilitation. In the group given instructions about scene repetition, recognition memory for scenes was superior and was accompanied by medial temporal and more anterior activation. Thus, strategic factors can promote explicit memorization of visual scene information, which appears to engage additional neural processing beyond what is required for implicit learning of object configurations and target locations in a scene. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neural correlates of contextual cueing are modulated by explicit learning

PubMed Central

Westerberg, Carmen E.; Miller, Brennan B.; Reber, Paul J.; Cohen, Neal J.; Paller, Ken A.

2011-01-01

Contextual cueing refers to the facilitated ability to locate a particular visual element in a scene due to prior exposure to the same scene. This facilitation is thought to reflect implicit learning, as it typically occurs without the observer’s knowledge that scenes repeat. Unlike most other implicit learning effects, contextual cueing can be impaired following damage to the medial temporal lobe. Here we investigated neural correlates of contextual cueing and explicit scene memory in two participant groups. Only one group was explicitly instructed about scene repetition. Participants viewed a sequence of complex scenes that depicted a landscape with five abstract geometric objects. Superimposed on each object was a letter T or L rotated left or right by 90°. Participants responded according to the target letter (T) orientation. Responses were highly accurate for all scenes. Response speeds were faster for repeated versus novel scenes. The magnitude of this contextual cueing did not differ between the two groups. Also, in both groups repeated scenes yielded reduced hemodynamic activation compared with novel scenes in several regions involved in visual perception and attention, and reductions in some of these areas were correlated with response-time facilitation. In the group given instructions about scene repetition, recognition memory for scenes was superior and was accompanied by medial temporal and more anterior activation. Thus, strategic factors can promote explicit memorization of visual scene information, which appears to engage additional neural processing beyond what is required for implicit learning of object configurations and target locations in a scene. PMID:21889947

Assessing fear and anxiety in humans using the threat of predictable and unpredictable aversive events (the NPU-threat test)

PubMed Central

Schmitz, Anja; Grillon, Christian

2012-01-01

The threat of predictable and unpredictable aversive events was developed to assess short-duration (fear) and long-duration (anxiety) aversive states in humans. A typical experiment consists of three conditions: a safe condition (neutral (N)), during which participants are safe from aversive stimuli, and two threat conditions—one in which aversive events are administered predictably (P) (i.e., signaled by a threat cue), and one in which aversive stimuli are administered unpredictably (U). During the so-called NPU -threat test, ongoing change in aversive states is measured with the startle reflex. The NPU -threat test has been validated in pharmacological and clinical studies and can be implemented in children and adults. Similar procedures have been applied in animal models, making the NPU -threat test an ideal tool for translational research. The procedure is relatively short (35 min), simple to implement and generates consistent results with large effect sizes. PMID:22362158

Dissociable Learning Processes Underlie Human Pain Conditioning

PubMed Central

Zhang, Suyi; Mano, Hiroaki; Ganesh, Gowrishankar; Robbins, Trevor; Seymour, Ben

2016-01-01

Summary Pavlovian conditioning underlies many aspects of pain behavior, including fear and threat detection [1], escape and avoidance learning [2], and endogenous analgesia [3]. Although a central role for the amygdala is well established [4], both human and animal studies implicate other brain regions in learning, notably ventral striatum and cerebellum [5]. It remains unclear whether these regions make different contributions to a single aversive learning process or represent independent learning mechanisms that interact to generate the expression of pain-related behavior. We designed a human parallel aversive conditioning paradigm in which different Pavlovian visual cues probabilistically predicted thermal pain primarily to either the left or right arm and studied the acquisition of conditioned Pavlovian responses using combined physiological recordings and fMRI. Using computational modeling based on reinforcement learning theory, we found that conditioning involves two distinct types of learning process. First, a non-specific “preparatory” system learns aversive facial expressions and autonomic responses such as skin conductance. The associated learning signals—the learned associability and prediction error—were correlated with fMRI brain responses in amygdala-striatal regions, corresponding to the classic aversive (fear) learning circuit. Second, a specific lateralized system learns “consummatory” limb-withdrawal responses, detectable with electromyography of the arm to which pain is predicted. Its related learned associability was correlated with responses in ipsilateral cerebellar cortex, suggesting a novel computational role for the cerebellum in pain. In conclusion, our results show that the overall phenotype of conditioned pain behavior depends on two dissociable reinforcement learning circuits. PMID:26711494

The influence of cue-task association and location on switch cost and alternating-switch cost.

PubMed

Arbuthnott, Katherine D; Woodward, Todd S

2002-03-01

Task-switching performance is strongly influenced by whether the imperative stimulus uniquely specifies which task to perform: Switch cost is substantial with bivalent stimuli but is greatly reduced with univalent stimuli, suggesting that available contextual information influences processing in task-switching situations. The present study examined whether task-relevant information provided by task cues influences the magnitude of switch cost in a parallel manner. Cues presented 500 ms prior to a trivalent stimulus indicated which of three tasks to perform. These cues either had a preexisting association with the to-be-performed task (verbal cues), or a recently learned association with the task (spatial and shape cues). The results paralleled the effects of stimulus bivalence: substantial switch cost with recently learned cue-task associations and greatly reduced switch cost with preexisting cue-task associations. This suggests that both stimulus-based and cue-based information can activate the relevant task set, possibly providing external support to endogenous control processes. Alternating-switch cost, a greater cost for switching back to a recently abandoned task, was also observed with both preexisting and recently learned cue-task associations, but only when all tasks were presented in a consistent spatial location. When spatial location was used to cue the to-be-performed tasks, no alternating-switch cost was observed, suggesting that different processes may be involved when tasks are uniquely located in space. Specification of the nature of these processes may prove to be complex, as post-hoc inspection of the data suggested that for the spatial cue condition, the alternating-switch cost may oscillate between cost and benefit, depending on the relevant task.

Noradrenergic stimulation modulates activation of extinction-related brain regions and enhances contextual extinction learning without affecting renewal

PubMed Central

Lissek, Silke; Glaubitz, Benjamin; Güntürkün, Onur; Tegenthoff, Martin

2015-01-01

Renewal in extinction learning describes the recovery of an extinguished response if the extinction context differs from the context present during acquisition and recall. Attention may have a role in contextual modulation of behavior and contribute to the renewal effect, while noradrenaline (NA) is involved in attentional processing. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study we investigated the role of the noradrenergic system for behavioral and brain activation correlates of contextual extinction and renewal, with a particular focus upon hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC), which have crucial roles in processing of renewal. Healthy human volunteers received a single dose of the NA reuptake inhibitor atomoxetine prior to extinction learning. During extinction of previously acquired cue-outcome associations, cues were presented in a novel context (ABA) or in the acquisition context (AAA). In recall, all cues were again presented in the acquisition context. Atomoxetine participants (ATO) showed significantly faster extinction compared to placebo (PLAC). However, atomoxetine did not affect renewal. Hippocampal activation was higher in ATO during extinction and recall, as was ventromedial PFC activation, except for ABA recall. Moreover, ATO showed stronger recruitment of insula, anterior cingulate, and dorsolateral/orbitofrontal PFC. Across groups, cingulate, hippocampus and vmPFC activity during ABA extinction correlated with recall performance, suggesting high relevance of these regions for processing the renewal effect. In summary, the noradrenergic system appears to be involved in the modification of established associations during extinction learning and thus has a role in behavioral flexibility. The assignment of an association to a context and the subsequent decision on an adequate response, however, presumably operate largely independently of noradrenergic mechanisms. PMID:25745389

Visual Attention to Print-Salient and Picture-Salient Environmental Print in Young Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neumann, Michelle M.; Summerfield, Katelyn; Neumann, David L.

2015-01-01

Environmental print is composed of words and contextual cues such as logos and pictures. The salience of the contextual cues may influence attention to words and thus the potential of environmental print in promoting early reading development. The present study explored this by presenting pre-readers (n = 20) and beginning readers (n = 16) with…

Time to Guide: Evidence for Delayed Attentional Guidance in Contextual Cueing

PubMed Central

Kunar, Melina A.; Flusberg, Stephen J.; Wolfe, Jeremy M.

2008-01-01

Contextual cueing experiments show that, when displays are repeated, reaction times (RTs) to find a target decrease over time even when the observers are not aware of the repetition. Recent evidence suggests that this benefit in standard contextual cueing tasks is not likely to be due to an improvement in attentional guidance (Kunar, Flusberg, Horowitz & Wolfe, 2007). Nevertheless, we ask whether guidance can help participants find the target in a repeated display, if they are given sufficient time to encode the display. In Experiment 1 we increased the display complexity so that it took participants longer to find the target. Here we found a larger effect of guidance than in a condition with shorter RTs. Experiment 2 gave participants prior exposure to the display context. The data again showed that with more time participants could implement guidance to help find the target, provided that there was something in the search stimuli locations to guide attention to. The data suggest that although the benefit in a standard contextual cueing task is unlikely to be a result of guidance, guidance can play a role if it is given time to develop. PMID:18846248

Time to Guide: Evidence for Delayed Attentional Guidance in Contextual Cueing.

PubMed

Kunar, Melina A; Flusberg, Stephen J; Wolfe, Jeremy M

2008-01-01

Contextual cueing experiments show that, when displays are repeated, reaction times (RTs) to find a target decrease over time even when the observers are not aware of the repetition. Recent evidence suggests that this benefit in standard contextual cueing tasks is not likely to be due to an improvement in attentional guidance (Kunar, Flusberg, Horowitz & Wolfe, 2007). Nevertheless, we ask whether guidance can help participants find the target in a repeated display, if they are given sufficient time to encode the display. In Experiment 1 we increased the display complexity so that it took participants longer to find the target. Here we found a larger effect of guidance than in a condition with shorter RTs. Experiment 2 gave participants prior exposure to the display context. The data again showed that with more time participants could implement guidance to help find the target, provided that there was something in the search stimuli locations to guide attention to. The data suggest that although the benefit in a standard contextual cueing task is unlikely to be a result of guidance, guidance can play a role if it is given time to develop.

Intraperitoneal sertraline and fluvoxamine increase contextual fear conditioning but are without effect on overshadowing between cues

PubMed Central

Cassaday, H.J.; Thur, K.E.

2015-01-01

Treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) can reduce contextual conditioning. Since contexts comprise a variety of potentially competing cues, impaired overshadowing may provide an account of such effects. The present study therefore compared the effects of two SSRIs on overshadowing and contextual conditioning, testing suppression of an ongoing behavioral response (licking) by cues previously paired with foot shock. Conditioning to a 5 s light stimulus was reduced when it was presented in compound with a 5 s noise, thus overshadowing was demonstrated. In two experiments, this overshadowing was unaffected by treatment with either sertraline or fluvoxamine. However, unconditioned suppression to the noise (tested in a control group previously conditioned to the light alone) was reduced after sertraline (10 mg/kg, i.p.). The successful demonstration of overshadowing required the use of a second conditioning session or an additional conditioning trial within the same conditioning session. Neither weak nor strong overshadowing (of the light by the tone) was affected by any drug treatment. Moreover, counter to prediction, conditioning to contextual cues was increased rather than impaired by treatment with sertraline (10 mg/kg, i.p.) and fluvoxamine (30 mg/kg, i.p.). PMID:25532461

Intraperitoneal sertraline and fluvoxamine increase contextual fear conditioning but are without effect on overshadowing between cues.

PubMed

Cassaday, H J; Thur, K E

2015-02-01

Treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) can reduce contextual conditioning. Since contexts comprise a variety of potentially competing cues, impaired overshadowing may provide an account of such effects. The present study therefore compared the effects of two SSRIs on overshadowing and contextual conditioning, testing suppression of an ongoing behavioral response (licking) by cues previously paired with foot shock. Conditioning to a 5 s light stimulus was reduced when it was presented in compound with a 5 s noise, thus overshadowing was demonstrated. In two experiments, this overshadowing was unaffected by treatment with either sertraline or fluvoxamine. However, unconditioned suppression to the noise (tested in a control group previously conditioned to the light alone) was reduced after sertraline (10 mg/kg, i.p.). The successful demonstration of overshadowing required the use of a second conditioning session or an additional conditioning trial within the same conditioning session. Neither weak nor strong overshadowing (of the light by the tone) was affected by any drug treatment. Moreover, counter to prediction, conditioning to contextual cues was increased rather than impaired by treatment with sertraline (10 mg/kg, i.p.) and fluvoxamine (30 mg/kg, i.p.). Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Inc.

T-type calcium channel antagonism decreases motivation for nicotine and blocks nicotine- and cue-induced reinstatement for a response previously reinforced with nicotine.

PubMed

Uslaner, Jason M; Vardigan, Joshua D; Drott, Jason M; Uebele, Victor N; Renger, John J; Lee, Ariel; Li, Zhaoxia; Lê, A D; Hutson, Pete H

2010-10-15

Recent evidence suggests an involvement of T-type calcium channels in the effects of drugs of abuse. We examined the influence of the novel, potent, and selective T-type calcium channel antagonist [2-(4-cyclopropylphenyl)-N-((1R)-1-{5-[2,2,2-trifluoroethyl]oxo}pyridine-2-yl)ethyl]acetamide] (TTA-A2) (.3, 1, or 3 mg/kg) on motivation for nicotine, as measured by nicotine self-administration on a progressive ratio (PR) schedule, and nicotine- and cue-induced reinstatement for a response previously reinforced with nicotine delivery (n = 11 or 12 Long Evans rats/group). Furthermore, we examined the specificity of the TTA-A2 effects by characterizing its influence on PR responding for food (in the absence or presence of nicotine-potentiated responding), food- versus nicotine-induced cue-potentiated reinstatement for a response previously reinforced by food administration (n = 11 or 12 Wistar Hannover rats/group), and its ability to induce a conditioned place aversion. TTA-A2 dose-dependently decreased self-administration of nicotine on a PR schedule and the ability of both nicotine and a cue paired with nicotine to reinstate responding. The effects were specific for nicotine's incentive motivational properties, as TTA-A2 did not influence responding for food on a PR schedule but did attenuate the ability of nicotine to potentiate responding for food. Likewise, TTA-A2 did not alter food-induced cue-potentiated reinstatement for a response previously reinforced by food but did decrease nicotine-induced cue-potentiated reinstatement. Finally, TTA-A2 did not produce an aversive state, as indicated by a lack of ability to induce conditioned place aversion. These data suggest that T-type calcium channel antagonists have potential for alleviating nicotine addiction by selectively decreasing the incentive motivational properties of nicotine. Copyright © 2010 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Developmental emergence of fear/threat learning: neurobiology, associations and timing.

PubMed

Tallot, L; Doyère, V; Sullivan, R M

2016-01-01

Pavlovian fear or threat conditioning, where a neutral stimulus takes on aversive properties through pairing with an aversive stimulus, has been an important tool for exploring the neurobiology of learning. In the past decades, this neurobehavioral approach has been expanded to include the developing infant. Indeed, protracted postnatal brain development permits the exploration of how incorporating the amygdala, prefrontal cortex and hippocampus into this learning system impacts the acquisition and expression of aversive conditioning. Here, we review the developmental trajectory of these key brain areas involved in aversive conditioning and relate it to pups' transition to independence through weaning. Overall, the data suggests that adult-like features of threat learning emerge as the relevant brain areas become incorporated into this learning. Specifically, the developmental emergence of the amygdala permits cue learning and the emergence of the hippocampus permits context learning. We also describe unique features of learning in early life that block threat learning and enhance interaction with the mother or exploration of the environment. Finally, we describe the development of a sense of time within this learning and its involvement in creating associations. Together these data suggest that the development of threat learning is a useful tool for dissecting adult-like functioning of brain circuits, as well as providing unique insights into ecologically relevant developmental changes. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society.

Contextual cueing of pop-out visual search: when context guides the deployment of attention.

PubMed

Geyer, Thomas; Zehetleitner, Michael; Müller, Hermann J

2010-05-01

Visual context information can guide attention in demanding (i.e., inefficient) search tasks. When participants are repeatedly presented with identically arranged ('repeated') displays, reaction times are faster relative to newly composed ('non-repeated') displays. The present article examines whether this 'contextual cueing' effect operates also in simple (i.e., efficient) search tasks and if so, whether there it influences target, rather than response, selection. The results were that singleton-feature targets were detected faster when the search items were presented in repeated, rather than non-repeated, arrangements. Importantly, repeated, relative to novel, displays also led to an increase in signal detection accuracy. Thus, contextual cueing can expedite the selection of pop-out targets, most likely by enhancing feature contrast signals at the overall-salience computation stage.

On the persistence of cocaine-induced place preferences and aversions in rats

PubMed Central

Su, Zu-In; Santoostaroam, Ashley; Wenzel, Jennifer; Ettenberg, Aaron

2013-01-01

Rationale Rats develop preferences for places associated with the immediate rewarding effects of cocaine and aversions for places paired with the drug’s delayed negative effects. The motivation to seek cocaine should therefore depend upon the relative magnitude of these two opposing effects of the drug. Objective The current study tested this notion by assessing the relative persistence of the positive and negative associations formed between environmental cues and the immediate or delayed effects of cocaine. Methods Rats were administered 1.0 mg/kg intravenous cocaine and placed into a distinctive environment either immediately or 15-min after injection, alternating daily with pairings of a second environment with saline. After 4 drug- and 4 saline-place pairings, rats were returned to their home cages for 1, 7 or 21 days after which a 15-min place preference test was conducted. In a second experiment, the effectiveness of a single reconditioning session (one drug-place and one saline-place pairing) to reactivate learned cocaine-place associations was assessed after 1- or 3-weeks of drug abstinence. Results Places associated with the immediate effects of cocaine were preferred (CPP), while places associated with the delayed effects of cocaine were avoided (CPA). The persistence of these effects differed with CPP remaining viable at 3-weeks of withdrawal while CPA was no longer present after 1-week. Reconditioning with an additional cocaine-place pairing failed to reinstate the CPA. Conclusions Cue-induced “relapse” of cocaine-seeking behavior may be fueled in part by an increased persistence of positive relative to negative associations with drug-paired stimuli. PMID:23568579

Contextual control of attentional allocation in human discrimination learning.

PubMed

Uengoer, Metin; Lachnit, Harald; Lotz, Anja; Koenig, Stephan; Pearce, John M

2013-01-01

In 3 human predictive learning experiments, we investigated whether the allocation of attention can come under the control of contextual stimuli. In each experiment, participants initially received a conditional discrimination for which one set of cues was trained as relevant in Context 1 and irrelevant in Context 2, and another set was relevant in Context 2 and irrelevant in Context 1. For Experiments 1 and 2, we observed that a second discrimination based on cues that had previously been trained as relevant in Context 1 during the conditional discrimination was acquired more rapidly in Context 1 than in Context 2. Experiment 3 revealed a similar outcome when new stimuli from the original dimensions were used in the test stage. Our results support the view that the associability of a stimulus can be controlled by the stimuli that accompany it.

Suppression of Striatal Prediction Errors by the Prefrontal Cortex in Placebo Hypoalgesia.

PubMed

Schenk, Lieven A; Sprenger, Christian; Onat, Selim; Colloca, Luana; Büchel, Christian

2017-10-04

Classical learning theories predict extinction after the discontinuation of reinforcement through prediction errors. However, placebo hypoalgesia, although mediated by associative learning, has been shown to be resistant to extinction. We tested the hypothesis that this is mediated by the suppression of prediction error processing through the prefrontal cortex (PFC). We compared pain modulation through treatment cues (placebo hypoalgesia, treatment context) with pain modulation through stimulus intensity cues (stimulus context) during functional magnetic resonance imaging in 48 male and female healthy volunteers. During acquisition, our data show that expectations are correctly learned and that this is associated with prediction error signals in the ventral striatum (VS) in both contexts. However, in the nonreinforced test phase, pain modulation and expectations of pain relief persisted to a larger degree in the treatment context, indicating that the expectations were not correctly updated in the treatment context. Consistently, we observed significantly stronger neural prediction error signals in the VS in the stimulus context compared with the treatment context. A connectivity analysis revealed negative coupling between the anterior PFC and the VS in the treatment context, suggesting that the PFC can suppress the expression of prediction errors in the VS. Consistent with this, a participant's conceptual views and beliefs about treatments influenced the pain modulation only in the treatment context. Our results indicate that in placebo hypoalgesia contextual treatment information engages prefrontal conceptual processes, which can suppress prediction error processing in the VS and lead to reduced updating of treatment expectancies, resulting in less extinction of placebo hypoalgesia. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT In aversive and appetitive reinforcement learning, learned effects show extinction when reinforcement is discontinued. This is thought to be mediated by prediction errors (i.e., the difference between expectations and outcome). Although reinforcement learning has been central in explaining placebo hypoalgesia, placebo hypoalgesic effects show little extinction and persist after the discontinuation of reinforcement. Our results support the idea that conceptual treatment beliefs bias the neural processing of expectations in a treatment context compared with a more stimulus-driven processing of expectations with stimulus intensity cues. We provide evidence that this is associated with the suppression of prediction error processing in the ventral striatum by the prefrontal cortex. This provides a neural basis for persisting effects in reinforcement learning and placebo hypoalgesia. Copyright © 2017 the authors 0270-6474/17/379715-09$15.00/0.

Relatively high motivation for context-evoked reward produces the magnitude effect in rats.

PubMed

Yuki, Shoko; Okanoya, Kazuo

2014-09-01

Using a concurrent-chain schedule, we demonstrated the effect of absolute reinforcement (i.e., the magnitude effect) on choice behavior in rats. In general, animals' simultaneous choices conform to a relative reinforcement ratio between alternatives. However, studies in pigeons and rats have found that on a concurrent-chain schedule, the overall reinforcement ratio, or absolute amount, also influences choice. The effect of reinforcement amount has also been studied in inter-temporal choice situations, and this effect has been referred to as the magnitude effect. The magnitude effect has been observed in humans under various conditions, but little research has assessed it in animals (e.g., pigeons and rats). The present study confirmed the effect of reinforcement amount in rats during simultaneous and inter-temporal choice situations. We used a concurrent-chain procedure to examine the cause of the magnitude effect during inter-temporal choice. Our results suggest that rats can use differences in reinforcement amount as a contextual cue during choice, and the direction of the magnitude effect in rats might be similar to humans when using the present procedure. Furthermore, our results indicate that the magnitude effect was caused by the initial-link effect when the reinforcement amount was relatively small, while a loss aversion tendency was observed when the reinforcement amount changed within a session. The emergence of the initial-link effect and loss aversion suggests that rats make choices through cognitive processes predicted by prospect theory. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Visual search and contextual cueing: differential effects in 10-year-old children and adults.

PubMed

Couperus, Jane W; Hunt, Ruskin H; Nelson, Charles A; Thomas, Kathleen M

2011-02-01

The development of contextual cueing specifically in relation to attention was examined in two experiments. Adult and 10-year-old participants completed a context cueing visual search task (Jiang & Chun, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54A(4), 1105-1124, 2001) containing stimuli presented in an attended (e.g., red) and unattended (e.g., green) color. When the spatial configuration of stimuli in the attended and unattended color was invariant and consistently paired with the target location, adult reaction times improved, demonstrating learning. Learning also occurred if only the attended stimuli's configuration remained fixed. In contrast, while 10 year olds, like adults, showed incrementally slower reaction times as the number of attended stimuli increased, they did not show learning in the standard paradigm. However, they did show learning when the ratio of attended to unattended stimuli was high, irrespective of the total number of attended stimuli. Findings suggest children show efficient attentional guidance by color in visual search but differences in contextual cueing.

Effects of Propranolol, a β-noradrenergic Antagonist, on Memory Consolidation and Reconsolidation in Mice

PubMed Central

Villain, Hélène; Benkahoul, Aïcha; Drougard, Anne; Lafragette, Marie; Muzotte, Elodie; Pech, Stéphane; Bui, Eric; Brunet, Alain; Birmes, Philippe; Roullet, Pascal

2016-01-01

Memory reconsolidation impairment using the β-noradrenergic receptor blocker propranolol is a promising novel treatment avenue for patients suffering from pathogenic memories, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, in order to better inform targeted treatment development, the effects of this compound on memory need to be better characterized via translational research. We examined the effects of systemic propranolol administration in mice undergoing a wide range of behavioral tests to determine more specifically which aspects of the memory consolidation and reconsolidation are impaired by propranolol. We found that propranolol (10 mg/kg) affected memory consolidation in non-aversive tasks (object recognition and object location) but not in moderately (Morris water maze (MWM) to highly (passive avoidance, conditioned taste aversion) aversive tasks. Further, propranolol impaired memory reconsolidation in the most and in the least aversive tasks, but not in the moderately aversive task, suggesting its amnesic effect was not related to task aversion. Moreover, in aquatic object recognition and location tasks in which animals were forced to behave (contrary to the classic versions of the tasks); propranolol did not impair memory reconsolidation. Taken together our results suggest that the memory impairment observed after propranolol administration may result from a modification of the emotional valence of the memory rather than a disruption of the contextual component of the memory trace. This is relevant to the use of propranolol to block memory reconsolidation in individuals with PTSD, as such a treatment would not erase the traumatic memory but only reduce the emotional valence associated with this event. PMID:27014009

The architecture of human kin detection

PubMed Central

Lieberman, Debra; Tooby, John; Cosmides, Leda

2012-01-01

Evolved mechanisms for assessing genetic relatedness have been found in many species, but their existence in humans has been a matter of controversy. Here we report three converging lines of evidence, drawn from siblings, that support the hypothesis that kin detection mechanisms exist in humans. These operate by computing, for each familiar individual, a unitary regulatory variable (the kinship index) that corresponds to a pairwise estimate of genetic relatedness between self and other. The cues that the system uses were identified by quantitatively matching individual exposure to potential cues of relatedness to variation in three outputs relevant to the system’s evolved functions: sibling altruism, aversion to personally engaging in sibling incest, and moral opposition to third party sibling incest. As predicted, the kin detection system uses two distinct, ancestrally valid cues to compute relatedness: the familiar other’s perinatal association with the individual’s biological mother, and duration of sibling coresidence. PMID:17301784

Multimodal neuroimaging evidence linking memory and attention systems during visual search cued by context.

PubMed

Kasper, Ryan W; Grafton, Scott T; Eckstein, Miguel P; Giesbrecht, Barry

2015-03-01

Visual search can be facilitated by the learning of spatial configurations that predict the location of a target among distractors. Neuropsychological and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) evidence implicates the medial temporal lobe (MTL) memory system in this contextual cueing effect, and electroencephalography (EEG) studies have identified the involvement of visual cortical regions related to attention. This work investigated two questions: (1) how memory and attention systems are related in contextual cueing; and (2) how these systems are involved in both short- and long-term contextual learning. In one session, EEG and fMRI data were acquired simultaneously in a contextual cueing task. In a second session conducted 1 week later, EEG data were recorded in isolation. The fMRI results revealed MTL contextual modulations that were correlated with short- and long-term behavioral context enhancements and attention-related effects measured with EEG. An fMRI-seeded EEG source analysis revealed that the MTL contributed the most variance to the variability in the attention enhancements measured with EEG. These results support the notion that memory and attention systems interact to facilitate search when spatial context is implicitly learned. © 2015 New York Academy of Sciences.

Time, Not Sleep, Unbinds Contexts from Item Memory

PubMed Central

Cox, Roy; Tijdens, Ron R.; Meeter, Martijn M.; Sweegers, Carly C. G.; Talamini, Lucia M.

2014-01-01

Contextual cues are known to benefit memory retrieval, but whether and how sleep affects this context effect remains unresolved. We manipulated contextual congruence during memory retrieval in human volunteers across 12 h and 24 h intervals beginning with either sleep or wakefulness. Our data suggest that whereas contextual cues lose their potency with time, sleep does not modulate this process. Furthermore, our results are consistent with the idea that sleep's beneficial effect on memory retention depends on the amount of waking time that has passed between encoding and sleep onset. The findings are discussed in the framework of competitive consolidation theory. PMID:24498441

Aversive aftertaste changes visual food cue reactivity: An fMRI study on cross-modal perception.

PubMed

Wabnegger, Albert; Schwab, Daniela; Schienle, Anne

2018-04-23

In western cultures, we are surrounded by appealing visual food cues that stimulate our desire to eat, overeating and subsequent weight gain. Cognitive control of appetite (reappraisal) requires substantial attentional resources and effort in order to work. Therefore, we tested an alternative approach for appetite regulation via functional magnetic resonance imaging. Healthy, normal-weight women were presented with images depicting food (high-/low-caloric), once in combination with a bitter aftertaste (a gustatory stop signal) and once with a neutral taste (water), in a retest design. The aversive aftertaste elicited increased activation in the orbitofrontal/dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (OFC, DLPFC), striatum and frontal operculum during the viewing of high-caloric food (vs. low-caloric food). In addition, the increase in DLPFC activity to high-caloric food in the bitter condition was correlated with reported appetite reduction. The findings indicate that this aftertaste procedure was able to reduce the appetitive value of visual food cues. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effect of Dorsal and Ventral Hippocampal Lesions on Contextual Fear Conditioning and Unconditioned Defensive Behavior Induced by Electrical Stimulation of the Dorsal Periaqueductal Gray

PubMed Central

Ballesteros, Carolina Irurita; de Oliveira Galvão, Bruno; Maisonette, Silvia; Landeira-Fernandez, J.

2014-01-01

The dorsal (DH) and ventral (VH) subregions of the hippocampus are involved in contextual fear conditioning. However, it is still unknown whether these two brain areas also play a role in defensive behavior induced by electrical stimulation of the dorsal periaqueductal gray (dPAG). In the present study, rats were implanted with electrodes into the dPAG to determine freezing and escape response thresholds after sham or bilateral electrolytic lesions of the DH or VH. The duration of freezing behavior that outlasted electrical stimulation of the dPAG was also measured. The next day, these animals were subjected to contextual fear conditioning using footshock as an unconditioned stimulus. Electrolytic lesions of the DH and VH impaired contextual fear conditioning. Only VH lesions disrupted conditioned freezing immediately after footshock and increased the thresholds of aversive freezing and escape responses to dPAG electrical stimulation. Neither DH nor VH lesions disrupted post-dPAG stimulation freezing. These results indicate that the VH but not DH plays an important role in aversively defensive behavior induced by dPAG electrical stimulation. Interpretations of these findings should be made with caution because of the fact that a non-fiber-sparing lesion method was employed. PMID:24404134

Proximity alert! Distance related cuneus activation in military veterans with anger and aggression problems.

PubMed

Heesink, Lieke; Edward Gladwin, Thomas; Terburg, David; van Honk, Jack; Kleber, Rolf; Geuze, Elbert

2017-08-30

Problems involving anger and aggression are common after military deployment, and may involve abnormal responses to threat. This study therefore investigated effects on neural activation related to threat and escapability among veterans with deployment experience. Twenty-seven male veterans with anger and aggression problems (Anger group) and 30 Control veterans performed a virtual predator-task during fMRI measurement. In this task, threat and proximity were manipulated. The distance of cues determined their possibility for escape. Cues signaled impending attack by zooming in towards the participant. If Threat cues, but not Safe cues, reached the participants without being halted by a button press, an aversive noise (105dB scream) was presented. In both the Threat and the Safe condition, closer proximity of the virtual predator resulted in stronger activation in the cuneus in the Anger versus Control group. The results suggest that anger and aggression problems are related to a generalized sensitivity to proximity rather than preparatory processes related to task-contingent aversive stimuli. Anger and aggression problems in natural, dynamically changing environments may be related to an overall heightened vigilance, which is non-adaptively driven by proximity. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The neural correlates of trait resilience when anticipating and recovering from threat

PubMed Central

Waugh, Christian E.; Wager, Tor D.; Fredrickson, Barbara L.; Noll, Doug C.; Taylor, Stephan F.

2008-01-01

A facet of emotional resilience critical for adapting to adversity is flexible use of emotional resources. We hypothesized that in threatening situations, this emotional flexibility enables resilient people to use emotional resources during appropriately emotional events, and conserve emotional resources during innocuous events. We tested this hypothesis using functional magnetic resonance imaging in a repeated recovery from threat task with low- and high-trait resilient individuals (LowR and HighR, respectively, as measured by ER89). In an event-related design, 13 HighR and 13 LowR participants viewed ‘threat’ cues, which signaled either an aversive or neutral picture with equal probabilities, or ‘nonthreat’ cues, which signaled a neutral picture. Results show that when under threat, LowR individuals exhibited prolonged activation in the anterior insula to both the aversive and neutral pictures, whereas HighR individuals exhibited insula activation only to the aversive pictures. These data provide neural evidence that in threatening situations, resilient people flexibly and appropriately adjust the level of emotional resources needed to meet the demands of the situation. PMID:19015078

Dissociable Learning Processes Underlie Human Pain Conditioning.

PubMed

Zhang, Suyi; Mano, Hiroaki; Ganesh, Gowrishankar; Robbins, Trevor; Seymour, Ben

2016-01-11

Pavlovian conditioning underlies many aspects of pain behavior, including fear and threat detection [1], escape and avoidance learning [2], and endogenous analgesia [3]. Although a central role for the amygdala is well established [4], both human and animal studies implicate other brain regions in learning, notably ventral striatum and cerebellum [5]. It remains unclear whether these regions make different contributions to a single aversive learning process or represent independent learning mechanisms that interact to generate the expression of pain-related behavior. We designed a human parallel aversive conditioning paradigm in which different Pavlovian visual cues probabilistically predicted thermal pain primarily to either the left or right arm and studied the acquisition of conditioned Pavlovian responses using combined physiological recordings and fMRI. Using computational modeling based on reinforcement learning theory, we found that conditioning involves two distinct types of learning process. First, a non-specific "preparatory" system learns aversive facial expressions and autonomic responses such as skin conductance. The associated learning signals-the learned associability and prediction error-were correlated with fMRI brain responses in amygdala-striatal regions, corresponding to the classic aversive (fear) learning circuit. Second, a specific lateralized system learns "consummatory" limb-withdrawal responses, detectable with electromyography of the arm to which pain is predicted. Its related learned associability was correlated with responses in ipsilateral cerebellar cortex, suggesting a novel computational role for the cerebellum in pain. In conclusion, our results show that the overall phenotype of conditioned pain behavior depends on two dissociable reinforcement learning circuits. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

When small losses do not loom larger than small gains: effects of contextual autonomy support and goal contents on behavioural responses to small losses and small gains.

PubMed

Chatzisarantis, Nikos L D; Kee, Ying Hwa; Thaung, Hannah Kyaw; Hagger, Martin S

2012-12-01

Based on the tenets of self-determination theory, the present studies examined the moderating effects of interpersonal contexts or goal conditions that afforded satisfaction of psychological needs on loss aversion effects. We hypothesized that behavioural responses to small losses would be stronger relative to behavioural responses to small gains under goal conditions or interpersonal contexts that did not support psychological needs. We also expected the effect to be minimized under goal conditions or interpersonal contexts that supported psychological needs. This prediction was supported in Study 1 that induced satisfaction of psychological needs via manipulations of interpersonal context and in Study 2 that instigated satisfaction of psychological needs via manipulations of goal contents. In addition, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that psychological needs reduced the classic loss aversion effect by increasing behavioural and affective responses to gains and not because psychological needs altered affective or behavioural responses to losses. Results of the present studies support the conclusion that contextual autonomy support and the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic goals proposed by self-determination theory define a boundary condition of the loss aversion hypothesis. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

Dangerous Enough: Moderating Racial Bias with Contextual Threat Cues

PubMed Central

Correll, Joshua; Wittenbrink, Bernd; Park, Bernadette; Judd, Charles M.; Goyle, Arina

2010-01-01

Research shows that participants shoot armed Blacks more frequently and quickly than armed Whites, but make don’t-shoot responses more frequently and quickly for unarmed Whites than unarmed Blacks. We argue that this bias reflects the perception of threat – specifically, threat associated with Black males. Other danger cues (not just race) may create a similar predisposition to shoot, and if these cues promote shooting when the target is White, they should attenuate racial bias. We embedded targets in threatening andsafe backgrounds. Racial bias was evident in safe contexts but disappeared when context signaled danger, and this reduction was largely due to an increased tendency to shoot White targets. PMID:21344058

Contextual cueing effects despite spatially cued target locations.

PubMed

Schankin, Andrea; Schubö, Anna

2010-07-01

Reaction times (RT) to targets are faster in repeated displays relative to novel ones when the spatial arrangement of the distracting items predicts the target location (contextual cueing). It is assumed that visual-spatial attention is guided more efficiently to the target resulting in reduced RTs. In the present experiment, contextual cueing even occurred when the target location was previously peripherally cued. Electrophysiologically, repeated displays elicited an enhanced N2pc component in both conditions and resulted in an earlier onset of the stimulus-locked lateralized readiness potential (s-LRP) in the cued condition and in an enhanced P3 in the uncued condition relative to novel displays. These results indicate that attentional guidance is less important than previously assumed but that other cognitive processes, such as attentional selection (N2pc) and response-related processes (s-LRP, P3) are facilitated by context familiarity.

[Effect of object consistency in a spatial contextual cueing paradigm].

PubMed

Takeda, Yuji

2008-04-01

Previous studies demonstrated that attention can be quickly guided to a target location in a visual search task when the spatial configurations of search items and/or the object identities were repeated in the previous trials. This phenomenon is termed contextual cueing. Recently, it was reported that spatial configuration learning and object identity learning occurred independently, when novel contours were used as search items. The present study examined whether this learning occurred independently even when the search items were meaningful. The results showed that the contextual cueing effect was observed even if the relationships between the spatial locations and object identities were jumbled (Experiment 1). However, it disappeared when the search items were changed into geometric patterns (Experiment 2). These results suggest that the spatial configuration can be learned independent of the object identities; however, the use of the learned configuration is restricted by the learning situations.

The transfer of Cfunc contextual control through equivalence relations.

PubMed

Perez, William F; Fidalgo, Adriana P; Kovac, Roberta; Nico, Yara C

2015-05-01

Derived relational responding is affected by contextual stimuli (Cfunc) that select specific stimulus functions. The present study investigated the transfer of Cfunc contextual control through equivalence relations by evaluating both (a) the maintenance of Cfunc contextual control after the expansion of a relational network, and (b) the establishment of novel contextual stimuli by the transfer of Cfunc contextual control through equivalence relations. Initially, equivalence relations were established and contingencies were arranged so that colors functioned as Cfunc stimuli controlling participants' key-pressing responses in the presence of any stimulus from a three-member equivalence network. To investigate the first research question, the three-member equivalence relations were expanded to five members and the novel members were presented with the Cfunc stimuli in the key-pressing task. To address the second goal of this study, the colors (Cfunc) were established as equivalent to certain line patterns. The transfer of contextual cue function (Cfunc) was tested replacing the colored backgrounds with line patterns in the key-pressing task. Results suggest that the Cfunc contextual control was transferred to novel stimuli that were added to the relational network. In addition, the line patterns indirectly acquired the contextual cue function (Cfunc) initially established for the colored backgrounds. The conceptual and applied implications of Cfunc contextual control are discussed. © Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.

Cue reactivity in virtual reality: the role of context.

PubMed

Paris, Megan M; Carter, Brian L; Traylor, Amy C; Bordnick, Patrick S; Day, Susan X; Armsworth, Mary W; Cinciripini, Paul M

2011-07-01

Cigarette smokers in laboratory experiments readily respond to smoking stimuli with increased craving. An alternative to traditional cue-reactivity methods (e.g., exposure to cigarette photos), virtual reality (VR) has been shown to be a viable cue presentation method to elicit and assess cigarette craving within complex virtual environments. However, it remains poorly understood whether contextual cues from the environment contribute to craving increases in addition to specific cues, like cigarettes. This study examined the role of contextual cues in a VR environment to evoke craving. Smokers were exposed to a virtual convenience store devoid of any specific cigarette cues followed by exposure to the same convenience store with specific cigarette cues added. Smokers reported increased craving following exposure to the virtual convenience store without specific cues, and significantly greater craving following the convenience store with cigarette cues added. However, increased craving recorded after the second convenience store may have been due to the pre-exposure to the first convenience store. This study offers evidence that an environmental context where cigarette cues are normally present (but are not), elicits significant craving in the absence of specific cigarette cues. This finding suggests that VR may have stronger ecological validity over traditional cue reactivity exposure methods by exposing smokers to the full range of cigarette-related environmental stimuli, in addition to specific cigarette cues, that smokers typically experience in their daily lives. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Visual Displays and Contextual Presentations in Computer-Based Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Park, Ok-choon

1998-01-01

Investigates the effects of two instructional strategies, visual display (animation, and static graphics with and without motion cues) and contextual presentation, in the acquisition of electronic troubleshooting skills using computer-based instruction. Study concludes that use of visual displays and contextual presentation be based on the…

Withdrawal, tolerance, and sensitization to dopamine mediated interoceptive cues in rats trained on a three-lever drug-discrimination task.

PubMed

Barrett, Robert J; Caul, William F; Smith, Randy

2005-05-01

In the present experiment rats were trained on a three-lever, drug-discrimination task to discriminate the cues associated with 0.30 mg/kg of the indirect dopamine (DA) agonist, amphetamine (AMPH), saline (SAL), and 0.03 mg/kg of the DA, D2 receptor antagonist, haloperidol (HAL). Choice behavior determined from tests on 0.30 and 0.15 mg/kg AMPH, SAL 0.03 and 0.015 mg/kg HAL provided a behavioral baseline presumed to represent changes along a continuum of DA mediated, interoceptive cues. Results from separate groups tested on 0.30 and 0.15 mg/kg AMPH, SAL, 0.03 and 0.015 mg/kg HAL, 24 h post-treatment with an acute 7.5 mg/kg dose of AMPH, showed rapid tolerance and withdrawal to the AMPH cue and sensitization to the HAL cue. The same tests 24 h following treatment with 1.0 mg/kg HAL showed rapid tolerance to the HAL cue, sensitization to the AMPH cue, but not AMPH-like withdrawal cues. Analysis of the results showed that tolerance to the AMPH and HAL cues reflected neuroadaptive baseline shifts and not weaker cue properties. These findings are consistent with predictions from opponent process theory of motivation and provide an animal model to study the motivational consequences that aversive symptoms of AMPH withdrawal such as dysphoria and anhedonia can have on drug-taking behavior.

Decomposing Self-Control: Individual Differences in Goal Pursuit Despite Interfering Aversion, Temptation, and Distraction

PubMed Central

Steimke, Rosa; Stelzel, Christine; Gaschler, Robert; Rothkirch, Marcus; Ludwig, Vera U.; Paschke, Lena M.; Trempler, Ima; Kathmann, Norbert; Goschke, Thomas; Walter, Henrik

2016-01-01

Self-control can be defined as the ability to exert control over ones impulses. Currently, most research in the area relies on self-report. Focusing on attentional control processes involved in self-control, we modified a spatial selective attentional cueing task to test three domains of self-control experimentally in one task using aversive, tempting, and neutral picture-distractors. The aims of the study were (1) to investigate individual differences in the susceptibility to aversive, tempting, and neutral distraction within one paradigm and (2) to test the association of these three self-control domains to conventional measures of self-control including self-report. The final sample consisted of 116 participants. The task required participants to identify target letters “E” or “F” presented at a cued target location while the distractors were presented. Behavioral and eyetracking data were obtained during the performance of the task. High task performance was encouraged via monetary incentives. In addition to the attentional self-control task, self-reported self-control was assessed and participants performed a color Stroop task, an unsolvable anagram task and a delay of gratification task using chocolate sweets. We found that aversion, temptation, and neutral distraction were associated with significantly increased error rates, reaction times and gaze pattern deviations. Overall task performance on our task correlated with self-reported self-control ability. Measures of aversion, temptation, and distraction showed moderate split-half reliability, but did not correlate with each other across participants. Additionally, participants who made a self-controlled decision in the delay of gratification task were less distracted by temptations in our task than participants who made an impulsive choice. Our individual differences analyses suggest that (1) the ability to endure aversion, resist temptations and ignore neutral distractions are independent of each other and (2) these three domains are related to other measures of self-control. PMID:27148101

An Integrated Model of Associative and Reinforcement Learning

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-08-01

Frameworks that em- ploy some form of Model-based planning (e.g. Daw, Niv , & Dayan, 2005; Sutton & Barto, 1998) include both AL and RL, but these tend to...Chun, M. M. (2000). Contextual cueing of visual attention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(5), 170–178. Daw, N. D., Niv , Y., & Dayan, P. (2005

An Observation on the Spontaneous Noticing of Prospective Memory Event-Based Cues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knight, Justin B.; Meeks, J. Thadeus; Marsh, Richard L.; Cook, Gabriel I.; Brewer, Gene A.; Hicks, Jason L.

2011-01-01

In event-based prospective memory, current theories make differing predictions as to whether intention-related material can be spontaneously noticed (i.e., noticed without relying on preparatory attentional processes). In 2 experiments, participants formed an intention that was contextually associated to the final phase of the experiment, and…

Testing a cue outside the training context increases attention to the contexts and impairs performance in human predictive learning.

PubMed

Aristizabal, José A; Ramos-Álvarez, Manuel M; Callejas-Aguilera, José E; Rosas, Juan M

2017-12-01

One experiment in human predictive learning explored the impact of a context change on attention to contexts and predictive ratings controlled by the cue. In Context A: cue X was paired with an outcome four times, while cue Y was presented without an outcome four times in Context B:. In both contexts filler cues were presented without the outcome. During the test, target cues X and Y were presented either in the context where they were trained, or in the alternative context. With the context change expectation of the outcome X, expressed as predictive ratings, decreased in the presence of X and increased in the presence of Y. Looking at the contexts, expressed as a percentage of the overall gaze dwell time on a trial, was high across the four training trials, and increased with the context change. Results suggest that the presentation of unexpected information leads to increases in attention to contextual cues. Implications for contextual control of behavior are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Source Memory Rehabilitation: A Review Toward Recommendations for Setting Up a Strategy Training Aimed at the "What, Where, and When" of Episodic Retrieval.

PubMed

El Haj, Mohamad; Kessels, Roy P C; Allain, Philippe

2016-01-01

Source memory is a core component of episodic recall as it allows for the reconstruction of contextual details characterizing the acquisition of episodic events. Unlike episodic memory, little is known about source memory rehabilitation. Our review addresses this issue by emphasizing several strategies as useful tools in source memory rehabilitation programs. Four main strategies are likely to improve source recall in amnesic patients-namely, (a) contextual cueing, (b) unitization, (c) errorless learning, and (d) executive function programs. The rationale behind our suggestion is that: (a) reinstating contextual cues during retrieval can serve as retrieval cues and enhance source memory; (b) unitization as an encoding process allows for the integration of several pieces of contextual information into a new single entity; (c) errorless learning may prevent patients from making errors during source learning; and (d) as source memory deteriorations have been classically attributed to executive dysfunction, the rehabilitation of the latter ability is likely to maintain the former ability. Besides these four strategies, our review suggests several additional rehabilitation techniques such as the vanishing cues and spaced retrieval methods. Another additional strategy is the use of electronic devices. By gathering these strategies, our review provides a helpful guideline for clinicians dealing with source memory impairments. Our review further highlights the lack of randomized and controlled studies in the field of source memory rehabilitation.

Alcohol-seeking and relapse: A focus on incentive salience and contextual conditioning.

PubMed

Valyear, Milan D; Villaruel, Franz R; Chaudhri, Nadia

2017-08-01

Environmental stimuli that reliably accompany alcohol intake can become associated with the pharmacological effects of alcohol through classical (Pavlovian) conditioning. Of growing interest to addiction researchers is whether or not this process results in the attribution of incentive salience to alcohol-predictive cues, which could motivate alcohol-seeking behavior and relapse. To evaluate this question, we present a review of rodent behavioral studies that examined the capacity of alcohol-predictive cues to (i) support sign-tracking behavior, (ii) serve as conditioned reinforcers, and (iii) produce Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer. A second, emerging area of research is focused on delineating the role of context in alcohol-seeking behavior and relapse. Here, we review studies showing that alcohol-associated contexts (i) support conditioned place preference, (ii) renew extinguished alcohol-seeking behavior, and (iii) modulate alcohol-seeking responses elicited by discrete alcohol-predictive cues. These behavioral effects may be mediated by unique psychological processes, and have important implications for cue-reactivity studies and neurobiological research. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Neurobiological Mechanism of Chemical Aversion (Emetic) Therapy for Alcohol Use Disorder: An fMRI Study

PubMed Central

Elkins, Ralph L.; Richards, Todd L.; Nielsen, Robert; Repass, Richard; Stahlbrandt, Henriettae; Hoffman, Hunter G.

2017-01-01

A recent NIH epidemiology study found the lifetime prevalence of alcohol use disorder in the United States to be 29%. Alcohol drinking behavior is strongly “learned” via pleasure center activation/reinforcement. Alcohol craving is a powerful desire to drink alcoholic beverages. Craving was added as one of the defining criteria for alcohol use disorder in DSM5, and craving reduction is becoming an increasingly important treatment goal. In the current study, patients with alcohol use disorder received 10 days of inpatient multi-modal treatments at Schick Shadel Hospital (SSH) of Seattle. The treatments included five chemical aversion conditioning sessions that associated alcohol cues (and alcohol) with nausea and emesis. All patients met DSM4 criteria for alcohol use disorder, were heavy drinkers, and reported craving alcohol pre-treatment. Craving reduction was one of the primary treatment goals. This is the first fMRI study to measure the effects of chemical aversion therapy on alcohol craving-related brain activity. Patients were recruited as subjects for the University of Washington (UW) brain scan study following SSH admission but before treatment onset. Prior to treatment, patients reported craving/desire for alcohol. After treatment (after four SSH chemical aversion treatments, again after five SSH chemical treatments, 30 and 90-days post-discharge), these same patients reported avoidance/aversion to alcohol. Most of the participants (69%) reported being still sober 12 months post-treatment. Consistent with a craving reduction mechanism of how chemical aversion therapy facilitates sobriety, results of the UW fMRI brain scans showed significant pre- to post-treatment reductions in craving-related brain activity in the occipital cortex. Additional fMRI brain scan studies are needed to further explore the neurobiological mechanism of chemical aversion therapy treatment for alcohol use disorder, and other substance use disorders for which chemical aversion therapy is used (e.g., opioid dependence and cocaine dependence). Substance use disorders are estimated to affect well over one billion people worldwide. PMID:29033802

What's she doing in the kitchen? Context helps when actions are hard to recognize.

PubMed

Wurm, Moritz F; Schubotz, Ricarda I

2017-04-01

Specific spatial environments are often indicative of where certain actions may take place: In kitchens we prepare food, and in bathrooms we engage in personal hygiene, but not vice versa. In action recognition, contextual cues may constrain an observer's expectations toward actions that are more strongly associated with a particular context than others. Such cues should become particularly helpful when the action itself is difficult to recognize. However, to date only easily identifiable actions were investigated, and the effects of context on recognition were rather interfering than facilitatory. To test whether context also facilitates action recognition, we measured recognition performance of hardly identifiable actions that took place in compatible, incompatible, and neutral contextual settings. Action information was degraded by pixelizing the area of the object manipulation while the room in which the action took place remained fully visible. We found significantly higher accuracy for actions that took place in compatible compared to incompatible and neutral settings, indicating facilitation. Additionally, action recognition was slower in incompatible settings than in compatible and neutral settings, indicating interference. Together, our findings demonstrate that contextual information is effectively exploited during action observation, in particular when visual information about the action itself is sparse. Differential effects on speed and accuracy suggest that contexts modulate action recognition at different levels of processing. Our findings emphasize the importance of contextual information in comprehensive, ecologically valid models of action recognition.

Excitation of lateral habenula neurons as a neural mechanism underlying ethanol-induced conditioned taste aversion.

PubMed

Tandon, Shashank; Keefe, Kristen A; Taha, Sharif A

2017-02-15

The lateral habenula (LHb) has been implicated in regulation of drug-seeking behaviours through aversion-mediated learning. In this study, we recorded neuronal activity in the LHb of rats during an operant task before and after ethanol-induced conditioned taste aversion (CTA) to saccharin. Ethanol-induced CTA caused significantly higher baseline firing rates in LHb neurons, as well as elevated firing rates in response to cue presentation, lever press and saccharin taste. In a separate cohort of rats, we found that bilateral LHb lesions blocked ethanol-induced CTA. Our results strongly suggest that excitation of LHb neurons is required for ethanol-induced CTA, and point towards a mechanism through which LHb firing may regulate voluntary ethanol consumption. Ethanol, like other drugs of abuse, has both rewarding and aversive properties. Previous work suggests that sensitivity to ethanol's aversive effects negatively modulates voluntary alcohol intake and thus may be important in vulnerability to developing alcohol use disorders. We previously found that rats with lesions of the lateral habenula (LHb), which is implicated in aversion-mediated learning, show accelerated escalation of voluntary ethanol consumption. To understand neural encoding in the LHb contributing to ethanol-induced aversion, we recorded neural firing in the LHb of freely behaving, water-deprived rats before and after an ethanol-induced (1.5 g kg -1 20% ethanol, i.p.) conditioned taste aversion (CTA) to saccharin taste. Ethanol-induced CTA strongly decreased motivation for saccharin in an operant task to obtain the tastant. Comparison of LHb neural firing before and after CTA induction revealed four main differences in firing properties. First, baseline firing after CTA induction was significantly higher. Second, firing evoked by cues signalling saccharin availability shifted from a pattern of primarily inhibition before CTA to primarily excitation after CTA induction. Third, CTA induction reduced the magnitude of lever press-evoked inhibition. Finally, firing rates were significantly higher during consumption of the devalued saccharin solution after CTA induction. Next, we studied sham- and LHb-lesioned rats in our operant CTA paradigm and found that LHb lesion significantly attenuated CTA effects in the operant task. Our data demonstrate the importance of LHb excitation in regulating expression of ethanol-induced aversion and suggest a mechanism for its role in modulating escalation of voluntary ethanol intake. © 2016 The Authors. The Journal of Physiology © 2016 The Physiological Society.

Diverse Roads to Relapse: A Discriminative Cue Signaling Cocaine Availability Is More Effective in Renewing Cocaine Seeking in Goal Trackers Than Sign Trackers and Depends on Basal Forebrain Cholinergic Activity.

PubMed

Pitchers, Kyle K; Phillips, Kyra B; Jones, Jonte L; Robinson, Terry E; Sarter, Martin

2017-07-26

Stimuli associated with taking drugs are notorious instigators of relapse. There is, however, considerable variation in the motivational properties of such stimuli, both as a function of the individual and the nature of the stimulus. The behavior of some individuals (sign trackers, STs) is especially influenced by cues paired with reward delivery, perhaps because they are prone to process information via dopamine-dependent, cue-driven, incentive salience systems. Other individuals (goal trackers, GTs) are better able to incorporate higher-order contextual information, perhaps because of better executive/attentional control over behavior, which requires frontal cortical cholinergic activity. We hypothesized, therefore, that a cue that "sets the occasion" for drug taking (a discriminative stimulus, DS) would reinstate cocaine seeking more readily in GTs than STs and that this would require intact cholinergic neurotransmission. To test this, male STs and GTs were trained to self-administer cocaine using an intermittent access schedule with periods of cocaine availability and unavailability signaled by a DS + and a DS - , respectively. Thereafter, half of the rats received an immunotoxic lesion that destroyed 40-50% of basal forebrain cholinergic neurons and later, after extinction training, were tested for the ability of noncontingent presentations of the DS + to reinstate cocaine seeking behavior. The DS + was much more effective in reinstating cocaine seeking in GTs than STs and this effect was abolished by cholinergic losses despite the fact that all rats continued to orient to the DS + We conclude that vulnerability to relapse involves interactions between individual cognitive-motivational biases and the form of the drug cue encountered. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The most predictable outcome of a diagnosis of addiction is a high chance for relapse. When addicts encounter cues previously associated with drug, their attention may be unduly attracted to such cues and these cues can evoke motivational states that instigate and maintain drug-seeking behavior. Although sign-tracking rats were previously demonstrated to exhibit greater relapse vulnerability to Pavlovian drug cues paired with drug delivery, here, we demonstrate that their counterparts, the goal trackers, are more vulnerable if the drug cue acts to signal drug availability and that the forebrain cholinergic system mediates such vulnerability. Given the importance of contextual cues for triggering relapse and the human cognitive-cholinergic capacity for the processing of such cues, goal trackers model essential aspects of relapse vulnerability. Copyright © 2017 the authors 0270-6474/17/377198-11$15.00/0.

Epinephrine increases contextual learning through activation of peripheral β2-adrenoceptors.

PubMed

Alves, Ester; Lukoyanov, Nikolay; Serrão, Paula; Moura, Daniel; Moreira-Rodrigues, Mónica

2016-06-01

Phenylethanolamine-N-methyltransferase knockout (Pnmt-KO) mice are unable to synthesize epinephrine and display reduced contextual fear. However, the precise mechanism responsible for impaired contextual fear learning in these mice is unknown. Our aim was to study the mechanism of epinephrine-dependent contextual learning. Wild-type (WT) or Pnmt-KO (129x1/SvJ) mice were submitted to a fear conditioning test either in the absence or in the presence of epinephrine, isoprenaline (non-selective β-adrenoceptor agonist), fenoterol (selective β2-adrenoceptor agonist), epinephrine plus sotalol (non-selective β-adrenoceptor antagonist), and dobutamine (selective β1-adrenoceptor agonist). Catecholamines were separated by reverse-phase HPLC and quantified by electrochemical detection. Blood glucose was measured by coulometry. Re-exposure to shock context induced higher freezing in WT and Pnmt-KO mice treated with epinephrine and fenoterol than in mice treated with vehicle. In addition, freezing response in Pnmt-KO mice was much lower than in WT mice. Freezing induced by epinephrine was blocked by sotalol in Pnmt-KO mice. Epinephrine and fenoterol treatment restored glycemic response in Pnmt-KO mice. Re-exposure to shock context did not induce a significant difference in freezing in Pnmt-KO mice treated with dobutamine and vehicle. Aversive memories are best retained if moderately high plasma epinephrine concentrations occur at the same moment as the aversive stimulus. In addition, epinephrine increases context fear learning by acting on peripheral β2-adrenoceptors, which may induce high levels of blood glucose. Since glucose crosses the blood-brain barrier, it may enhance hippocampal-dependent contextual learning.

Differential modulation of changes in hippocampal-septal synaptic excitability by the amygdala as a function of either elemental or contextual fear conditioning in mice.

PubMed

Desmedt, A; Garcia, R; Jaffard, R

1998-01-01

Recent data obtained using a classic fear conditioning paradigm showed a dissociation between the retention of associations relative to contextual information (dependent on the hippocampal formation) and the retention of elemental associations (dependent on the amygdala). Furthermore, it was reported that conditioned emotional responses (CERs) could be dissociated from the recollection of the learning experience (declarative memory) in humans and from modifications of the hippocampal-septal excitability in animals. Our aim was to determine whether these two systems ("behavioral expression" system and "factual memory" system) interact by examining the consequences of amygdalar lesions (1) on the modifications of hippocampal-septal excitability and (2) on the behavioral expression of fear (freezing) resulting from an aversive conditioning during reexposure to conditional stimuli (CSs). During conditioning, to modulate the predictive nature of the context and of a discrete stimulus (tone) on the unconditional stimulus (US) occurrence, the phasic discrete CS was paired with the US or randomly distributed with regard to the US. After the lesion, the CER was dramatically reduced during reexposure to the CSs, whatever the type of acquisition. However, the changes in hippocampal-septal excitability persisted but were altered. For controls, a decrease in septal excitability was observed during reexposure to the conditioning context only for the "unpaired group" (predictive context case). Conversely, among lesioned subjects this decrease was observed in the "paired group" (predictive discrete CS case), whereas this decrease was significantly reduced in the unpaired group with respect to the matched control group. The amplitude and the direction of these modifications suggest a differential modulation of hippocampal-septal excitability by the amygdala to amplify the contribution of the more predictive association signaling the occurrence of the aversive event.

The Impact of Affective Context on Autobiographical Recollection in Depression.

PubMed

Hitchcock, Caitlin; Golden, Ann-Marie J; Werner-Seidler, Aliza; Kuyken, Willem; Dalgleish, Tim

2018-05-01

Across two studies we investigated the influence of contextual cues on autobiographical memory recall. In Study 1, participants ( N = 37) with major depressive disorder, in episode or in varying degrees of remission, were administered a Negative Autobiographical Memory Task (NAMT) that required them to retrieve negatively valenced memories in response to positive cue words (a positive context). We reasoned that increased depression symptom severity would be associated with a reduced ability to override priming from this disadvantageous context. Consequently, we hypothesized that increased depressive severity would counterintuitively be associated with reduced negativity ratings for retrieved personal memories to positive cues on the NAMT. This hypothesis was supported. Study 2, using a community sample ( N = 63), demonstrated that a similar reduction in memory negativity was observed in individuals with lower working memory capacity-an index of executive control. Implications for autobiographical memory and executive training paradigms for depression are discussed.

Contextual cuing contributes to the independent modification of multiple internal models for vocal control

PubMed Central

Keough, Dwayne

2011-01-01

Research on the control of visually guided limb movements indicates that the brain learns and continuously updates an internal model that maps the relationship between motor commands and sensory feedback. A growing body of work suggests that an internal model that relates motor commands to sensory feedback also supports vocal control. There is evidence from arm-reaching studies that shows that when provided with a contextual cue, the motor system can acquire multiple internal models, which allows an animal to adapt to different perturbations in diverse contexts. In this study we show that trained singers can rapidly acquire multiple internal models regarding voice fundamental frequency (F0). These models accommodate different perturbations to ongoing auditory feedback. Participants heard three musical notes and reproduced each one in succession. The musical targets could serve as a contextual cue to indicate which direction (up or down) feedback would be altered on each trial; however, participants were not explicitly instructed to use this strategy. When participants were gradually exposed to altered feedback adaptation was observed immediately following vocal onset. Aftereffects were target specific and did not influence vocal productions on subsequent trials. When target notes were no longer a contextual cue, adaptation occurred during altered feedback trials and evidence for trial-by-trial adaptation was found. These findings indicate that the brain is exceptionally sensitive to the deviations between auditory feedback and the predicted consequence of a motor command during vocalization. Moreover, these results indicate that, with contextual cues, the vocal control system may maintain multiple internal models that are capable of independent modification during different tasks or environments. PMID:21346208

Implicit Learning of Viewpoint-Independent Spatial Layouts

PubMed Central

Tsuchiai, Taiga; Matsumiya, Kazumichi; Kuriki, Ichiro; Shioiri, Satoshi

2012-01-01

We usually perceive things in our surroundings as unchanged despite viewpoint changes caused by self-motion. The visual system therefore must have a function to process objects independently of viewpoint. In this study, we examined whether viewpoint-independent spatial layout can be obtained implicitly. For this purpose, we used a contextual cueing effect, a learning effect of spatial layout in visual search displays known to be an implicit effect. We investigated the transfer of the contextual cueing effect to images from a different viewpoint by using visual search displays of 3D objects. For images from a different viewpoint, the contextual cueing effect was maintained with self-motion but disappeared when the display changed without self-motion. This indicates that there is an implicit learning effect in environment-centered coordinates and suggests that the spatial representation of object layouts can be obtained and updated implicitly. We also showed that binocular disparity plays an important role in the layout representations. PMID:22740837

Contextual influences on children's use of vocal affect cues during referential interpretation.

PubMed

Berman, Jared M J; Graham, Susan A; Chambers, Craig G

2013-01-01

In three experiments, we investigated 5-year-olds' sensitivity to speaker vocal affect during referential interpretation in cases where the indeterminacy is or is not resolved by speech information. In Experiment 1, analyses of eye gaze patterns and pointing behaviours indicated that 5-year-olds used vocal affect cues at the point where an ambiguous description was encountered. In Experiments 2 and 3, we used unambiguous situations to investigate how the referential context influences the ability to use affect cues earlier in the utterance. Here, we found a differential use of speaker vocal affect whereby 5-year-olds' referential hypotheses were influenced by negative vocal affect cues in advance of the noun, but not by positive affect cues. Together, our findings reveal how 5-year-olds use a speaker's vocal affect to identify potential referents in different contextual situations and also suggest that children may be more attuned to negative vocal affect than positive vocal affect, particularly early in an utterance.

Evidence for Hippocampus-Dependent Contextual Learning at Postnatal Day 17 in the Rat

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Foster, Jennifer A.; Burman, Michael A.

2010-01-01

Long-term memory for fear of an environment (contextual fear conditioning) emerges later in development (postnatal day; PD 23) than long-term memory for fear of discrete stimuli (PD 17). As contextual, but not explicit cue, fear conditioning relies on the hippocampus; this has been interpreted as evidence that the hippocampus is not fully…

Action at Its Place: Contextual Settings Enhance Action Recognition in 4- to 8-Year-Old Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wurm, Moritz F.; Artemenko, Christina; Giuliani, Daniela; Schubotz, Ricarda I.

2017-01-01

Actions are recognized faster and with higher accuracy when they take place in their typical environments. It is unclear, however, when contextual cues from the environment become effectively exploited during childhood and whether contextual integration interacts with other factors such as children's perceptual or motor experience with an action.…

A diffusion modeling approach to understanding contextual cueing effects in children with ADHD.

PubMed

Weigard, Alexander; Huang-Pollock, Cynthia

2014-12-01

Strong theoretical models suggest implicit learning deficits may exist among children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). We examine implicit contextual cueing (CC) effects among children with ADHD (n = 72) and non-ADHD Controls (n = 36). Using Ratcliff's drift diffusion model, we found that among Controls, the CC effect is due to improvements in attentional guidance and to reductions in response threshold. Children with ADHD did not show a CC effect; although they were able to use implicitly acquired information to deploy attentional focus, they had more difficulty adjusting their response thresholds. Improvements in attentional guidance and reductions in response threshold together underlie the CC effect. Results are consistent with neurocognitive models of ADHD that posit subcortical dysfunction but intact spatial attention, and encourage the use of alternative data analytic methods when dealing with reaction time data. © 2014 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. © 2014 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Procedural learning and associative memory mechanisms contribute to contextual cueing: Evidence from fMRI and eye-tracking.

PubMed

Manelis, Anna; Reder, Lynne M

2012-10-16

Using a combination of eye tracking and fMRI in a contextual cueing task, we explored the mechanisms underlying the facilitation of visual search for repeated spatial configurations. When configurations of distractors were repeated, greater activation in the right hippocampus corresponded to greater reductions in the number of saccades to locate the target. A psychophysiological interactions analysis for repeated configurations revealed that a strong functional connectivity between this area in the right hippocampus and the left superior parietal lobule early in learning was significantly reduced toward the end of the task. Practice related changes (which we call "procedural learning") in activation in temporo-occipital and parietal brain regions depended on whether or not spatial context was repeated. We conclude that context repetition facilitates visual search through chunk formation that reduces the number of effective distractors that have to be processed during the search. Context repetition influences procedural learning in a way that allows for continuous and effective chunk updating.

Procedural learning and associative memory mechanisms contribute to contextual cueing: Evidence from fMRI and eye-tracking

PubMed Central

Manelis, Anna; Reder, Lynne M.

2012-01-01

Using a combination of eye tracking and fMRI in a contextual cueing task, we explored the mechanisms underlying the facilitation of visual search for repeated spatial configurations. When configurations of distractors were repeated, greater activation in the right hippocampus corresponded to greater reductions in the number of saccades to locate the target. A psychophysiological interactions analysis for repeated configurations revealed that a strong functional connectivity between this area in the right hippocampus and the left superior parietal lobule early in learning was significantly reduced toward the end of the task. Practice related changes (which we call “procedural learning”) in activation in temporo-occipital and parietal brain regions depended on whether or not spatial context was repeated. We conclude that context repetition facilitates visual search through chunk formation that reduces the number of effective distractors that have to be processed during the search. Context repetition influences procedural learning in a way that allows for continuous and effective chunk updating. PMID:23073642

Context and Time in Causal Learning: Contingency and Mood Dependent Effects

PubMed Central

Msetfi, Rachel M.; Wade, Caroline; Murphy, Robin A.

2013-01-01

Defining cues for instrumental causality are the temporal, spatial and contingency relationships between actions and their effects. In this study, we carried out a series of causal learning experiments that systematically manipulated time and context in positive and negative contingency conditions. In addition, we tested participants categorized as non-dysphoric and mildly dysphoric because depressed mood has been shown to affect the processing of all these causal cues. Findings showed that causal judgements made by non-dysphoric participants were contextualized at baseline and were affected by the temporal spacing of actions and effects only with generative, but not preventative, contingency relationships. Participants categorized as dysphoric made less contextualized causal ratings at baseline but were more sensitive than others to temporal manipulations across the contingencies. These effects were consistent with depression affecting causal learning through the effects of slowed time experience on accrued exposure to the context in which causal events took place. Taken together, these findings are consistent with associative approaches to causal judgement. PMID:23691147

The behavioural immune system and the psychology of human sociality.

PubMed

Schaller, Mark

2011-12-12

Because immunological defence against pathogens is costly and merely reactive, human anti-pathogen defence is also characterized by proactive behavioural mechanisms that inhibit contact with pathogens in the first place. This behavioural immune system comprises psychological processes that infer infection risk from perceptual cues, and that respond to these perceptual cues through the activation of aversive emotions, cognitions and behavioural impulses. These processes are engaged flexibly, producing context-contingent variation in the nature and magnitude of aversive responses. These processes have important implications for human social cognition and social behaviour-including implications for social gregariousness, person perception, intergroup prejudice, mate preferences, sexual behaviour and conformity. Empirical evidence bearing on these many implications is reviewed and discussed. This review also identifies important directions for future research on the human behavioural immune system--including the need for enquiry into underlying mechanisms, additional behavioural consequences and implications for human health and well-being.

The behavioural immune system and the psychology of human sociality

PubMed Central

Schaller, Mark

2011-01-01

Because immunological defence against pathogens is costly and merely reactive, human anti-pathogen defence is also characterized by proactive behavioural mechanisms that inhibit contact with pathogens in the first place. This behavioural immune system comprises psychological processes that infer infection risk from perceptual cues, and that respond to these perceptual cues through the activation of aversive emotions, cognitions and behavioural impulses. These processes are engaged flexibly, producing context–contingent variation in the nature and magnitude of aversive responses. These processes have important implications for human social cognition and social behaviour—including implications for social gregariousness, person perception, intergroup prejudice, mate preferences, sexual behaviour and conformity. Empirical evidence bearing on these many implications is reviewed and discussed. This review also identifies important directions for future research on the human behavioural immune system—including the need for enquiry into underlying mechanisms, additional behavioural consequences and implications for human health and well-being. PMID:22042918

Acute stress impairs the retrieval of extinction memory in humans

PubMed Central

Raio, Candace M.; Brignoni-Perez, Edith; Goldman, Rachel; Phelps, Elizabeth A.

2014-01-01

Extinction training is a form of inhibitory learning that allows an organism to associate a previously aversive cue with a new, safe outcome. Extinction does not erase a fear association, but instead creates a competing association that may or may not be retrieved when a cue is subsequently encountered. Characterizing the conditions under which extinction learning is expressed is important to enhancing the treatment of anxiety disorders that rely on extinction-based exposure therapy as a primary treatment technique. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which plays an important role in the expression of extinction memory, has been shown to be functionally impaired after stress exposure. Further, recent research in rodents found that exposure to stress led to deficits in extinction retrieval, although this has yet to be tested in humans. To explore how stress might influence extinction retrieval in humans, participants underwent a differential aversive learning paradigm, in which one image was probabilistically paired with an aversive shock while the other image denoted safety. Extinction training directly followed, at which point reinforcement was omitted. A day later, participants returned to the lab and either completed an acute stress manipulation (i.e., cold pressor), or a control task, before undergoing an extinction retrieval test. Skin conductance responses and salivary cortisol concentrations were measured throughout each session as indices of fear arousal and neuroendocrine stress responses, respectively. The efficacy of our stress induction was established by observing significant increases in cortisol for the stress condition only. We examined extinction retrieval by comparing conditioned responses during the last trial of extinction (day 1) with that of the first trial of re-extinction (day 2). Groups did not differ on initial fear acquisition or extinction, however, one day later participants in the stress group (n = 27) demonstrated significantly less extinction retrieval (i.e., greater fear recovery) than those in the control group (n = 25). Our results suggest that acute stress impairs extinction memory retrieval and offers insight into why treatment strategies used in the clinic may be challenging to recruit in daily life where stress is pervasive. PMID:24508065

Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer effects in the nucleus accumbens relate to relapse in alcohol dependence.

PubMed

Garbusow, Maria; Schad, Daniel J; Sebold, Miriam; Friedel, Eva; Bernhardt, Nadine; Koch, Stefan P; Steinacher, Bruno; Kathmann, Norbert; Geurts, Dirk E M; Sommer, Christian; Müller, Dirk K; Nebe, Stephan; Paul, Sören; Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich; Zimmermann, Ulrich S; Walter, Henrik; Smolka, Michael N; Sterzer, Philipp; Rapp, Michael A; Huys, Quentin J M; Schlagenhauf, Florian; Heinz, Andreas

2016-05-01

In detoxified alcohol-dependent patients, alcohol-related stimuli can promote relapse. However, to date, the mechanisms by which contextual stimuli promote relapse have not been elucidated in detail. One hypothesis is that such contextual stimuli directly stimulate the motivation to drink via associated brain regions like the ventral striatum and thus promote alcohol seeking, intake and relapse. Pavlovian-to-Instrumental-Transfer (PIT) may be one of those behavioral phenomena contributing to relapse, capturing how Pavlovian conditioned (contextual) cues determine instrumental behavior (e.g. alcohol seeking and intake). We used a PIT paradigm during functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the effects of classically conditioned Pavlovian stimuli on instrumental choices in n = 31 detoxified patients diagnosed with alcohol dependence and n = 24 healthy controls matched for age and gender. Patients were followed up over a period of 3 months. We observed that (1) there was a significant behavioral PIT effect for all participants, which was significantly more pronounced in alcohol-dependent patients; (2) PIT was significantly associated with blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signals in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) in subsequent relapsers only; and (3) PIT-related NAcc activation was associated with, and predictive of, critical outcomes (amount of alcohol intake and relapse during a 3 months follow-up period) in alcohol-dependent patients. These observations show for the first time that PIT-related BOLD signals, as a measure of the influence of Pavlovian cues on instrumental behavior, predict alcohol intake and relapse in alcohol dependence. © 2015 Society for the Study of Addiction.

The ventral hippocampus, but not the dorsal hippocampus is critical for learned approach-avoidance decision making.

PubMed

Schumacher, Anett; Vlassov, Ekaterina; Ito, Rutsuko

2016-04-01

The resolution of an approach-avoidance conflict induced by ambivalent information involves the appraisal of the incentive value of the outcomes and associated stimuli to orchestrate an appropriate behavioral response. Much research has been directed at delineating the neural circuitry underlying approach motivation and avoidance motivation separately. Very little research, however, has examined the neural substrates engaged at the point of decision making when opposing incentive motivations are experienced simultaneously. We hereby examine the role of the dorsal and ventral hippocampus (HPC) in a novel approach-avoidance decision making paradigm, revisiting a once popular theory of HPC function, which posited the HPC to be the driving force of a behavioral inhibition system that is activated in situations of imminent threat. Rats received pre-training excitotoxic lesions of the dorsal or ventral HPC, and were trained to associate different non-spatial cues with appetitive, aversive and neutral outcomes in three separate arms of the radial maze. On the final day of testing, a state of approach-avoidance conflict was induced by simultaneously presenting two cues of opposite valences, and comparing the time the rats spent interacting with the superimposed 'conflict' cue, and the neutral cue. The ventral HPC-lesioned group showed significant preference for the conflict cue over the neutral cue, compared to the dorsal HPC-lesioned, and control groups. Thus, we provide evidence that the ventral, but not dorsal HPC, is a crucial component of the neural circuitry concerned with exerting inhibitory control over approach tendencies under circumstances in which motivational conflict is experienced. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The impact of acute stress on the neural processing of food cues in bulimia nervosa: Replication in two samples.

PubMed

Collins, Brittany; Breithaupt, Lauren; McDowell, Jennifer E; Miller, L Stephen; Thompson, James; Fischer, Sarah

2017-07-01

The impact of acute stress on the neural processing of food cues in bulimia nervosa (BN) is unknown, despite theory that acute stress decreases cognitive control over food and hence increases vulnerability to environmental triggers for binge eating. Thus, the goals of this manuscript were to explore the impact of acute stress on the neural processing of food cues in BN. In Study 1, 10 women with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) BN and 10 healthy controls participated in an fMRI paradigm examining the neural correlates of visual food cue processing pre and post an acute stress induction. Whole brain analysis indicated that women with BN exhibited significant decreases in activation in the precuneus, associated with self-referential processing, the paracingulate gyrus, and the anterior vermis of the cerebellum. Healthy controls exhibited increased activation in these regions in response to food cues poststress. In Study 2, 17 women with DSM-5 BN or otherwise specified feeding and eating disorder with BN symptoms participated in the same paradigm. A region of interest analysis replicated findings from Study 1. Replication of imaging findings in 2 different samples suggests the potential importance of these regions in relation to BN. Decreased activation in the precuneus, specifically, is consistent with models of BN that posit that binge eating serves as a concrete distraction from aversive internal stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Contextual Social Cognition Impairments in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

PubMed Central

Villarin, Lilian; Theil, Donna; Gonzalez-Gadea, María Luz; Gomez, Pedro; Mosquera, Marcela; Huepe, David; Strejilevich, Sergio; Vigliecca, Nora Silvana; Matthäus, Franziska; Decety, Jean; Manes, Facundo; Ibañez, Agustín M.

2013-01-01

Background The ability to integrate contextual information with social cues to generate social meaning is a key aspect of social cognition. It is widely accepted that patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders have deficits in social cognition; however, previous studies on these disorders did not use tasks that replicate everyday situations. Methodology/Principal Findings This study evaluates the performance of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders on social cognition tasks (emotional processing, empathy, and social norms knowledge) that incorporate different levels of contextual dependence and involvement of real-life scenarios. Furthermore, we explored the association between social cognition measures, clinical symptoms and executive functions. Using a logistic regression analysis, we explored whether the involvement of more basic skills in emotional processing predicted performance on empathy tasks. The results showed that both patient groups exhibited deficits in social cognition tasks with greater context sensitivity and involvement of real-life scenarios. These deficits were more severe in schizophrenic than in bipolar patients. Patients did not differ from controls in tasks involving explicit knowledge. Moreover, schizophrenic patients’ depression levels were negatively correlated with performance on empathy tasks. Conclusions/Significance Overall performance on emotion recognition predicted performance on intentionality attribution during the more ambiguous situations of the empathy task. These results suggest that social cognition deficits could be related to a general impairment in the capacity to implicitly integrate contextual cues. Important implications for the assessment and treatment of individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, as well as for neurocognitive models of these pathologies are discussed. PMID:23520477

A magnetoencephalography study of visual processing of pain anticipation.

PubMed

Machado, Andre G; Gopalakrishnan, Raghavan; Plow, Ela B; Burgess, Richard C; Mosher, John C

2014-07-15

Anticipating pain is important for avoiding injury; however, in chronic pain patients, anticipatory behavior can become maladaptive, leading to sensitization and limiting function. Knowledge of networks involved in pain anticipation and conditioning over time could help devise novel, better-targeted therapies. With the use of magnetoencephalography, we evaluated in 10 healthy subjects the neural processing of pain anticipation. Anticipatory cortical activity elicited by consecutive visual cues that signified imminent painful stimulus was compared with cues signifying nonpainful and no stimulus. We found that the neural processing of visually evoked pain anticipation involves the primary visual cortex along with cingulate and frontal regions. Visual cortex could quickly and independently encode and discriminate between visual cues associated with pain anticipation and no pain during preconscious phases following object presentation. When evaluating the effect of task repetition on participating cortical areas, we found that activity of prefrontal and cingulate regions was mostly prominent early on when subjects were still naive to a cue's contextual meaning. Visual cortical activity was significant throughout later phases. Although visual cortex may precisely and time efficiently decode cues anticipating pain or no pain, prefrontal areas establish the context associated with each cue. These findings have important implications toward processes involved in pain anticipation and maladaptive pain conditioning. Copyright © 2014 the American Physiological Society.

Countering Craving with Disgust Images: Examining Nicotine Withdrawn Smokers' Motivated Message Processing of Anti-Tobacco Public Service Announcements.

PubMed

Clayton, Russell B; Leshner, Glenn; Tomko, Rachel L; Trull, Timothy J; Piasecki, Thomas M

2017-03-01

There is a lack of research examining whether smoking cues in anti-tobacco advertisements elicit cravings, or whether this effect is moderated by countervailing message attributes, such as disgusting images. Furthermore, no research has examined how these types of messages influence nicotine withdrawn smokers' cognitive processing and associated behavioral intentions. At a laboratory session, participants (N = 50 nicotine-deprived adults) were tested for cognitive processing and recognition memory of 12 anti-tobacco advertisements varying in depictions of smoking cues and disgust content. Self-report smoking urges and intentions to quit smoking were measured after each message. The results from this experiment indicated that smoking cue messages activated appetitive/approach motivation resulting in enhanced attention and memory, but increased craving and reduced quit intentions. Disgust messages also enhanced attention and memory, but activated aversive/avoid motivation resulting in reduced craving and increased quit intentions. The combination of smoking cues and disgust content resulted in moderate amounts of craving and quit intentions, but also led to heart rate acceleration (indicating defensive processing) and poorer recognition of message content. These data suggest that in order to counter nicotine-deprived smokers' craving and prolong abstinence, anti-tobacco messages should omit smoking cues but include disgust. Theoretical implications are also discussed.

Countering Craving with Disgust Images: Examining Nicotine Withdrawn Smokers’ Motivated Message Processing of Anti-Tobacco Public Service Announcements

PubMed Central

CLAYTON, RUSSELL B.; LESHNER, GLENN; TOMKO, RACHEL L.; TRULL, TIMOTHY J.; PIASECKI, THOMAS M.

2017-01-01

There is a lack of research examining whether smoking cues in anti-tobacco advertisements elicit cravings, or whether this effect is moderated by countervailing message attributes, such as disgusting images. Furthermore, no research has examined how these types of messages influence nicotine withdrawn smokers’ cognitive processing and associated behavioral intentions. At a laboratory session, participants (N = 50 nicotine-deprived adults) were tested for cognitive processing and recognition memory of 12 anti-tobacco advertisements varying in depictions of smoking cues and disgust content. Self-report smoking urges and intentions to quit smoking were measured after each message. The results from this experiment indicated that smoking cue messages activated appetitive/approach motivation resulting in enhanced attention and memory, but increased craving and reduced quit intentions. Disgust messages also enhanced attention and memory, but activated aversive/avoid motivation resulting in reduced craving and increased quit intentions. The combination of smoking cues and disgust content resulted in moderate amounts of craving and quit intentions, but also led to heart rate acceleration (indicating defensive processing) and poorer recognition of message content. These data suggest that in order to counter nicotine-deprived smokers’ craving and prolong abstinence, anti-tobacco messages should omit smoking cues but include disgust. Theoretical implications are also discussed. PMID:28248620

Repeatable aversion across threat types is linked with life-history traits but is dependent on how aversion is measured.

PubMed

Davidson, Gabrielle L; Reichert, Michael S; Crane, Jodie M S; O'Shea, William; Quinn, John L

2018-02-01

Personality research suggests that individual differences in risk aversion may be explained by links with life-history variation. However, few empirical studies examine whether repeatable differences in risk avoidance behaviour covary with life-history traits among individuals in natural populations, or how these links vary depending on the context and the way risk aversion is measured. We measured two different risk avoidance behaviours (latency to enter the nest and inspection time) in wild great tits ( Parus major ) in two different contexts-response to a novel object and to a predator cue placed at the nest-box during incubation---and related these behaviours to female reproductive success and condition. Females responded equally strongly to both stimuli, and although both behaviours were repeatable, they did not correlate. Latency to enter was negatively related to body condition and the number of offspring fledged. By contrast, inspection time was directly explained by whether incubating females had been flushed from the nest before the trial began. Thus, our inferences on the relationship between risk aversion and fitness depend on how risk aversion was measured. Our results highlight the limitations of drawing conclusions about the relevance of single measures of a personality trait such as risk aversion.

Requirement of NF-kappa B Activation in Different Mice Brain Areas during Long-Term Memory Consolidation in Two Contextual One-Trial Tasks with Opposing Valences

PubMed Central

Salles, Angeles; Krawczyk, Maria del C.; Blake, Mariano; Romano, Arturo; Boccia, Mariano M.; Freudenthal, Ramiro

2017-01-01

NF-kappa B is a transcription factor whose activation has been shown to be necessary for long-term memory consolidation in several species. NF-kappa B is activated and translocates to the nucleus of cells in a specific temporal window during consolidation. Our work focuses on a one trial learning tasks associated to the inhibitory avoidance (IA) setting. Mice were trained either receiving or not a footshock when entering a dark compartment (aversive vs. appetitive learning). Regardless of training condition (appetitive or aversive), latencies to step-through during testing were significantly different to those measured during training. Additionally, these testing latencies were also different from those of a control group that only received a shock unrelated to context. Moreover, nuclear NF-kappa B DNA-binding activity was augmented in the aversive and the appetitive tasks when compared with control and naïve animals. NF-kappa B inhibition by Sulfasalazine injected either in the Hippocampus, Amygdala or Nucleus accumbens immediately after training was able to impair retention in both training versions. Our results suggest that NF-kappa B is a critical molecular step, in different brain areas on memory consolidation. This was the case for both the IA task and also the modified version of the same task where the footshock was omitted during training. This work aims to further investigate how appetitive and aversive memories are consolidated. PMID:28439227

Dine or dash? Turbulence inhibits blue crab navigation in attractive-aversive odor plumes by altering signal structure encoded by the olfactory pathway.

PubMed

Weissburg, Marc; Atkins, Lorin; Berkenkamp, Kimberly; Mankin, Danielle

2012-12-01

Blue crabs can distinguish and navigate to attractive (food) odors even when aversive odors (injured crab metabolites) are released nearby. Blue crabs in these conditions detect the aversive odor and avoid it, but find the attractive source with nearly the same success rate as when the attractive source is presented alone. Spatially and temporally distinct odor filaments appear to signal to foragers that the two odor sources are not co-located, and hence navigating to the attractive odor entails an acceptable risk of predation. However, environmentally produced turbulence suppresses tracking by homogenizing the two odors; blue crabs fail to track to the attractive source when the aversive source is present, even though turbulence does not substantially inhibit tracking to the attractive source alone. Removal of sensory input from aesthetascs on the antennules, but not chemosensors on the legs, rescues navigation to attractive-aversive dual plumes in turbulent conditions. These results suggest that mixing in the natural environment may amplify the effects of predators by suppressing tracking to food odors when aversive cues are present, and that the olfactory pathway mediates the response.

The Effects of Spatial Contextual Familiarity on Remembered Scenes, Episodic Memories, and Imagined Future Events

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robin, Jessica; Moscovitch, Morris

2014-01-01

Several recent studies have explored the effect of contextual familiarity on remembered and imagined events. The aim of this study was to examine the extent of this effect by comparing the effect of cuing spatial memories, episodic memories, and imagined future events with spatial contextual cues of varying levels of familiarity. We used…

Overexpression of Protein Kinase Mζ in the Hippocampus Enhances Long-Term Potentiation and Long-Term Contextual But Not Cued Fear Memory in Rats.

PubMed

Schuette, Sven R M; Fernández-Fernández, Diego; Lamla, Thorsten; Rosenbrock, Holger; Hobson, Scott

2016-04-13

The persistently active protein kinase Mζ (PKMζ) has been found to be involved in the formation and maintenance of long-term memory. Most of the studies investigating PKMζ, however, have used either putatively unselective inhibitors or conventional knock-out animal models in which compensatory mechanisms may occur. Here, we overexpressed an active form of PKMζ in rat hippocampus, a structure highly involved in memory formation, and embedded in several neural networks. We investigated PKMζ's influence on synaptic plasticity using electrophysiological recordings of basal transmission, paired pulse facilitation, and LTP and combined this with behavioral cognitive experiments addressing formation and retention of both contextual memory during aversive conditioning and spatial memory during spontaneous exploration. We demonstrate that hippocampal slices overexpressing PKMζ show enhanced basal transmission, suggesting a potential role of PKMζ in postsynaptic AMPAR trafficking. Moreover, the PKMζ-overexpressing slices augmented LTP and this effect was not abolished by protein-synthesis blockers, indicating that PKMζ induces enhanced LTP formation in a protein-synthesis-independent manner. In addition, we found selectively enhanced long-term memory for contextual but not cued fear memory, underlining the theory of the hippocampus' involvement in the contextual aspect of aversive reinforced tasks. Memory for spatial orientation during spontaneous exploration remained unaltered, suggesting that PKMζ may not affect the neural circuits underlying spontaneous tasks that are different from aversive tasks. In this study, using an overexpression strategy as opposed to an inhibitor-based approach, we demonstrate an important modulatory role of PKMζ in synaptic plasticity and selective memory processing. Most of the literature investigating protein kinase Mζ (PKMζ) used inhibitors with selectivity that has been called into question or conventional knock-out animal models in which compensatory mechanisms may occur. To avoid these issues, some studies have been done using viral overexpression of PKMζ in different brain structures to show cognitive enhancement. However, electrophysiological experiments were exclusively done in knock-out models or inhibitory studies to show depletion of LTP. There was no study showing the effect of PKMζ overexpression in the hippocampus on behavior and LTP experiments. To our knowledge, this is the first study to combine these aspects with the result of enhanced memory for contextual fear memory and to show enhanced LTP in hippocampal slices overexpressing PKMζ. Copyright © 2016 Schuette et al.

"The impact of uncertain threat on affective bias: Individual differences in response to ambiguity": Correction.

PubMed

2018-04-01

Reports an error in "The impact of uncertain threat on affective bias: Individual differences in response to ambiguity" by Maital Neta, Julie Cantelon, Zachary Haga, Caroline R. Mahoney, Holly A. Taylor and F. Caroline Davis ( Emotion , 2017[Dec], Vol 17[8], 1137-1143). In this article, the copyright attribution was incorrectly listed under the Creative Commons CC-BY license due to production-related error. The correct copyright should be "In the public domain." The online version of this article has been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2017-40275-001.) Individuals who operate under highly stressful conditions (e.g., military personnel and first responders) are often faced with the challenge of quickly interpreting ambiguous information in uncertain and threatening environments. When faced with ambiguity, it is likely adaptive to view potentially dangerous stimuli as threatening until contextual information proves otherwise. One laboratory-based paradigm that can be used to simulate uncertain threat is known as threat of shock (TOS), in which participants are told that they might receive mild but unpredictable electric shocks while performing an unrelated task. The uncertainty associated with this potential threat induces a state of emotional arousal that is not overwhelmingly stressful, but has widespread-both adaptive and maladaptive-effects on cognitive and affective function. For example, TOS is thought to enhance aversive processing and abolish positivity bias. Importantly, in certain situations (e.g., when walking home alone at night), this anxiety can promote an adaptive state of heightened vigilance and defense mobilization. In the present study, we used TOS to examine the effects of uncertain threat on valence bias, or the tendency to interpret ambiguous social cues as positive or negative. As predicted, we found that heightened emotional arousal elicited by TOS was associated with an increased tendency to interpret ambiguous cues negatively. Such negative interpretations are likely adaptive in situations in which threat detection is critical for survival and should override an individual's tendency to interpret ambiguity positively in safe contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of visual and mechanosensory cues in structuring forward flight in Drosophila melanogaster.

PubMed

Budick, Seth A; Reiser, Michael B; Dickinson, Michael H

2007-12-01

It has long been known that many flying insects use visual cues to orient with respect to the wind and to control their groundspeed in the face of varying wind conditions. Much less explored has been the role of mechanosensory cues in orienting insects relative to the ambient air. Here we show that Drosophila melanogaster, magnetically tethered so as to be able to rotate about their yaw axis, are able to detect and orient into a wind, as would be experienced during forward flight. Further, this behavior is velocity dependent and is likely subserved, at least in part, by the Johnston's organs, chordotonal organs in the antennae also involved in near-field sound detection. These wind-mediated responses may help to explain how flies are able to fly forward despite visual responses that might otherwise inhibit this behavior. Expanding visual stimuli, such as are encountered during forward flight, are the most potent aversive visual cues known for D. melanogaster flying in a tethered paradigm. Accordingly, tethered flies strongly orient towards a focus of contraction, a problematic situation for any animal attempting to fly forward. We show in this study that wind stimuli, transduced via mechanosensory means, can compensate for the aversion to visual expansion and thus may help to explain how these animals are indeed able to maintain forward flight.

One-trial overshadowing: Evidence for fast specific fear learning in humans.

PubMed

Haesen, Kim; Beckers, Tom; Baeyens, Frank; Vervliet, Bram

2017-03-01

Adaptive defensive actions necessitate a fear learning system that is both fast and specific. Fast learning serves to minimize the number of threat confrontations, while specific learning ensures that the acquired fears are tied to threat-relevant cues only. In Pavlovian fear conditioning, fear acquisition is typically studied via repetitive pairings of a single cue with an aversive experience, which is not optimal for the examination of fast specific fear learning. In this study, we adopted the one-trial overshadowing procedure from basic learning research, in which a combination of two visual cues is presented once and paired with an aversive electrical stimulation. Using on-line shock expectancy ratings, skin conductance reactivity and startle reflex modulation as indices of fear learning, we found evidence of strong fear after a single conditioning trial (fast learning) as well as attenuated fear responding when only half of the trained stimulus combination was presented (specific learning). Moreover, specificity of fear responding tended to correlate with levels of state and trait anxiety. These results suggest that one-trial overshadowing can be used as a model to study fast specific fear learning in humans and individual differences therein. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Negative expectations interfere with the analgesic effect of safety cues on pain perception by priming the cortical representation of pain in the midcingulate cortex

PubMed Central

Almarzouki, Abeer F.; Brown, Christopher A.; Brown, Richard J.; Leung, Matthew H. K.; Jones, Anthony K. P.

2017-01-01

It is well known that the efficacy of treatment effects, including those of placebos, is heavily dependent on positive expectations regarding treatment outcomes. For example, positive expectations about pain treatments are essential for pain reduction. Such positive expectations not only depend on the properties of the treatment itself, but also on the context in which the treatment is presented. However, it is not clear how the preceding threat of pain will bias positive expectancy effects. One hypothesis is that threatening contexts trigger fearful and catastrophic thinking, reducing the pain-relieving effects of positive expectancy. In this study, we investigated the disruptive influence of threatening contexts on positive expectancy effects while 41 healthy volunteers experienced laser-induced heat pain. A threatening context was induced using pain-threatening cues that preceded the induction of positive expectancies via subsequent pain-safety cues. We also utilised electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate potential neural mechanisms underlying these effects. Lastly, we used the Fear of Pain Questionnaire to address whether the disruptive effect of negative contexts on cued pain relief was related to the degree of fear of pain. As predicted, participants responded less to pain-safety cues (i.e., experienced more pain) when these were preceded by pain-threatening cues. In this threatening context, an enhancement of the N2 component of the laser-evoked potential was detected, which was more pronounced in fearful individuals. This effect was localised to the midcingulate cortex, an area thought to integrate negative affect with pain experience to enable adaptive behaviour in aversive situations. These results suggest that threatening contexts disrupt the effect of pain relief cues via an aversive priming mechanism that enhances neural responses in the early stages of sensory processing. PMID:28665973

From Foreground to Background: How Task-Neutral Context Influences Contextual Cueing of Visual Search.

PubMed

Zang, Xuelian; Geyer, Thomas; Assumpção, Leonardo; Müller, Hermann J; Shi, Zhuanghua

2016-01-01

Selective attention determines the effectiveness of implicit contextual learning (e.g., Jiang and Leung, 2005). Visual foreground-background segmentation, on the other hand, is a key process in the guidance of attention (Wolfe, 2003). In the present study, we examined the impact of foreground-background segmentation on contextual cueing of visual search in three experiments. A visual search display, consisting of distractor 'L's and a target 'T', was overlaid on a task-neutral cuboid on the same depth plane (Experiment 1), on stereoscopically separated depth planes (Experiment 2), or spread over the entire display on the same depth plane (Experiment 3). Half of the search displays contained repeated target-distractor arrangements, whereas the other half was always newly generated. The task-neutral cuboid was constant during an initial training session, but was either rotated by 90° or entirely removed in the subsequent test sessions. We found that the gains resulting from repeated presentation of display arrangements during training (i.e., contextual-cueing effects) were diminished when the cuboid was changed or removed in Experiment 1, but remained intact in Experiments 2 and 3 when the cuboid was placed in a different depth plane, or when the items were randomly spread over the whole display but not on the edges of the cuboid. These findings suggest that foreground-background segmentation occurs prior to contextual learning, and only objects/arrangements that are grouped as foreground are learned over the course of repeated visual search.

From Foreground to Background: How Task-Neutral Context Influences Contextual Cueing of Visual Search

PubMed Central

Zang, Xuelian; Geyer, Thomas; Assumpção, Leonardo; Müller, Hermann J.; Shi, Zhuanghua

2016-01-01

Selective attention determines the effectiveness of implicit contextual learning (e.g., Jiang and Leung, 2005). Visual foreground-background segmentation, on the other hand, is a key process in the guidance of attention (Wolfe, 2003). In the present study, we examined the impact of foreground-background segmentation on contextual cueing of visual search in three experiments. A visual search display, consisting of distractor ‘L’s and a target ‘T’, was overlaid on a task-neutral cuboid on the same depth plane (Experiment 1), on stereoscopically separated depth planes (Experiment 2), or spread over the entire display on the same depth plane (Experiment 3). Half of the search displays contained repeated target-distractor arrangements, whereas the other half was always newly generated. The task-neutral cuboid was constant during an initial training session, but was either rotated by 90° or entirely removed in the subsequent test sessions. We found that the gains resulting from repeated presentation of display arrangements during training (i.e., contextual-cueing effects) were diminished when the cuboid was changed or removed in Experiment 1, but remained intact in Experiments 2 and 3 when the cuboid was placed in a different depth plane, or when the items were randomly spread over the whole display but not on the edges of the cuboid. These findings suggest that foreground-background segmentation occurs prior to contextual learning, and only objects/arrangements that are grouped as foreground are learned over the course of repeated visual search. PMID:27375530

Combining D-cycloserine with appetitive extinction learning modulates amygdala activity during recall.

PubMed

Ebrahimi, Claudia; Koch, Stefan P; Friedel, Eva; Crespo, Ilsoray; Fydrich, Thomas; Ströhle, Andreas; Heinz, Andreas; Schlagenhauf, Florian

2017-07-01

Appetitive Pavlovian conditioning plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of drug addiction and conditioned reward cues can trigger craving and relapse even after long phases of abstinence. Promising preclinical work showed that the NMDA-receptor partial agonist D-cycloserine (DCS) facilitates Pavlovian extinction learning of fear and drug cues. Furthermore, DCS-augmented exposure therapy seems to be beneficial in various anxiety disorders, while the supposed working mechanism of DCS during human appetitive or aversive extinction learning is still not confirmed. To test the hypothesis that DCS administration before extinction training improves extinction learning, healthy adults (n=32) underwent conditioning, extinction, and extinction recall on three successive days in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled fMRI design. Monetary wins and losses served as unconditioned stimuli during conditioning to probe appetitive and aversive learning. An oral dose of 50mg of DCS or placebo was administered 1h before extinction training and DCS effects during extinction recall were evaluated on a behavioral and neuronal level. We found attenuated amygdala activation in the DCS compared to the placebo group during recall of the extinguished appetitive cue, along with evidence for enhanced functional amygdala-vmPFC coupling in the DCS group. While the absence of additional physiological measures of conditioned responses during recall in this study prevent the evaluation of a behavioral DCS effect, our neuronal findings are in accordance with recent theories linking successful extinction recall in humans to modulatory top-down influences from the vmPFC that inhibit amygdala activation. Our results should encourage further translational studies concerning the usefulness of DCS to target maladaptive Pavlovian reward associations. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Reward-centricity and attenuated aversions: An adolescent phenotype emerging from studies in laboratory animals

PubMed Central

Doremus-Fitzwater, Tamara L.; Spear, Linda P.

2016-01-01

Adolescence is an evolutionarily conserved developmental period, with neural circuits and behaviors contributing to the detection, procurement, and receipt of rewards bearing similarity across species. Studies with laboratory animals suggest that adolescence is typified by a “reward-centric” phenotype—an increased sensitivity to rewards relative to adults. In contrast, adolescent rodents are reportedly less sensitive to the aversive properties of many drugs and naturally aversive stimuli. Alterations within the mesocorticolimbic dopamine and endocannabinoid systems likely contribute to an adolescent reward-sensitive, yet aversion-resistant, phenotype. Although early hypotheses postulated that developmental changes in dopaminergic circuitry would result in a “reward deficiency” syndrome, evidence now suggests the opposite: that adolescents are uniquely poised to seek out hedonic stimuli, experience greater “pleasure” from rewards, and consume rewarding stimuli in excess. Future studies that more clearly define the role of specific brain regions and neurotransmitter systems in the expression of behaviors toward reward- and aversive-related cues and stimuli are necessary to more fully understand an adolescent-proclivity for and vulnerability to rewards and drugs of potential abuse. PMID:27524639

Reward-centricity and attenuated aversions: An adolescent phenotype emerging from studies in laboratory animals.

PubMed

Doremus-Fitzwater, Tamara L; Spear, Linda P

2016-11-01

Adolescence is an evolutionarily conserved developmental period, with neural circuits and behaviors contributing to the detection, procurement, and receipt of rewards bearing similarity across species. Studies with laboratory animals suggest that adolescence is typified by a "reward-centric" phenotype-an increased sensitivity to rewards relative to adults. In contrast, adolescent rodents are reportedly less sensitive to the aversive properties of many drugs and naturally aversive stimuli. Alterations within the mesocorticolimbic dopamine and endocannabinoid systems likely contribute to an adolescent reward-sensitive, yet aversion-resistant, phenotype. Although early hypotheses postulated that developmental changes in dopaminergic circuitry would result in a "reward deficiency" syndrome, evidence now suggests the opposite: that adolescents are uniquely poised to seek out hedonic stimuli, experience greater "pleasure" from rewards, and consume rewarding stimuli in excess. Future studies that more clearly define the role of specific brain regions and neurotransmitter systems in the expression of behaviors toward reward- and aversive-related cues and stimuli are necessary to more fully understand an adolescent-proclivity for and vulnerability to rewards and drugs of potential abuse. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Gaze-Following and Reaction to an Aversive Social Interaction Have Corresponding Associations with Variation in the OXTR Gene in Dogs but Not in Human Infants.

PubMed

Oláh, Katalin; Topál, József; Kovács, Krisztina; Kis, Anna; Koller, Dóra; Young Park, Soon; Virányi, Zsófia

2017-01-01

It has been suggested that dogs' remarkable capacity to use human communicative signals lies in their comparable social cognitive skills; however, this view has been questioned recently. The present study investigated associations between oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) polymorphisms and social behavior in human infants and dogs with the aim to unravel potentially differential mechanisms behind their responsiveness to human gaze. Sixteen-month-old human infants ( N = 99) and adult Border Collie dogs ( N = 71) participated in two tasks designed to test (1) their use of gaze-direction as a cue to locate a hidden object, and (2) their reactions to an aversive social interaction (using the still face task for children and a threatening approach task for dogs). Moreover, we obtained DNA samples to analyze associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the OXTR (dogs: -213AG, -94TC, -74CG, rs8679682, children: rs53576, rs1042778, rs2254298) and behavior. We found that OXTR genotype was significantly associated with reactions to an aversive social interaction both in dogs and children, confirming the anxiolytic effect of oxytocin in both species. In dogs, the genotypes linked to less fearful behavior were associated also with a higher willingness to follow gaze whereas in children, OXTR gene polymorphisms did not affect gaze following success. This pattern of gene-behavior associations suggests that for dogs the two situations are more alike (potentially fear-inducing or competitive) than for human children. This raises the possibility that, in contrast to former studies proposing human-like cooperativeness in dogs, dogs may perceive human gaze in an object-choice task in a more antagonistic manner than children.

Aberrant approach-avoidance conflict resolution following repeated cocaine pre-exposure.

PubMed

Nguyen, David; Schumacher, Anett; Erb, Suzanne; Ito, Rutsuko

2015-10-01

Addiction is characterized by persistence to seek drug reinforcement despite negative consequences. Drug-induced aberrations in approach and avoidance processing likely facilitate the sustenance of addiction pathology. Currently, the effects of repeated drug exposure on the resolution of conflicting approach and avoidance motivational signals have yet to be thoroughly investigated. The present study sought to investigate the effects of cocaine pre-exposure on conflict resolution using novel approach-avoidance paradigms. We used a novel mixed-valence conditioning paradigm to condition cocaine-pre-exposed rats to associate visuo-tactile cues with either the delivery of sucrose reward or shock punishment in the arms in which the cues were presented. Following training, exploration of an arm containing a superimposition of the cues was assessed as a measure of conflict resolution behavior. We also used a mixed-valence runway paradigm wherein cocaine-pre-exposed rats traversed an alleyway toward a goal compartment to receive a pairing of sucrose reward and shock punishment. Latency to enter the goal compartment across trials was taken as a measure of motivational conflict. Our results reveal that cocaine pre-exposure attenuated learning for the aversive cue association in our conditioning paradigm and enhanced preference for mixed-valence stimuli in both paradigms. Repeated cocaine pre-exposure allows appetitive approach motivations to gain greater influence over behavioral output in the context of motivational conflict, due to aberrant positive and negative incentive motivational processing.

Effects of lentivirus-mediated CREB expression in the dorsolateral striatum: memory enhancement and evidence for competitive and cooperative interactions with the hippocampus.

PubMed

Kathirvelu, Balachandar; Colombo, Paul J

2013-11-01

Neural systems specialized for memory may interact during memory formation or recall, and the results of interactions are important determinants of how systems control behavioral output. In two experiments, we used lentivirus-mediated expression of the transcription factor CREB (LV-CREB) to test if localized manipulations of cellular plasticity influence interactions between the hippocampus and dorsolateral striatum. In Experiment 1, we tested the hypothesis that infusion of LV-CREB in the dorsolateral striatum facilitates memory for response learning, and impairs memory for place learning. LV-CREB in the dorsolateral striatum had no effect on response learning, but impaired place memory; a finding consistent with competition between the striatum and hippocampus. In Experiment 2, we tested the hypothesis that infusion of LV-CREB in the dorsolateral striatum facilitates memory for cue learning, and impairs memory for contextual fear conditioning. LV-CREB in the dorsolateral striatum enhanced memory for cue learning and, in contrast to our prediction, also enhanced memory for contextual fear conditioning, consistent with a cooperative interaction between the striatum and hippocampus. Overall, the current experiments demonstrate that infusion of LV-CREB in the dorsolateral striatum (1) increases levels of CREB protein locally, (2) does not alter acquisition of place, response, cue, or contextual fear conditioning, (3) facilitates memory for cue learning and contextual fear conditioning, and (4) impairs memory for place learning. Taken together, the present results provide evidence that LV-CREB in the dorsolateral striatum can enhance memory formation and cause both competitive and cooperative interactions with the hippocampus. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Role of the 5HT3 Receptor in Alcohol Drinking and Aggression Using a Transgenic Mouse Model

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-09-01

Dissociations in hippocampal 5-hydroxytryptamine release in the rat following Pavlovian aversive conditioning to discrete and contextual stimuli. Eur J...P < 0.05]. B6SJL/F2-OE and C57Bl/6J-OE mice display improved contextual fear conditioning , whereas DBA/2J-OE mice do not. Fear conditioning to...None of the IS groups differed in freezing behavior and are not reported here. Transgene presence improved conditioning on B6SJL/F2 and C57Bl/6J

Cross-Modulation of Homeostatic Responses to Temperature, Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide in C. elegans

PubMed Central

Kodama-Namba, Eiji; Fenk, Lorenz A.; Bretscher, Andrew J.; Gross, Einav; Busch, K. Emanuel; de Bono, Mario

2013-01-01

Different interoceptive systems must be integrated to ensure that multiple homeostatic insults evoke appropriate behavioral and physiological responses. Little is known about how this is achieved. Using C. elegans, we dissect cross-modulation between systems that monitor temperature, O2 and CO2. CO2 is less aversive to animals acclimated to 15°C than those grown at 22°C. This difference requires the AFD neurons, which respond to both temperature and CO2 changes. CO2 evokes distinct AFD Ca2+ responses in animals acclimated at 15°C or 22°C. Mutants defective in synaptic transmission can reprogram AFD CO2 responses according to temperature experience, suggesting reprogramming occurs cell autonomously. AFD is exquisitely sensitive to CO2. Surprisingly, gradients of 0.01% CO2/second evoke very different Ca2+ responses from gradients of 0.04% CO2/second. Ambient O2 provides further contextual modulation of CO2 avoidance. At 21% O2 tonic signalling from the O2-sensing neuron URX inhibits CO2 avoidance. This inhibition can be graded according to O2 levels. In a natural wild isolate, a switch from 21% to 19% O2 is sufficient to convert CO2 from a neutral to an aversive cue. This sharp tuning is conferred partly by the neuroglobin GLB-5. The modulatory effects of O2 on CO2 avoidance involve the RIA interneurons, which are post-synaptic to URX and exhibit CO2-evoked Ca2+ responses. Ambient O2 and acclimation temperature act combinatorially to modulate CO2 responsiveness. Our work highlights the integrated architecture of homeostatic responses in C. elegans. PMID:24385919

On the limits of statistical learning: Intertrial contextual cueing is confined to temporally close contingencies.

PubMed

Thomas, Cyril; Didierjean, André; Maquestiaux, François; Goujon, Annabelle

2018-04-12

Since the seminal study by Chun and Jiang (Cognitive Psychology, 36, 28-71, 1998), a large body of research based on the contextual-cueing paradigm has shown that the cognitive system is capable of extracting statistical contingencies from visual environments. Most of these studies have focused on how individuals learn regularities found within an intratrial temporal window: A context predicts the target position within a given trial. However, Ono, Jiang, and Kawahara (Journal of Experimental Psychology, 31, 703-712, 2005) provided evidence of an intertrial implicit-learning effect when a distractor configuration in preceding trials N - 1 predicted the target location in trials N. The aim of the present study was to gain further insight into this effect by examining whether it occurs when predictive relationships are impeded by interfering task-relevant noise (Experiments 2 and 3) or by a long delay (Experiments 1, 4, and 5). Our results replicated the intertrial contextual-cueing effect, which occurred in the condition of temporally close contingencies. However, there was no evidence of integration across long-range spatiotemporal contingencies, suggesting a temporal limitation of statistical learning.

Trial-by-trial adjustments in control triggered by incidentally encoded semantic cues.

PubMed

Blais, Chris; Harris, Michael B; Sinanian, Michael H; Bunge, Silvia A

2015-01-01

Cognitive control mechanisms provide the flexibility to rapidly adapt to contextual demands. These contexts can be defined by top-down goals-but also by bottom-up perceptual factors, such as the location at which a visual stimulus appears. There are now several experiments reporting contextual control effects. Such experiments establish that contexts defined by low-level perceptual cues such as the location of a visual stimulus can lead to context-specific control, suggesting a relatively early focus for cognitive control. The current set of experiments involved a word-word interference task designed to assess whether a high-level cue, the semantic category to which a word belongs, can also facilitate contextual control. Indeed, participants exhibit a larger Flanker effect to items pertaining to a semantic category in which 75% of stimuli are incongruent than in response to items pertaining to a category in which 25% of stimuli are incongruent. Thus, both low-level and high-level stimulus features can affect the bottom-up engagement of cognitive control. The implications for current models of cognitive control are discussed.

Distinct responses to predictable and unpredictable threat in anxiety pathologies: effect of panic attack.

PubMed

Grillon, Christian; O'Connell, Katherine; Lieberman, Lynne; Alvarez, Gabriella; Geraci, Marilla; Pine, Daniel S; Ernst, Monique

2017-10-01

Delineating specific clinical phenotypes of anxiety disorders is a crucial step toward better classification and understanding of these conditions. The present study sought to identify differential aversive responses to predictable and unpredictable threat of shock in healthy comparisons and in non-medicated anxiety patients with and without a history of panic attacks (PAs). 143 adults (72 healthy controls; 71 patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) or/and social anxiety disorder (SAD), 24 with and 47 without PAs) were exposed to three conditions: 1) predictable shocks signaled by a cue, 2) unpredictable shocks, and 3) no shock. Startle magnitude was used to assess aversive responses. Across disorders, a PA history was specifically associated with hypersensitivity to unpredictable threat. By disorder, SAD was associated with hypersensitivity to predictable threat, whereas GAD was associated with exaggerated baseline startle. These results identified three physiological patterns. The first is hypersensitivity to unpredictable threat in individuals with PAs. The second is hypersensitivity to predictable threat, which characterizes SAD. The third is enhanced baseline startle in GAD, which may reflect propensity for self-generated anxious thoughts in the absence of imminent danger. These results inform current thinking by linking specific clinical features to particular physiology profiles.

Potent Attenuation of Context Fear by Extinction Training Contiguous with Acquisition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bernier, Brian E.; Lacagnina, Anthony F.; Drew, Michael R.

2015-01-01

Studies on the behavioral mechanisms underlying contextual fear conditioning (CFC) have demonstrated the importance of preshock context exposure in the formation of aversive context memories. However, there has been comparatively little investigation of the effects of context exposure immediately after the shock. Some models predict that…

Amelioration of sexual fantasies to sexual abuse cues in an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse: a case study.

PubMed

Wilson, Jane E; Wilson, Keith M

2008-12-01

Although sexual dysfunction of childhood sexual abuse survivors has received considerable attention, other sexual difficulties experienced by survivors of CSA, such as sexual fantasies to cues of sexual abuse, have received less attention. In this A-B design case study, a young adult female survivor of childhood sexual abuse presented for treatment at a Midwest rape crisis center. After successful treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, she complained of unwanted sexual fantasies to sexual abuse cues and concomitant guilt and shame. Following baseline data collection, treatment consisted of self-applied aversion therapy to unwanted sexual arousal to sexual abuse cues. Decrease in sexual arousal to these cues was concurrent with the introduction of treatment. A concomitant decrease in guilt and shame occurred while self-ratings of control increased.

Effects of ongoing task context and target typicality on prospective memory performance: the importance of associative cueing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nowinski, Jessica Lang; Dismukes, Key R.

2005-01-01

Two experiments examined whether prospective memory performance is influenced by contextual cues. In our automatic activation model, any information available at encoding and retrieval should aid recall of the prospective task. The first experiment demonstrated an effect of the ongoing task context; performance was better when information about the ongoing task present at retrieval was available at encoding. Performance was also improved by a strong association between the prospective memory target as it was presented at retrieval and the intention as it was encoded. Experiment 2 demonstrated boundary conditions of the ongoing task context effect, which implicate the association between the ongoing and prospective tasks formed at encoding as the source of the context effect. The results of this study are consistent with predictions based on automatic activation of intentions.

Two roles of the context in Pavlovian fear conditioning.

PubMed

Urcelay, Gonzalo P; Miller, Ralph R

2010-04-01

At both empirical and theoretical levels, multiple functional roles of contextual information upon memory performance have been proposed without a clear dissociation of these roles. Some theories have assumed that contexts are functionally similar to cues, whereas other views emphasize the retrieval facilitating properties of contextual information. In Experiment 1, we observed that one critical parameter, the spacing of trials, could determine whether the context would function as a conditioned stimulus or as a retrieval cue for memories trained in different phases. Experiments 2 and 3 doubly dissociated these functions by selectively disrupting one role but not the other, and vice versa. Overall, these observations identify one determinant of different functions of contextual information and pose a major challenge to theories of learning that assume exclusively one or the other function of the context. Moreover, these data emphasize the importance of parametric variations on behavioral control, which has critical implications for studies designed to understand the role of the hippocampus in processing of contextual attributes.

Aversive properties of negative incentive shifts in Fischer 344 and Lewis rats

PubMed Central

Brewer, Adam; Johnson, Patrick; Stein, Jeff; Schlund, Michael; Williams, Dean C.

2018-01-01

Research on incentive contrast highlights that reward value is not absolute but rather is based upon comparisons we make to rewards we have received and expect to receive. Both human and nonhuman studies on incentive contrast show that shifting from a larger more-valued reward to a smaller less-valued reward is associated with long periods of nonresponding—a negative contrast effect. In this investigation, we used two different genetic rat strains, Fischer 344 and Lewis rats that putatively differ in their sensitivity to aversive stimulation, to assess the aversive properties of large-to-small reward shifts (negative incentive shifts). Additionally, we examined the extent to which increasing cost (fixed-ratio requirements) modulates negative contrast effects. In the presence of a cue that signaled the upcoming reward magnitude, lever pressing was reinforced with one of two different magnitudes of food (large or small). This design created two contrast shifts (small-to-large, large-to-small) and two shifts used as control conditions (small-to-small, large-to-large). Results showed a significant interaction between rat strain and cost requirements only during the negative incentive shift with the emotionally reactive Fischer 344 rats exhibiting significantly longer response latencies with increasing cost, highlighting greater negative contrast. These findings are more consistent with emotionality accounts of negative contrast and results of neurophysiological research that suggests shifting from a large to a small reward is aversive. Findings also highlight how subjective reward value and motivation is a product of gene-environment interactions. PMID:27864048

Neutral details associated with emotional events are encoded: evidence from a cued recall paradigm.

PubMed

Mickley Steinmetz, Katherine R; Knight, Aubrey G; Kensinger, Elizabeth A

2016-11-01

Enhanced emotional memory often comes at the cost of memory for surrounding background information. Narrowed-encoding theories suggest that this is due to narrowed attention for emotional information at encoding, leading to impaired encoding of background information. Recent work has suggested that an encoding-based theory may be insufficient. Here, we examined whether cued recall-instead of previously used recognition memory tasks-would reveal evidence that non-emotional information associated with emotional information was effectively encoded. Participants encoded positive, negative, or neutral objects on neutral backgrounds. At retrieval, they were given either the item or the background as a memory cue and were asked to recall the associated scene element. Counter to narrowed-encoding theories, emotional items were more likely than neutral items to trigger recall of the associated background. This finding suggests that there is a memory trace of this contextual information and that emotional cues may facilitate retrieval of this information.

Automatic ethics: the effects of implicit assumptions and contextual cues on moral behavior.

PubMed

Reynolds, Scott J; Leavitt, Keith; DeCelles, Katherine A

2010-07-01

We empirically examine the reflexive or automatic aspects of moral decision making. To begin, we develop and validate a measure of an individual's implicit assumption regarding the inherent morality of business. Then, using an in-basket exercise, we demonstrate that an implicit assumption that business is inherently moral impacts day-to-day business decisions and interacts with contextual cues to shape moral behavior. Ultimately, we offer evidence supporting a characterization of employees as reflexive interactionists: moral agents whose automatic decision-making processes interact with the environment to shape their moral behavior.

Social Salience Discriminates Learnability of Contextual Cues in an Artificial Language.

PubMed

Rácz, Péter; Hay, Jennifer B; Pierrehumbert, Janet B

2017-01-01

We investigate the learning of contextual meaning by adults in an artificial language. Contextual meaning here refers to the non-denotative contextual information that speakers attach to a linguistic construction. Through a series of short games, played online, we test how well adults can learn different contextual meanings for a word-formation pattern in an artificial language. We look at whether learning contextual meanings depends on the social salience of the context, whether our players interpret these contexts generally, and whether the learned meaning is generalized to new words. Our results show that adults are capable of learning contextual meaning if the context is socially salient, coherent, and interpretable. Once a contextual meaning is recognized, it is readily generalized to related forms and contexts.

Neural substrates of the influence of emotional cues on cognitive control in risk-taking adolescents.

PubMed

Lee, Nikki C; Weeda, Wouter D; Insel, Catherine; Somerville, Leah H; Krabbendam, Lydia; Huizinga, Mariëtte

2018-06-01

Adolescence is a period characterised by increases in risk-taking. This behaviour has been associated with an imbalance in the integration of the networks involved in cognitive control and motivational processes. We examined whether the influence of emotional cues on cognitive control differs between adolescents who show high or low levels of risk-taking behaviour. Participants who scored especially high or low on a risky decision task were subsequently administered an emotional go/no-go fMRI task comprising angry, happy and calm faces. Both groups showed decreased cognitive control when confronted with appetitive and aversive emotional cues. Activation in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) increased in line with the cognitive control demands of the task. Though the risk taking groups did not differ in their behavioural performance, functional connectivity analyses revealed the dorsal striatum plays a more central role in the processing of cognitive control in high than low risk-takers. Overall, these findings suggest that variance in fronto-striatal circuitry may underlie individual differences in risk-taking behaviour. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Relationship between Fear Conditionability and Aversive Memories: Evidence from a Novel Conditioned-Intrusion Paradigm

PubMed Central

Wegerer, Melanie; Blechert, Jens; Kerschbaum, Hubert; Wilhelm, Frank H.

2013-01-01

Intrusive memories – a hallmark symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – are often triggered by stimuli possessing similarity with cues that predicted or accompanied the traumatic event. According to learning theories, intrusive memories can be seen as a conditioned response to trauma reminders. However, direct laboratory evidence for the link between fear conditionability and intrusive memories is missing. Furthermore, fear conditioning studies have predominantly relied on standardized aversive stimuli (e.g. electric stimulation) that bear little resemblance to typical traumatic events. To investigate the general relationship between fear conditionability and aversive memories, we tested 66 mentally healthy females in a novel conditioned-intrusion paradigm designed to model real-life traumatic experiences. The paradigm included a differential fear conditioning procedure with neutral sounds as conditioned stimuli and short violent film clips as unconditioned stimuli. Subsequent aversive memories were assessed through a memory triggering task (within 30 minutes, in the laboratory) and ambulatory assessment (involuntary aversive memories in the 2 days following the experiment). Skin conductance responses and subjective ratings demonstrated successful differential conditioning indicating that naturalistic aversive film stimuli can be used in a fear conditioning experiment. Furthermore, aversive memories were elicited in response to the conditioned stimuli during the memory triggering task and also occurred in the 2 days following the experiment. Importantly, participants who displayed higher conditionability showed more aversive memories during the memory triggering task and during ambulatory assessment. This suggests that fear conditioning constitutes an important source of persistent aversive memories. Implications for PTSD and its treatment are discussed. PMID:24244407

The rostromedial tegmental nucleus (RMTg), a major GABAergic afferent to midbrain dopamine neurons, selectively encodes aversive stimuli and promotes behavioral inhibition

PubMed Central

Jhou, Thomas C.; Fields, Howard L.; Baxter, Mark G.; Saper, Clifford B.; Holland, Peter C.

2009-01-01

Summary Separate studies have implicated the lateral habenula (LHb) or amygdala-related regions in processing aversive stimuli, but their relationships to each other and to appetitive motivational systems are poorly understood. We show that neurons in the recently identified GABAergic rostromedial tegmental nucleus (RMTg), which receive a major LHb input, project heavily to midbrain dopamine neurons, and show phasic activations and/or Fos induction after aversive stimuli (footshocks, shock-predictive cues, food deprivation, or reward omission) and inhibitions after rewards or reward-predictive stimuli. RMTg lesions markedly reduce passive fear behaviors (freezing, open-arm avoidance) dependent on the extended amygdala, periaqueductal gray, or septum, all regions that project directly to the RMTg. In contrast, RMTg lesions spare or enhance active fear responses (treading, escape) in these same paradigms. These findings suggest that aversive inputs from widespread brain regions and stimulus modalities converge onto the RMTg, which opposes reward and motor-activating functions of midbrain dopamine neurons PMID:19285474

Ventral tegmental area dopamine revisited: effects of acute and repeated stress

PubMed Central

Holly, Elizabeth N.; Miczek, Klaus A.

2015-01-01

Aversive events rapidly and potently excite certain dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), promoting phasic increases in the medial prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens. This is in apparent contradiction to a wealth of literature demonstrating that most VTA dopamine neurons are strongly activated by reward and reward-predictive cues while inhibited by aversive stimuli. How can these divergent processes both be mediated by VTA dopamine neurons? The answer may lie within the functional and anatomical heterogeneity of the VTA. We focus on VTA heterogeneity in anatomy, neurochemistry, electrophysiology, and afferent/efferent connectivity. Second, recent evidence for a critical role of VTA dopamine neurons in response to both acute and repeated stress will be discussed. Understanding which dopamine neurons are activated by stress, the neural mechanisms driving the activation, and where these neurons project will provide valuable insight into how stress can promote psychiatric disorders associated with the dopamine system, such as addiction and depression. PMID:26676983

Excitation of lateral habenula neurons as a neural mechanism underlying ethanol‐induced conditioned taste aversion

PubMed Central

Keefe, Kristen A.; Taha, Sharif A.

2016-01-01

Key points The lateral habenula (LHb) has been implicated in regulation of drug‐seeking behaviours through aversion‐mediated learning.In this study, we recorded neuronal activity in the LHb of rats during an operant task before and after ethanol‐induced conditioned taste aversion (CTA) to saccharin.Ethanol‐induced CTA caused significantly higher baseline firing rates in LHb neurons, as well as elevated firing rates in response to cue presentation, lever press and saccharin taste.In a separate cohort of rats, we found that bilateral LHb lesions blocked ethanol‐induced CTA.Our results strongly suggest that excitation of LHb neurons is required for ethanol‐induced CTA, and point towards a mechanism through which LHb firing may regulate voluntary ethanol consumption. Abstract Ethanol, like other drugs of abuse, has both rewarding and aversive properties. Previous work suggests that sensitivity to ethanol's aversive effects negatively modulates voluntary alcohol intake and thus may be important in vulnerability to developing alcohol use disorders. We previously found that rats with lesions of the lateral habenula (LHb), which is implicated in aversion‐mediated learning, show accelerated escalation of voluntary ethanol consumption. To understand neural encoding in the LHb contributing to ethanol‐induced aversion, we recorded neural firing in the LHb of freely behaving, water‐deprived rats before and after an ethanol‐induced (1.5 g kg−1 20% ethanol, i.p.) conditioned taste aversion (CTA) to saccharin taste. Ethanol‐induced CTA strongly decreased motivation for saccharin in an operant task to obtain the tastant. Comparison of LHb neural firing before and after CTA induction revealed four main differences in firing properties. First, baseline firing after CTA induction was significantly higher. Second, firing evoked by cues signalling saccharin availability shifted from a pattern of primarily inhibition before CTA to primarily excitation after CTA induction. Third, CTA induction reduced the magnitude of lever press‐evoked inhibition. Finally, firing rates were significantly higher during consumption of the devalued saccharin solution after CTA induction. Next, we studied sham‐ and LHb‐lesioned rats in our operant CTA paradigm and found that LHb lesion significantly attenuated CTA effects in the operant task. Our data demonstrate the importance of LHb excitation in regulating expression of ethanol‐induced aversion and suggest a mechanism for its role in modulating escalation of voluntary ethanol intake. PMID:27682823

Lesion of the Ventral Periaqueductal Gray Reduces Conditioned Fear but Does Not Change Freezing Induced by Stimulation of the Dorsal Periaqueductal Gray

PubMed Central

Vianna, Daniel M.L.; Graeff, Frederico G.; Landeira-Fernandez, Jesus; Brandão, Marcus L.

2001-01-01

Previously-reported evidence showed that freezing to a context previously associated with footshock is impaired by lesion of the ventral periaqueductal gray (vPAG). It has also been shown that stepwise increase in the intensity of the electrical stimulation of the dorsal periaqueductal gray (dPAG) produces alertness, then freezing, and finally escape. These aversive responses are mimicked by microinjections of GABA receptor antagonists, such as bicuculline, or blockers of the glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD), such as semicarbazide, into the dPAG. In this work, we examined whether the expression of these defensive responses could be the result of activation of ventral portion of the periaqueductal gray. Sham- or vPAG electrolytic–lesioned rats were implanted with an electrode in the dPAG for the determination of the thresholds of freezing and escape responses. The vPAG electrolytic lesions were behaviorally verified through a context-conditioned fear paradigm. Results indicated that lesion of the vPAG disrupted conditioned freezing response to contextual cues associated with footshocks but did not change the dPAG electrical stimulation for freezing and escape responses. In a second experiment, lesion of the vPAG also did not change the amount of freezing and escape behavior produced by microinjections of semicarbazide into the dPAG. These findings indicate that freezing and escape defensive responses induced by dPAG stimulation do not depend on the integrity of the vPAG. A discussion on different neural circuitries that might underlie different inhibitory and active defensive behavioral patterns that animals display during threatening situations is presented. PMID:11390636

What a relief! A role for dopamine in positive (but not negative) valence.

PubMed

Sharpe, Melissa J

2018-02-27

We have long known that dopamine encodes the predictive relationship between cues and rewards. But what about relief learning? In this issue of Neuropsychopharmacology, Meyer et al. show that the same circuits encoding rewarding events also encode relief from aversive events. And this appears to be in a manner distinct from encoding of the aversive event itself. So does dopamine only contribute to learning about positive events? And are these events encoded in the same way regardless of how that positive experience came about? Not quite. Turns out, the devil is in the details.

Animacy-based predictions in language comprehension are robust: contextual cues modulate but do not nullify them.

PubMed

Muralikrishnan, R; Schlesewsky, Matthias; Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina

2015-05-22

Couldn׳t a humble coconut hurt a gardener? At least in the first instance, the brain seems to assume that it should not: we perceive inanimate entities such as coconuts as poor event instigators ("Actors"). Ideally, entities causing a change in another entity should be animate and this assumption not only influences event perception but also carries over to language comprehension. We present three auditory event-related brain potential (ERP) studies on the processing of inanimate and animate subjects and objects in simple transitive sentences in Tamil. ERP responses were measured at the second argument (event participant) in all three studies. Experiment 1 employed all possible animacy combinations of Actors and Undergoers (affected participants) in Actor- and Undergoer-initial verb-final orders. Experiments 2 and 3 employed a fairly novel context design that enabled us to compare ERPs evoked by identical auditory material to differing contextual expectations: Experiment 2 focussed on constructions in which an inanimate Actor acts upon an inanimate Undergoer, whereas Experiment 3 examined whether and how a preceding context modulates the prediction for an ideal Actor. Results showed an N400 effect when the prediction for an ideal (animate) Actor following an Undergoer was not met, thus further supporting the cross-linguistically robust nature of animacy preferences. In addition, though specific contextual cues that are indicative of a forthcoming non-ideal Actor may reduce this negativity in comparison to when such cues are not available, they nevertheless do not nullify it, suggesting that animacy-based predictions are stronger than contextual cues in online language comprehension. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Hand-gesture-based sterile interface for the operating room using contextual cues for the navigation of radiological images

PubMed Central

Jacob, Mithun George; Wachs, Juan Pablo; Packer, Rebecca A

2013-01-01

This paper presents a method to improve the navigation and manipulation of radiological images through a sterile hand gesture recognition interface based on attentional contextual cues. Computer vision algorithms were developed to extract intention and attention cues from the surgeon's behavior and combine them with sensory data from a commodity depth camera. The developed interface was tested in a usability experiment to assess the effectiveness of the new interface. An image navigation and manipulation task was performed, and the gesture recognition accuracy, false positives and task completion times were computed to evaluate system performance. Experimental results show that gesture interaction and surgeon behavior analysis can be used to accurately navigate, manipulate and access MRI images, and therefore this modality could replace the use of keyboard and mice-based interfaces. PMID:23250787

Hand-gesture-based sterile interface for the operating room using contextual cues for the navigation of radiological images.

PubMed

Jacob, Mithun George; Wachs, Juan Pablo; Packer, Rebecca A

2013-06-01

This paper presents a method to improve the navigation and manipulation of radiological images through a sterile hand gesture recognition interface based on attentional contextual cues. Computer vision algorithms were developed to extract intention and attention cues from the surgeon's behavior and combine them with sensory data from a commodity depth camera. The developed interface was tested in a usability experiment to assess the effectiveness of the new interface. An image navigation and manipulation task was performed, and the gesture recognition accuracy, false positives and task completion times were computed to evaluate system performance. Experimental results show that gesture interaction and surgeon behavior analysis can be used to accurately navigate, manipulate and access MRI images, and therefore this modality could replace the use of keyboard and mice-based interfaces.

Implicit Learning of Local Context in Autism Spectrum Disorder

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kourkoulou, Anastasia; Leekam, Susan R.; Findlay, John M.

2012-01-01

Although previous research has reported impairments in implicit learning in individuals with ASD, research using one implicit learning paradigm, the contextual cueing task (Chun and Jiang in Cognitive Psychol 36:28-71, 1998), shows evidence of intact ability to integrate spatial contextual information. Using an adaptation of this paradigm, we…

Using Embedded Visual Coding to Support Contextualization of Historical Texts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baron, Christine

2016-01-01

This mixed-method study examines the think-aloud protocols of 48 randomly assigned undergraduate students to understand what effect embedding a visual coding system, based on reliable visual cues for establishing historical time period, would have on novice history students' ability to contextualize historic documents. Results indicate that using…

Enhanced discrimination between threatening and safe contexts in high-anxious individuals

PubMed Central

Glotzbach-Schoon, Evelyn; Tadda, Regina; Andreatta, Marta; Tröger, Christian; Ewald, Heike; Grillon, Christian; Pauli, Paul; Mühlberger, Andreas

2014-01-01

Trait anxiety, a stable personality trait associated with increased fear responses to threat, is regarded as a risk factor for the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. Although the effect of trait anxiety has been examined with regard to explicit threat cues, little is known about the effect of trait anxiety on contextual threat learning. To assess this issue, extreme groups of low and high trait anxiety underwent a contextual fear conditioning protocol using virtual reality. Two virtual office rooms served as the conditioned contexts. One virtual office room (CXT+) was paired with unpredictable electrical stimuli. In the other virtual office room, no electrical stimuli were delivered (CXT−). High-anxious participants tended to show faster acquisition of startle potentiation in the CXT+ versus the CXT− than low-anxious participants. This enhanced contextual fear learning might function as a risk factor for anxiety disorders that are characterized by sustained anxiety. PMID:23384512

Independence of long-term contextual memory and short-term perceptual hypotheses: Evidence from contextual cueing of interrupted search.

PubMed

Schlagbauer, Bernhard; Mink, Maurice; Müller, Hermann J; Geyer, Thomas

2017-02-01

Observers are able to resume an interrupted search trial faster relative to responding to a new, unseen display. This finding of rapid resumption is attributed to short-term perceptual hypotheses generated on the current look and confirmed upon subsequent looks at the same display. It has been suggested that the contents of perceptual hypotheses are similar to those of other forms of memory acquired long-term through repeated exposure to the same search displays over the course of several trials, that is, the memory supporting "contextual cueing." In three experiments, we investigated the relationship between short-term perceptual hypotheses and long-term contextual memory. The results indicated that long-term, contextual memory of repeated displays neither affected the generation nor the confirmation of short-term perceptual hypotheses for these displays. Furthermore, the analysis of eye movements suggests that long-term memory provides an initial benefit in guiding attention to the target, whereas in subsequent looks guidance is entirely based on short-term perceptual hypotheses. Overall, the results reveal a picture of both long- and short-term memory contributing to reliable performance gains in interrupted search, while exerting their effects in an independent manner.

Aversive Memory Reactivation Engages in the Amygdala Only Some Neurotransmitters Involved in Consolidation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bucherelli, Corrado; Baldi, Elisabetta; Mariottini, Chiara; Passani, Maria Beatrice; Blandina, Patrizio

2006-01-01

Consolidation refers to item stabilization in long-term memory. Retrieval renders a consolidated memory sensitive, and a "reconsolidation" process has been hypothesized to keep the original memory persistent. Some authors could not detect this phenomenon. Here we show that retrieved contextual fear memory is vulnerable to amnesic treatments and…

Olfactory-visual integration facilitates perception of subthreshold negative emotion.

PubMed

Novak, Lucas R; Gitelman, Darren R; Schuyler, Brianna; Li, Wen

2015-10-01

A fast growing literature of multisensory emotion integration notwithstanding, the chemical senses, intimately associated with emotion, have been largely overlooked. Moreover, an ecologically highly relevant principle of "inverse effectiveness", rendering maximal integration efficacy with impoverished sensory input, remains to be assessed in emotion integration. Presenting minute, subthreshold negative (vs. neutral) cues in faces and odors, we demonstrated olfactory-visual emotion integration in improved emotion detection (especially among individuals with weaker perception of unimodal negative cues) and response enhancement in the amygdala. Moreover, while perceptual gain for visual negative emotion involved the posterior superior temporal sulcus/pSTS, perceptual gain for olfactory negative emotion engaged both the associative olfactory (orbitofrontal) cortex and amygdala. Dynamic causal modeling (DCM) analysis of fMRI timeseries further revealed connectivity strengthening among these areas during crossmodal emotion integration. That multisensory (but not low-level unisensory) areas exhibited both enhanced response and region-to-region coupling favors a top-down (vs. bottom-up) account for olfactory-visual emotion integration. Current findings thus confirm the involvement of multisensory convergence areas, while highlighting unique characteristics of olfaction-related integration. Furthermore, successful crossmodal binding of subthreshold aversive cues not only supports the principle of "inverse effectiveness" in emotion integration but also accentuates the automatic, unconscious quality of crossmodal emotion synthesis. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sponsorship, ambushing, and counter-strategy: effects upon memory for sponsor and event.

PubMed

Humphreys, Michael S; Cornwell, T Bettina; McAlister, Anna R; Kelly, Sarah J; Quinn, Emerald A; Murray, Krista L

2010-03-01

Corporate sponsorship of sports, causes, and the arts has become a mainstream communications tool worldwide. The unique marketing opportunities associated with major events also attract nonsponsoring companies seeking to form associations with the event (ambushing). There are strategies available to brands and events which have been ambushed; however, there is only limited information about the effects of those strategies on attainment of sponsorship objectives. In Experiment 1, university staff and students participated by studying paragraphs linking a sponsor to a novel event. Relative to each sponsor-event pair, they then studied one of three different messages about a competitor. Results find a message which linked the competitor and the event increased competitor recall given the event as a cue and event recall given the competitor as a cue. These effects were moderated if there was information about the competitor not being the sponsor. In Experiment 2 ambushing and counter-ambushing information was presented over 2 days. Both types of messages increased competitor recall given the event as a cue and event recall given the competitor as a cue. In addition, "not sponsor" information was not always used even when it should have been recallable. The results can be explained if participants are using three cues: a specific cue such as a brand name, a contextual cue, and a category cue, such as the concept of an event. Findings suggest to sponsoring firms and event properties that counter-ambushing communications may have the unintended effect of strengthening an ambusher-event relationship in memory.

Social Salience Discriminates Learnability of Contextual Cues in an Artificial Language

PubMed Central

Rácz, Péter; Hay, Jennifer B.; Pierrehumbert, Janet B.

2017-01-01

We investigate the learning of contextual meaning by adults in an artificial language. Contextual meaning here refers to the non-denotative contextual information that speakers attach to a linguistic construction. Through a series of short games, played online, we test how well adults can learn different contextual meanings for a word-formation pattern in an artificial language. We look at whether learning contextual meanings depends on the social salience of the context, whether our players interpret these contexts generally, and whether the learned meaning is generalized to new words. Our results show that adults are capable of learning contextual meaning if the context is socially salient, coherent, and interpretable. Once a contextual meaning is recognized, it is readily generalized to related forms and contexts. PMID:28194122

Grasp cueing and joint attention.

PubMed

Tschentscher, Nadja; Fischer, Martin H

2008-10-01

We studied how two different hand posture cues affect joint attention in normal observers. Visual targets appeared over lateralized objects, with different delays after centrally presented hand postures. Attention was cued by either hand direction or the congruency between hand aperture and object size. Participants pressed a button when they detected a target. Direction cues alone facilitated target detection following short delays but aperture cues alone were ineffective. In contrast, when hand postures combined direction and aperture cues, aperture congruency effects without directional congruency effects emerged and persisted, but only for power grips. These results suggest that parallel parameter specification makes joint attention mechanisms exquisitely sensitive to the timing and content of contextual cues.

Male risk taking, female odors, and the role of estrogen receptors.

PubMed

Kavaliers, Martin; Clipperton-Allen, Amy; Cragg, Cheryl L; Gustafsson, Jan-Åke; Korach, Kenneth S; Muglia, Louis; Choleris, Elena

2012-12-05

Male risk-taking and decision making are affected by sex-related cues, with men making riskier choices and decisions after exposure to either women or stimuli associated with women. In non-human species females and, or their cues can also increase male risk taking. Under the ecologically relevant condition of predation threat, brief exposure of male mice to the odors of a sexually receptive novel female reduces the avoidance of, and aversive responses to, a predator. We briefly review evidence showing that estrogen receptors (ERs), ERα and ERβ, are associated with the mediation of these risk taking responses. We show that ERs influence the production of the female odors that affect male risk taking, with the odors of wild type (ERαWT, ERβWT), oxytocin (OT) wildtype (OTWT), gene-deleted 'knock-out' ERβ (ERβKO), but not ERαKO or oxytocin (OT) OTKO or ovariectomized (OVX) female mice reducing the avoidance responses of male mice to cat odor. We further show that administration of specific ERα and ERβ agonists to OVX females results in their odors increasing male risk taking and boldness towards a predator. We also review evidence that ERs are involved in the mediation of the responses of males to female cues, with ERα being associated with the sexual and both ERβ and ERα with the sexual and social mechanisms underlying the effects of female cues on male risk taking. The implications and relations of these findings with rodents to ERs and the regulation of human risk taking are briefly considered. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Male risk taking, female odors, and the role of estrogen receptors

PubMed Central

Kavaliers, Martin; Clipperton-Allen, Amy; Cragg, Cheryl L.; Gustafsson, Jan-Åke; Korach, Kenneth S.; Muglia, Louis; Choleris, Elena

2016-01-01

Male risk-taking and decision making are affected by sex-related cues, with men making riskier choices and decisions after exposure to either women or stimuli associated with women. In non-human species females and, or their cues can also increase male risk taking. Under the ecologically relevant condition of predation threat, brief exposure of male mice to the odors of a sexually receptive novel female reduces the avoidance of, and aversive responses to, a predator. We briefly review evidence showing that estrogen receptors (ERs), ERα and ERβ, are associated with the mediation of these risk taking responses. We show that ERs influence the production of the female odors that affect male risk taking, with the odors of wild type (ERαWT, ERβWT), oxytocin (OT) wildtype (OTWT), gene-deleted ‘knock-out’ ERβ (ERβKO), but not ERαKO or oxytocin (OT) OTKO or ovariectomized (OVX) female mice reducing the avoidance responses of male mice to cat odor. We further show that administration of specific ERα and ERβ agonists to OVX females results in their odors increasing male risk taking and boldness towards a predator. We also review evidence that ERs are involved in the mediation of the responses of males to female cues, with ERα being associated with the sexual and both ERβ and ERα with the sexual and social mechanisms underlying the effects of female cues on male risk taking. The implications and relations of these findings with rodents to ERs and the regulation of human risk taking are briefly considered. PMID:22472459

Effects of context preexposure and delay until anxiety retrieval on generalization of contextual anxiety

PubMed Central

Neueder, Dorothea; Glotzbach-Schoon, Evelyn; Mühlberger, Andreas

2017-01-01

Animal studies suggest that time delay between acquisition and retrieval of contextual anxiety increases generalization. Moreover, such generalization is prevented by preexposure to the context (CTX), presumably due to an improved representation of such context. We investigated whether preexposure and time-passing modulate generalization of contextual anxiety, in humans. On Day 1, 42 participants (preexposure group) explored two virtual offices, while 41 participants (no-preexposure group) explored a virtual stadium. On Day 2 (24 h later), all participants learned to associate one office (CTX+) with unpredictable unconditioned stimuli (USs), and another office (CTX−) with safety. On Day 3, either 24 h (recent test) or 2 wk (remote test) later, participants revisited CTX− and CTX+ without USs, as well as a generalization context (G-CTX). Results revealed successfully conditioned anxiety and anxiety generalization for ratings (G-CTX was as aversive as CTX+ was), while safety generalization was found for startle responses (G-CTX elicited startle attenuation as CTX− did). Time between learning and testing enhanced generalization as reflected by comparable startle responses to all three offices in the remote test. Contextual preexposure facilitated extinction of explicit conditioned anxiety assessed with ratings. These results suggest that memory trace of a context degrades with passage of time in humans like in animals and, consequently, anxiety generalization enhances. After context preexposure, high cognitive processes seem to be crucially involved in facilitating extinction (or safety) learning. PMID:27980075

The importance of context: evidence that contextual representations increase intrusive memories.

PubMed

Pearson, David G; Ross, Fiona D C; Webster, Victoria L

2012-03-01

Intrusive memories appear to enter consciousness via involuntary rather than deliberate recollection. Some clinical accounts of PTSD seek to explain this phenomenon by making a clear distinction between the encoding of sensory-based and contextual representations. Contextual representations have been claimed to actively reduce intrusions by anchoring encoded perceptual data for an event in memory. The current analogue trauma study examined this hypothesis by manipulating contextual information independently from encoded sensory-perceptual information. Participants' viewed images selected from the International Affective Picture System that depicted scenes of violence and bodily injury. Images were viewed either under neutral conditions or paired with contextual information. Two experiments revealed a significant increase in memory intrusions for images paired with contextual information in comparison to the same images viewed under neutral conditions. In contrast to the observed increase in intrusion frequency there was no effect of contextual representations on voluntary memory for the images. The vividness and emotionality of memory intrusions were also unaffected. The analogue trauma paradigm may fail to replicate the effect of extreme stress on encoding postulated to occur during PTSD. These findings question the assertion that intrusive memories develop from a lack of integration between sensory-based and contextual representations in memory. Instead it is argued contextual representations play a causal role in increasing the frequency of intrusions by increasing the sensitivity of memory to involuntary retrieval by associated internal and external cues. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Function Transformation without Reinforcement

PubMed Central

Tonneau, François; Arreola, Fara; Martínez, Alma Gabriela

2006-01-01

In studies of function transformation, participants initially are taught to match stimuli in the presence of a contextual cue, X; the stimuli to be matched bear some formal relation to each other, for example, a relation of opposition or difference. In a second phase, the participants are taught to match arbitrary stimuli (say, A and B) in the presence of X. In a final test, A often displays behavioral functions that differ from those of B, and can be predicted from the nature of the relation associated with X in the initial training phase. Here we report function-transformation effects in the absence of selection responses and of their reinforcers. In three experiments with college students, exposure to relations of difference or identity modified the responses given to later stimuli. In Experiment 1, responses to a test stimulus A varied depending on preexposure to pairs of colors that were distinct from A but exemplified relations of difference or identity. In Experiment 2, a stimulus A acquired distinct functions, depending on its previous pairing with a contextual cue X that had itself been paired with identity or difference among colors. Experiment 3 confirmed the results of Experiment 2 with a modified design. Our data are consistent with the notion that relations of identity or difference can serve as stimuli for Pavlovian processes, and, in compound with other cues, produce apparent function-transformation effects. PMID:16776058

Function transformation without reinforcement.

PubMed

Tonneau, Franćois; Arreola, Fara; Martínez, Alma Gabriela

2006-05-01

In studies of function transformation, participants initially are taught to match stimuli in the presence of a contextual cue, X; the stimuli to be matched bear some formal relation to each other, for example, a relation of opposition or difference. In a second phase, the participants are taught to match arbitrary stimuli (say, A and B) in the presence of X. In a final test, A often displays behavioral functions that differ from those of B, and can be predicted from the nature of the relation associated with X in the initial training phase. Here we report function-transformation effects in the absence of selection responses and of their reinforcers. In three experiments with college students, exposure to relations of difference or identity modified the responses given to later stimuli. In Experiment 1, responses to a test stimulus A varied depending on preexposure to pairs of colors that were distinct from A but exemplified relations of difference or identity. In Experiment 2, a stimulus A acquired distinct functions, depending on its previous pairing with a contextual cue X that had itself been paired with identity or difference among colors. Experiment 3 confirmed the results of Experiment 2 with a modified design. Our data are consistent with the notion that relations of identity or difference can serve as stimuli for Pavlovian processes, and, in compound with other cues, produce apparent function-transformation effects.

Exam Question Sequencing Effects and Context Cues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davis, Doris Bitler

2017-01-01

Providing two or more versions of multiple-choice exams has long been a popular strategy for reducing the opportunity for students to engage in academic dishonesty. While the results of studies comparing exam scores under different question-order conditions have been inconclusive, the potential importance of contextual cues to aid student recall…

Inhibition of projections from the basolateral amygdala to the entorhinal cortex disrupts the acquisition of contextual fear

PubMed Central

Sparta, Dennis R.; Smithuis, Jim; Stamatakis, Alice M.; Jennings, Joshua H.; Kantak, Pranish A.; Ung, Randall L.; Stuber, Garret D.

2014-01-01

The development of excessive fear and/or stress responses to environmental cues such as contexts associated with a traumatic event is a hallmark of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The basolateral amygdala (BLA) has been implicated as a key structure mediating contextual fear conditioning. In addition, the hippocampus has an integral role in the encoding and processing of contexts associated with strong, salient stimuli such as fear. Given that both the BLA and hippocampus play an important role in the regulation of contextual fear conditioning, examining the functional connectivity between these two structures may elucidate a role for this pathway in the development of PTSD. Here, we used optogenetic strategies to demonstrate that the BLA sends a strong glutamatergic projection to the hippocampal formation through the entorhinal cortex (EC). Next, we photoinhibited glutamatergic fibers from the BLA terminating in the EC during the acquisition or expression of contextual fear conditioning. In mice that received optical inhibition of the BLA-to-EC pathway during the acquisition session, we observed a significant decrease in freezing behavior in a context re-exposure session. In contrast, we observed no differences in freezing behavior in mice that were only photoinhibited during the context re-exposure session. These data demonstrate an important role for the BLA-to-EC glutamatergic pathway in the acquisition of contextual fear conditioning. PMID:24834031

Opposite initialization to novel cues in dopamine signaling in ventral and posterior striatum in mice

PubMed Central

Menegas, William; Babayan, Benedicte M; Uchida, Naoshige; Watabe-Uchida, Mitsuko

2017-01-01

Dopamine neurons are thought to encode novelty in addition to reward prediction error (the discrepancy between actual and predicted values). In this study, we compared dopamine activity across the striatum using fiber fluorometry in mice. During classical conditioning, we observed opposite dynamics in dopamine axon signals in the ventral striatum (‘VS dopamine’) and the posterior tail of the striatum (‘TS dopamine’). TS dopamine showed strong excitation to novel cues, whereas VS dopamine showed no responses to novel cues until they had been paired with a reward. TS dopamine cue responses decreased over time, depending on what the cue predicted. Additionally, TS dopamine showed excitation to several types of stimuli including rewarding, aversive, and neutral stimuli whereas VS dopamine showed excitation only to reward or reward-predicting cues. Together, these results demonstrate that dopamine novelty signals are localized in TS along with general salience signals, while VS dopamine reliably encodes reward prediction error. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.21886.001 PMID:28054919

Acute Hydrocortisone Treatment Increases Anxiety but Not Fear in Healthy Volunteers: A Fear-Potentiated Startle Study

PubMed Central

Grillon, Christian; Heller, Randi; Hirschhorn, Elizabeth; Kling, Mitchel A.; Pine, Daniel S.; Schulkin, Jay; Vythilingam, Meena

2011-01-01

Background The debilitating effects of chronic glucocorticoids excess are well-known, but comparatively little is understood about the role of acute cortisol. Indirect evidence in rodents suggests that acute cortisone could selectively increase some forms of long-duration aversive states, such as “anxiety,” but not relatively similar, briefer aversive states, such as “fear.” However, no prior experimental studies in humans consider the unique effects of cortisol on anxiety and fear, using well-validated methods for eliciting these two similar but dissociable aversive states. The current study examines these effects, as instantiated with short- and long-duration threats. Methods Healthy volunteers (n = 18) received placebo or a low (20 mg) or a high (60 mg) dose of hydrocortisone in a double-blind crossover design. Subjects were exposed repeatedly to three 150-sec duration conditions: no shock; predictable shocks, in which shocks were signaled by a short-duration threat cue; and unpredictable shocks. Aversive states were indexed by acoustic startle. Fear was operationally defined as the increase in startle reactivity during the threat cue in the predictable condition (fear-potentiated startle). Anxiety was operationally defined as the increase in baseline startle from the no shock to the two threat conditions (anxiety-potentiated startle). Results Hydrocortisone affected neither baseline nor short-duration, fear-potentiated startle but increased long-duration anxiety-potentiated startle. Conclusions These results suggest that hydrocortisone administration in humans selectively increases anxiety but not fear. Possible mechanisms implicated are discussed in light of prior data in rodents. Specifically, hydrocortisone might increase anxiety via sensitization of corticotrophin-releasing hormones in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. PMID:21277566

An Integrative Perspective on the Role of Dopamine in Schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Maia, Tiago V.; Frank, Michael J.

2017-01-01

We propose that schizophrenia involves a combination of decreased phasic dopamine responses for relevant stimuli and increased spontaneous phasic dopamine release. Using insights from computational reinforcement-learning models and basic-science studies of the dopamine system, we show that each of these two disturbances contributes to a specific symptom domain and explains a large set of experimental findings associated with that domain. Reduced phasic responses for relevant stimuli help to explain negative symptoms and provide a unified explanation for the following experimental findings in schizophrenia, most of which have been shown to correlate with negative symptoms: reduced learning from rewards; blunted activation of the ventral striatum, midbrain, and other limbic regions for rewards and positive prediction errors; blunted activation of the ventral striatum during reward anticipation; blunted autonomic responding for relevant stimuli; blunted neural activation for aversive outcomes and aversive prediction errors; reduced willingness to expend effort for rewards; and psychomotor slowing. Increased spontaneous phasic dopamine release helps to explain positive symptoms and provides a unified explanation for the following experimental findings in schizophrenia, most of which have been shown to correlate with positive symptoms: aberrant learning for neutral cues (assessed with behavioral and autonomic responses), and aberrant, increased activation of the ventral striatum, midbrain, and other limbic regions for neutral cues, neutral outcomes, and neutral prediction errors. Taken together, then, these two disturbances explain many findings in schizophrenia. We review evidence supporting their co-occurrence and consider their differential implications for the treatment of positive and negative symptoms. PMID:27452791

[Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in the Treatment of Chronic Disease].

PubMed

Kuba, Katharina; Weißflog, Gregor

2017-12-01

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an intervention representing a transdiagnostic and contextual approach that assumes that psychological suffering is caused by experiential avoidance. The primary intention of ACT is not to eliminate symptoms and to treat mental disorders. Instead, ACT aims to increase psychological flexibility, i. e. to broaden the repertoire of cognitions and behaviors when facing inner and outer aversive events or experiences. Psychological flexibility can be enhanced by working with the 6 core components of the ACT model. Experience-focused methods like metaphors and exercises for acceptance play a crucial role in the therapeutic work. In short, with ACT patients can learn: ▪ that rigid and inflexible attempts to fight aversive experience are problematic ▪ a mindful experience of inner and outer experience ▪ to differentiate between unchangeable and changeable events (acceptance) ▪ to identify values or respectively life goals and to behave in a way that is consistent with them (commitment)The therapeutic focus of ACT is to create a balance between acceptance and behavioral change consistent with chosen values. Chronic diseases are often associated with aversive inner and outer experiences. A growing number of studies support the efficacy of ACT. There is evidence that ACT can increase psychological flexibility and potentially also lead to better self-management within the context of chronic somatic diseases. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Inhibition of Fear by Learned Safety Signals: minisymposium review

PubMed Central

Fernando, Anushka B. P.; Kazama, Andy M.; Jovanovic, Tanja; Ostroff, Linnaea E.; Sangha, Susan

2012-01-01

Safety signals are learned cues that predict the non-occurrence of an aversive event. As such, safety signals are potent inhibitors of fear and stress responses. Investigations of safety signal learning have increased over the last few years due in part to the finding that traumatized persons are unable to utilize safety cues to inhibit fear, making it a clinically relevant phenotype. The goal of this review is to present recent advances relating to the neural and behavioral mechanisms of safety learning and expression in rodents, non-human primates and humans. PMID:23055481

Contextual Modulation of N400 Amplitude to Lexically Ambiguous Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Titone, Debra A.; Salisbury, Dean F.

2004-01-01

Through much is known about the N400 component, an event-related EEG potential that is sensitive to semantic manipulations, it is unclear whether modulations of N400 amplitude reflect automatic processing, controlled processing, or both. We examined this issue using a semantic judgment task that manipulated local and global contextual cues. Word…

The Neural Basis of Contextual Influences on Face Categorization

PubMed Central

Freeman, Jonathan B.; Ma, Yina; Barth, Maria; Young, Steven G.; Han, Shihui; Ambady, Nalini

2015-01-01

From only brief exposure to a face, individuals spontaneously categorize another's race. Recent behavioral evidence suggests that visual context may affect such categorizations. We used fMRI to examine the neural basis of contextual influences on the race categorization of faces. Participants categorized the race of faces that varied along a White-Asian morph continuum and were surrounded by American, neutral, or Chinese scene contexts. As expected, the context systematically influenced categorization responses and their efficiency (response times). Neuroimaging results indicated that the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) exhibited highly sensitive, graded responses to the compatibility of facial and contextual cues. These regions showed linearly increasing responses as a face became more White when in an American context, and linearly increasing responses as a face became more Asian when in a Chinese context. Further, RSC activity partially mediated the effect of this face-context compatibility on the efficiency of categorization responses. Together, the findings suggest a critical role of the RSC and OFC in driving contextual influences on face categorization, and highlight the impact of extraneous cues beyond the face in categorizing other people. PMID:24006403

Orexin receptor-1 in the locus coeruleus plays an important role in cue-dependent fear memory consolidation.

PubMed

Soya, Shingo; Shoji, Hirotaka; Hasegawa, Emi; Hondo, Mari; Miyakawa, Tsuyoshi; Yanagisawa, Masashi; Mieda, Michihiro; Sakurai, Takeshi

2013-09-04

The noradrenergic (NA) projections arising from the locus ceruleus (LC) to the amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis have been implicated in the formation of emotional memory. Since NA neurons in the LC (LC-NA neurons) abundantly express orexin receptor-1 (OX1R) and receive prominent innervation by orexin-producing neurons, we hypothesized that an OX1R-mediated pathway is involved in the physiological fear learning process via regulation of LC-NA neurons. To evaluate this hypothesis, we examined the phenotype of Ox1r(-/-) mice in the classic cued and contextual fear-conditioning test. We found that Ox1r(-/-) mice showed impaired freezing responses in both cued and contextual fear-conditioning paradigms. In contrast, Ox2r(-/-) mice showed normal freezing behavior in the cued fear-conditioning test, while they exhibited shorter freezing time in the contextual fear-conditioning test. Double immunolabeling of Fos and tyrosine hydroxylase showed that double-positive LC-NA neurons after test sessions of both cued and contextual stimuli were significantly fewer in Ox1r(-/-) mice. AAV-mediated expression of OX1R in LC-NA neurons in Ox1r(-/-) mice restored the freezing behavior to the auditory cue to a comparable level to that in wild-type mice in the test session. Decreased freezing time during the contextual fear test was not affected by restoring OX1R expression in LC-NA neurons. These observations support the hypothesis that the orexin system modulates the formation and expression of fear memory via OX1R in multiple pathways. Especially, OX1R in LC-NA neurons plays an important role in cue-dependent fear memory formation and/or retrieval.

The influence of imagery vividness on cognitive and perceptual cues in circular auditorily-induced vection.

PubMed

Väljamäe, Aleksander; Sell, Sara

2014-01-01

In the absence of other congruent multisensory motion cues, sound contribution to illusions of self-motion (vection) is relatively weak and often attributed to purely cognitive, top-down processes. The present study addressed the influence of cognitive and perceptual factors in the experience of circular, yaw auditorily-induced vection (AIV), focusing on participants imagery vividness scores. We used different rotating sound sources (acoustic landmark vs. movable types) and their filtered versions that provided different binaural cues (interaural time or level differences, ITD vs. ILD) when delivering via loudspeaker array. The significant differences in circular vection intensity showed that (1) AIV was stronger for rotating sound fields containing auditory landmarks as compared to movable sound objects; (2) ITD based acoustic cues were more instrumental than ILD based ones for horizontal AIV; and (3) individual differences in imagery vividness significantly influenced the effects of contextual and perceptual cues. While participants with high scores of kinesthetic and visual imagery were helped by vection "rich" cues, i.e., acoustic landmarks and ITD cues, the participants from the low-vivid imagery group did not benefit from these cues automatically. Only when specifically asked to use their imagination intentionally did these external cues start influencing vection sensation in a similar way to high-vivid imagers. These findings are in line with the recent fMRI work which suggested that high-vivid imagers employ automatic, almost unconscious mechanisms in imagery generation, while low-vivid imagers rely on more schematic and conscious framework. Consequently, our results provide an additional insight into the interaction between perceptual and contextual cues when experiencing purely auditorily or multisensory induced vection.

The influence of imagery vividness on cognitive and perceptual cues in circular auditorily-induced vection

PubMed Central

Väljamäe, Aleksander; Sell, Sara

2014-01-01

In the absence of other congruent multisensory motion cues, sound contribution to illusions of self-motion (vection) is relatively weak and often attributed to purely cognitive, top-down processes. The present study addressed the influence of cognitive and perceptual factors in the experience of circular, yaw auditorily-induced vection (AIV), focusing on participants imagery vividness scores. We used different rotating sound sources (acoustic landmark vs. movable types) and their filtered versions that provided different binaural cues (interaural time or level differences, ITD vs. ILD) when delivering via loudspeaker array. The significant differences in circular vection intensity showed that (1) AIV was stronger for rotating sound fields containing auditory landmarks as compared to movable sound objects; (2) ITD based acoustic cues were more instrumental than ILD based ones for horizontal AIV; and (3) individual differences in imagery vividness significantly influenced the effects of contextual and perceptual cues. While participants with high scores of kinesthetic and visual imagery were helped by vection “rich” cues, i.e., acoustic landmarks and ITD cues, the participants from the low-vivid imagery group did not benefit from these cues automatically. Only when specifically asked to use their imagination intentionally did these external cues start influencing vection sensation in a similar way to high-vivid imagers. These findings are in line with the recent fMRI work which suggested that high-vivid imagers employ automatic, almost unconscious mechanisms in imagery generation, while low-vivid imagers rely on more schematic and conscious framework. Consequently, our results provide an additional insight into the interaction between perceptual and contextual cues when experiencing purely auditorily or multisensory induced vection. PMID:25520683

Ontogeny of Contextual Fear Memory Formation, Specificity, and Persistence in Mice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akers, Katherine G.; Arruda-Carvalho, Maithe; Josselyn, Sheena A.; Frankland, Paul W.

2012-01-01

Pinpointing the precise age when young animals begin to form memories of aversive events is valuable for understanding the onset of anxiety and mood disorders and for detecting early cognitive impairment in models of childhood-onset disorders. Although these disorders are most commonly modeled in mice, we know little regarding the development of…

Intra-Amygdala Muscimol Injections Impair Freezing and Place Avoidance in Aversive Contextual Conditioning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holahan, Matthew R.; White, Norman M.

2004-01-01

Rats were trained by shocking them in a closed compartment. When subsequently tested in the same closed compartment with no shock, normal rats showed an increased tendency to freeze. They also showed an increased tendency to actively avoid the compartment when given access to an adjacent neutral compartment for the first time. Amygdala…

The hypocretin/orexin system mediates the extinction of fear memories.

PubMed

Flores, África; Valls-Comamala, Victòria; Costa, Giulia; Saravia, Rocío; Maldonado, Rafael; Berrendero, Fernando

2014-11-01

Anxiety disorders are often associated with an inability to extinguish learned fear responses. The hypocretin/orexin system is involved in the regulation of emotional states and could also participate in the consolidation and extinction of aversive memories. Using hypocretin receptor-1 and hypocretin receptor-2 antagonists, hypocretin-1 and hypocretin-2 peptides, and hypocretin receptor-1 knockout mice, we investigated the role of the hypocretin system in cue- and context-dependent fear conditioning and extinction. Hypocretins were crucial for the consolidation of fear conditioning, and this effect was mainly observed in memories with a high emotional component. Notably, after the acquisition of fear memory, hypocretin receptor-1 blockade facilitated fear extinction, whereas hypocretin-1 administration impaired this extinction process. The extinction-facilitating effects of the hypocretin receptor-1 antagonist SB334867 were associated with increased expression of cFos in the basolateral amygdala and the infralimbic cortex. Intra-amygdala, but neither intra-infralimbic prefrontal cortex nor intra-dorsohippocampal infusion of SB334867 enhanced fear extinction. These results reveal a key role for hypocretins in the extinction of aversive memories and suggest that hypocretin receptor-1 blockade could represent a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of diseases associated with inappropriate retention of fear, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias.

The Hypocretin/Orexin System Mediates the Extinction of Fear Memories

PubMed Central

Flores, África; Valls-Comamala, Victòria; Costa, Giulia; Saravia, Rocío; Maldonado, Rafael; Berrendero, Fernando

2014-01-01

Anxiety disorders are often associated with an inability to extinguish learned fear responses. The hypocretin/orexin system is involved in the regulation of emotional states and could also participate in the consolidation and extinction of aversive memories. Using hypocretin receptor-1 and hypocretin receptor-2 antagonists, hypocretin-1 and hypocretin-2 peptides, and hypocretin receptor-1 knockout mice, we investigated the role of the hypocretin system in cue- and context-dependent fear conditioning and extinction. Hypocretins were crucial for the consolidation of fear conditioning, and this effect was mainly observed in memories with a high emotional component. Notably, after the acquisition of fear memory, hypocretin receptor-1 blockade facilitated fear extinction, whereas hypocretin-1 administration impaired this extinction process. The extinction-facilitating effects of the hypocretin receptor-1 antagonist SB334867 were associated with increased expression of cFos in the basolateral amygdala and the infralimbic cortex. Intra-amygdala, but neither intra-infralimbic prefrontal cortex nor intra-dorsohippocampal infusion of SB334867 enhanced fear extinction. These results reveal a key role for hypocretins in the extinction of aversive memories and suggest that hypocretin receptor-1 blockade could represent a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of diseases associated with inappropriate retention of fear, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias. PMID:24930888

Olfactory modulation by dopamine in the context of aversive learning

PubMed Central

Riffell, Jeffrey A.; Martin, Joshua P.; Gage, Stephanie L.; Nighorn, Alan J.

2012-01-01

The need to detect and process sensory cues varies in different behavioral contexts. Plasticity in sensory coding can be achieved by the context-specific release of neuromodulators in restricted brain areas. The context of aversion triggers the release of dopamine in the insect brain, yet the effects of dopamine on sensory coding are unknown. In this study, we characterize the morphology of dopaminergic neurons that innervate each of the antennal lobes (ALs; the first synaptic neuropils of the olfactory system) of the moth Manduca sexta and demonstrate with electrophysiology that dopamine enhances odor-evoked responses of the majority of AL neurons while reducing the responses of a small minority. Because dopamine release in higher brain areas mediates aversive learning we developed a naturalistic, ecologically inspired aversive learning paradigm in which an innately appetitive host plant floral odor is paired with a mimic of the aversive nectar of herbivorized host plants. This pairing resulted in a decrease in feeding behavior that was blocked when dopamine receptor antagonists were injected directly into the ALs. These results suggest that a transient dopaminergic enhancement of sensory output from the AL contributes to the formation of aversive memories. We propose a model of olfactory modulation in which specific contexts trigger the release of different neuromodulators in the AL to increase olfactory output to downstream areas of processing. PMID:22552185

The Prelimbic Cortex Directs Attention toward Predictive Cues during Fear Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sharpe, Melissa J.; Killcross, Simon

2015-01-01

The prelimbic cortex is argued to promote conditioned fear expression, at odds with appetitive research implicating this region in attentional processing. Consistent with an attentional account, we report that the effect of prelimbic lesions on fear expression depends on the degree of competition between contextual and discrete cues. Further, when…

Is attention based on spatial contextual memory preferentially guided by low spatial frequency signals?

PubMed

Patai, Eva Zita; Buckley, Alice; Nobre, Anna Christina

2013-01-01

A popular model of visual perception states that coarse information (carried by low spatial frequencies) along the dorsal stream is rapidly transmitted to prefrontal and medial temporal areas, activating contextual information from memory, which can in turn constrain detailed input carried by high spatial frequencies arriving at a slower rate along the ventral visual stream, thus facilitating the processing of ambiguous visual stimuli. We were interested in testing whether this model contributes to memory-guided orienting of attention. In particular, we asked whether global, low-spatial frequency (LSF) inputs play a dominant role in triggering contextual memories in order to facilitate the processing of the upcoming target stimulus. We explored this question over four experiments. The first experiment replicated the LSF advantage reported in perceptual discrimination tasks by showing that participants were faster and more accurate at matching a low spatial frequency version of a scene, compared to a high spatial frequency version, to its original counterpart in a forced-choice task. The subsequent three experiments tested the relative contributions of low versus high spatial frequencies during memory-guided covert spatial attention orienting tasks. Replicating the effects of memory-guided attention, pre-exposure to scenes associated with specific spatial memories for target locations (memory cues) led to higher perceptual discrimination and faster response times to identify targets embedded in the scenes. However, either high or low spatial frequency cues were equally effective; LSF signals did not selectively or preferentially contribute to the memory-driven attention benefits to performance. Our results challenge a generalized model that LSFs activate contextual memories, which in turn bias attention and facilitate perception.

Is Attention Based on Spatial Contextual Memory Preferentially Guided by Low Spatial Frequency Signals?

PubMed Central

Patai, Eva Zita; Buckley, Alice; Nobre, Anna Christina

2013-01-01

A popular model of visual perception states that coarse information (carried by low spatial frequencies) along the dorsal stream is rapidly transmitted to prefrontal and medial temporal areas, activating contextual information from memory, which can in turn constrain detailed input carried by high spatial frequencies arriving at a slower rate along the ventral visual stream, thus facilitating the processing of ambiguous visual stimuli. We were interested in testing whether this model contributes to memory-guided orienting of attention. In particular, we asked whether global, low-spatial frequency (LSF) inputs play a dominant role in triggering contextual memories in order to facilitate the processing of the upcoming target stimulus. We explored this question over four experiments. The first experiment replicated the LSF advantage reported in perceptual discrimination tasks by showing that participants were faster and more accurate at matching a low spatial frequency version of a scene, compared to a high spatial frequency version, to its original counterpart in a forced-choice task. The subsequent three experiments tested the relative contributions of low versus high spatial frequencies during memory-guided covert spatial attention orienting tasks. Replicating the effects of memory-guided attention, pre-exposure to scenes associated with specific spatial memories for target locations (memory cues) led to higher perceptual discrimination and faster response times to identify targets embedded in the scenes. However, either high or low spatial frequency cues were equally effective; LSF signals did not selectively or preferentially contribute to the memory-driven attention benefits to performance. Our results challenge a generalized model that LSFs activate contextual memories, which in turn bias attention and facilitate perception. PMID:23776509

Semantic priming, not repetition priming, is to blame for false hearing.

PubMed

Rogers, Chad S

2017-08-01

Contextual and sensory information are combined in speech perception. Conflict between the two can lead to false hearing, defined as a high-confidence misidentification of a spoken word. Rogers, Jacoby, and Sommers (Psychology and Aging, 27(1), 33-45, 2012) found that older adults are more susceptible to false hearing than are young adults, using a combination of semantic priming and repetition priming to create context. In this study, the type of context (repetition vs. sematic priming) responsible for false hearing was examined. Older and young adult participants read and listened to a list of paired associates (e.g., ROW-BOAT) and were told to remember the pairs for a later memory test. Following the memory test, participants identified words masked in noise that were preceded by a cue word in the clear. Targets were semantically associated to the cue (e.g., ROW-BOAT), unrelated to the cue (e.g., JAW-PASS), or phonologically related to a semantic associate of the cue (e.g., ROW-GOAT). How often each cue word and its paired associate were presented prior to the memory test was manipulated (0, 3, or 5 times) to test effects of repetition priming. Results showed repetitions had no effect on rates of context-based listening or false hearing. However, repetition did significantly increase sensory information as a basis for metacognitive judgments in young and older adults. This pattern suggests that semantic priming dominates as the basis for false hearing and highlights context and sensory information operating as qualitatively different bases for listening and metacognition.

Relative Weighting of Semantic and Syntactic Cues in Native and Non-Native Listeners' Recognition of English Sentences.

PubMed

Shi, Lu-Feng; Koenig, Laura L

2016-01-01

Non-native listeners do not recognize English sentences as effectively as native listeners, especially in noise. It is not entirely clear to what extent such group differences arise from differences in relative weight of semantic versus syntactic cues. This study quantified the use and weighting of these contextual cues via Boothroyd and Nittrouer's j and k factors. The j represents the probability of recognizing sentences with or without context, whereas the k represents the degree to which context improves recognition performance. Four groups of 13 normal-hearing young adult listeners participated. One group consisted of native English monolingual (EMN) listeners, whereas the other three consisted of non-native listeners contrasting in their language dominance and first language: English-dominant Russian-English, Russian-dominant Russian-English, and Spanish-dominant Spanish-English bilinguals. All listeners were presented three sets of four-word sentences: high-predictability sentences included both semantic and syntactic cues, low-predictability sentences included syntactic cues only, and zero-predictability sentences included neither semantic nor syntactic cues. Sentences were presented at 65 dB SPL binaurally in the presence of speech-spectrum noise at +3 dB SNR. Listeners orally repeated each sentence and recognition was calculated for individual words as well as the sentence as a whole. Comparable j values across groups for high-predictability, low-predictability, and zero-predictability sentences suggested that all listeners, native and non-native, utilized contextual cues to recognize English sentences. Analysis of the k factor indicated that non-native listeners took advantage of syntax as effectively as EMN listeners. However, only English-dominant bilinguals utilized semantics to the same extent as EMN listeners; semantics did not provide a significant benefit for the two non-English-dominant groups. When combined, semantics and syntax benefitted EMN listeners significantly more than all three non-native groups of listeners. Language background influenced the use and weighting of semantic and syntactic cues in a complex manner. A native language advantage existed in the effective use of both cues combined. A language-dominance effect was seen in the use of semantics. No first-language effect was present for the use of either or both cues. For all non-native listeners, syntax contributed significantly more to sentence recognition than semantics, possibly due to the fact that semantics develops more gradually than syntax in second-language acquisition. The present study provides evidence that Boothroyd and Nittrouer's j and k factors can be successfully used to quantify the effectiveness of contextual cue use in clinically relevant, linguistically diverse populations.

Assessing appetitive, aversive, and negative ethanol-mediated reinforcement through an immature rat model.

PubMed

Pautassi, Ricardo M; Nizhnikov, Michael E; Spear, Norman E

2009-06-01

The motivational effects of drugs play a key role during the transition from casual use to abuse and dependence. Ethanol reinforcement has been successfully studied through Pavlovian and operant conditioning in adult rats and mice genetically selected for their ready acceptance of ethanol. Another model for studying ethanol reinforcement is the immature (preweanling) rat, which consumes ethanol and exhibits the capacity to process tactile, odor and taste cues and transfer information between different sensorial modalities. This review describes the motivational effects of ethanol in preweanling, heterogeneous non-selected rats. Preweanlings exhibit ethanol-mediated conditioned taste avoidance and conditioned place aversion. Ethanol's appetitive effects, however, are evident when using first- and second-order conditioning and operant procedures. Ethanol also devalues the motivational representation of aversive stimuli, suggesting early negative reinforcement. It seems that preweanlings are highly sensitive not only to the aversive motivational effects of ethanol but also to its positive and negative (anti-anxiety) reinforcement potential. The review underscores the advantages of using a developing rat to evaluate alcohol's motivational effects.

Assessing appetitive, aversive, and negative ethanol-mediated reinforcement through an immature rat model

PubMed Central

Pautassi, Ricardo M.; Nizhnikov, Michael E.; Spear, Norman E.

2009-01-01

The motivational effects of drugs play a key role during the transition from casual use to abuse and dependence. Ethanol reinforcement has been successfully studied through Pavlovian and operant conditioning in adult rats and mice genetically selected for their ready acceptance of ethanol. Another model for studying ethanol reinforcement is the immature (preweanling) rat, which consumes ethanol and exhibits the capacity to process tactile, odor and taste cues and transfer information between different sensorial modalities. This review describes the motivational effects of ethanol in preweanling, heterogeneous non-selected rats. Preweanlings exhibit ethanol-mediated conditioned taste avoidance and conditioned place aversion. Ethanol's appetitive effects, however, are evident when using first- and second-order conditioning and operant procedures. Ethanol also devalues the motivational representation of aversive stimuli, suggesting early negative reinforcement. It seems that preweanlings are highly sensitive not only to the aversive motivational effects of ethanol but also to its positive and negative (anti-anxiety) reinforcement potential. The review underscores the advantages of using a developing rat to evaluate alcohol's motivational effects. PMID:19428502

The Role of Working Memory and Contextual Constraints in Children's Processing of Relative Clauses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wieghall, Anna R.; Altmann, Gerry T. M.

2011-01-01

An auditory sentence comprehension task investigated the extent to which the integration of contextual and structural cues was mediated by verbal memory span with 32 English-speaking six- to eight-year-old children. Spoken relative clause sentences were accompanied by visual context pictures which fully (depicting the actions described within the…

Neutral Details Associated with Emotional Events are Encoded: Evidence from a Cued Recall Paradigm

PubMed Central

Steinmetz, Katherine R. Mickley; Knight, Aubrey G.; Kensinger, Elizabeth A.

2015-01-01

Enhanced emotional memory often comes at the cost of memory for surrounding background information. Narrowed-encoding theories suggest that this is due to narrowed attention for emotional information at encoding, leading to impaired encoding of background information. Recent work has suggested that an encoding-based theory may be insufficient. Here, we examined whether cued recall – instead of previously used recognition memory tasks - would reveal evidence that non-emotional information associated with emotional information was effectively encoded. Participants encoded positive, negative, or neutral objects on neutral backgrounds. At retrieval, they were given either the item or the background as a memory cue and were asked to recall the associated scene element. Counter to narrowed-encoding theories, emotional items were more likely than neutral items to trigger recall of the associated background. This finding suggests that there is a memory trace of this contextual information and that emotional cues may facilitate retrieval of this information. PMID:26220708

Contextual fear conditioning in zebrafish.

PubMed

Kenney, Justin W; Scott, Ian C; Josselyn, Sheena A; Frankland, Paul W

2017-10-01

Zebrafish are a genetically tractable vertebrate that hold considerable promise for elucidating the molecular basis of behavior. Although numerous recent advances have been made in the ability to precisely manipulate the zebrafish genome, much less is known about many aspects of learning and memory in adult fish. Here, we describe the development of a contextual fear conditioning paradigm using an electric shock as the aversive stimulus. We find that contextual fear conditioning is modulated by shock intensity, prevented by an established amnestic agent (MK-801), lasts at least 14 d, and exhibits extinction. Furthermore, fish of various background strains (AB, Tu, and TL) are able to acquire fear conditioning, but differ in fear extinction rates. Taken together, we find that contextual fear conditioning in zebrafish shares many similarities with the widely used contextual fear conditioning paradigm in rodents. Combined with the amenability of genetic manipulation in zebrafish, we anticipate that our paradigm will prove to be a useful complementary system in which to examine the molecular basis of vertebrate learning and memory. © 2017 Kenney et al.; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

Fear is the mother of invention: anuran embryos exposed to predator cues alter life-history traits, post-hatching behaviour and neuronal activity patterns.

PubMed

Gazzola, Andrea; Brandalise, Federico; Rubolini, Diego; Rossi, Paola; Galeotti, Paolo

2015-12-01

Neurophysiological modifications associated to phenotypic plasticity in response to predators are largely unexplored, and there is a gap of knowledge on how the information encoded in predator cues is processed by prey sensory systems. To explore these issues, we exposed Rana dalmatina embryos to dragonfly chemical cues (kairomones) up to hatching. At different times after hatching (up to 40 days), we recorded morphology and anti-predator behaviour of tadpoles from control and kairomone-treated embryo groups as well as their neural olfactory responses, by recording the activity of their mitral neurons before and after exposure to a kairomone solution. Treated embryos hatched later and hatchlings were smaller than control siblings. In addition, the tadpoles from the treated group showed a stronger anti-predator response than controls at 10 days (but not at 30 days) post-hatching, though the intensity of the contextual response to the kairomone stimulus did not differ between the two groups. Baseline neuronal activity at 30 days post-hatching, as assessed by the frequency of spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic events and by the firing rate of mitral cells, was higher among tadpoles from the treated versus the control embryo groups. At the same time, neuronal activity showed a stronger increase among tadpoles from the treated versus the control group after a local kairomone perfusion. Hence, a different contextual plasticity between treatments at the neuronal level was not mirrored by the anti-predator behavioural response. In conclusion, our experiments demonstrate ontogenetic plasticity in tadpole neuronal activity after embryonic exposure to predator cues, corroborating the evidence that early-life experience contributes to shaping the phenotype at later life stages. © 2015. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

Avoidance-based human Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer

PubMed Central

Lewis, Andrea H.; Niznikiewicz, Michael A.; Delamater, Andrew R.; Delgado, Mauricio R.

2013-01-01

The Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) paradigm probes the influence of Pavlovian cues over instrumentally learned behavior. The paradigm has been used extensively to probe basic cognitive and motivational processes in studies of animal learning but, more recently, PIT and its underlying neural basis have been extended to investigations in humans. These initial neuroimaging studies of PIT have focused on the influence of appetitively conditioned stimuli on instrumental responses maintained by positive reinforcement, and highlight the involvement of the striatum. In the current study, we sought to understand the neural correlates of PIT in an aversive Pavlovian learning situation when instrumental responding was maintained through negative reinforcement. Participants exhibited specific PIT, wherein selective increases in instrumental responding to conditioned stimuli occurred when the stimulus signaled a specific aversive outcome whose omission negatively reinforced the instrumental response. Additionally, a general PIT effect was observed such that when a stimulus was associated with a different aversive outcome than was used to negatively reinforce instrumental behavior, the presence of that stimulus caused a non-selective increase in overall instrumental responding. Both specific and general PIT behavioral effects correlated with increased activation in corticostriatal circuitry, particularly in the striatum, a region involved in cognitive and motivational processes. These results suggest that avoidance-based PIT utilizes a similar neural mechanism to that seen with PIT in an appetitive context, which has implications for understanding mechanisms of drug-seeking behavior during addiction and relapse. PMID:24118624

Hippocampal Contribution to Context Encoding across Development Is Disrupted following Early-Life Adversity.

PubMed

Lambert, Hilary K; Sheridan, Margaret A; Sambrook, Kelly A; Rosen, Maya L; Askren, Mary K; McLaughlin, Katie A

2017-02-15

Context can drastically influence responses to environmental stimuli. For example, a gunshot should provoke a different response at a public park than a shooting range. Little is known about how contextual processing and neural correlates change across human development or about individual differences related to early environmental experiences. Children ( N = 60; 8-19 years, 24 exposed to interpersonal violence) completed a context encoding task during fMRI scanning using a delayed match-to-sample design with neutral, happy, and angry facial cues embedded in realistic background scenes. Outside the scanner, participants completed a memory test for context-face pairings. Context memory and neural correlates of context encoding did not vary with age. Larger hippocampal volume was associated with better context memory. Posterior hippocampus was recruited during context encoding, and greater activation in this region predicted better memory for contexts paired with angry faces. Children exposed to violence had poor memory of contexts paired with angry faces, reduced hippocampal volume, and atypical neural recruitment on encoding trials with angry faces, including reduced hippocampal activation and greater functional connectivity between hippocampus and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC). Greater hippocampus-vlPFC connectivity was associated with worse memory for contexts paired with angry faces. Posterior hippocampus appears to support context encoding, a process that does not exhibit age-related variation from middle childhood to late adolescence. Exposure to dangerous environments in childhood is associated with poor context encoding in the presence of threat, likely due to greater vlPFC-dependent attentional narrowing on threat cues at the expense of hippocampus-dependent processing of the broader context. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The ability to use context to guide reactions to environmental stimuli promotes flexible behavior. Remarkably little research has examined how contextual processing changes across development or about influences of the early environment. We provide evidence for posterior hippocampus involvement in context encoding in youth and lack of age-related variation from middle childhood to late adolescence. Children exposed to interpersonal violence exhibited poor memory of contexts paired with angry faces and atypical neural recruitment during context encoding in the presence of threatening facial cues. Heightened attention to threat following violence exposure may come at the expense of encoding contextual information, which may ultimately contribute to pathological fear expressed in safe contexts. Copyright © 2017 the authors 0270-6474/17/371925-10$15.00/0.

Measurement of exercise habits and prediction of leisure-time activity in established exercise.

PubMed

Tappe, Karyn A; Glanz, Karen

2013-01-01

Habit formation may be important to maintaining repetitive healthy behaviors like exercise. Existing habit questionnaires only measure part of the definition of habit (automaticity; frequency). A novel habit questionnaire was evaluated that measured contextual cueing. We designed a two-stage observational cohort study of regular exercisers. For stage 1, we conducted an in-person interview on a university campus. For stage 2, we conducted an internet-based survey. Participants were 156 adults exercising at least once per week. A novel measure, The Exercise Habit Survey (EHS) assessed contextual cueing through 13 questions on constancy of place, time, people, and exercise behaviors. A subset of the Self-Report Habit Index (SRHI), measuring automaticity, was also collected along with measures of intention and self-efficacy, and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), leisure-time section. The EHS was evaluated using factor analysis and test-retest reliability. Its correlation to other exercise predictors and exercise behavior was evaluated using Pearson's r and hierarchical regression. Results suggested that the EHS comprised four subscales (People, Place, Time, Exercise Constancy). Only Exercise Constancy correlated significantly with SRHI. Only the People subscale predicted IPAQ exercise metabolic equivalents. The SRHI was a strong predictor. Contextual cueing is an important aspect of habit but measurement methodologies warrant refinement and comparison by different methods.

Construction of Cognitive Maps to Improve E-Book Reading and Navigation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Liang-Yi; Chen, Gwo-Dong; Yang, Sheng-Jie

2013-01-01

People have greater difficulty reading academic textbooks on screen than on paper. One notable problem is that they cannot construct an effective cognitive map because of the lack of contextual information cues and ineffective navigational mechanisms in e-books. To support the construction of cognitive maps, this paper proposes the visual cue map,…

Early life stress impairs contextual threat expression in female, but not male, mice.

PubMed

Manzano-Nieves, Gabriela; Gaillard, Mizan; Gallo, Meghan; Bath, Kevin G

2018-05-21

Early life stress (ELS) is associated with altered processing of threat signals, and increased lifetime risk of anxiety and affective pathology, disorders that disproportionately affect females. We tested the impact of a limited bedding paradigm of ELS (from P4-11) on contextual threat learning, context memory, footshock sensitivity, and anxietylike behavior, in adult male and female mice. To examine contextual threat learning, mice conditioned by context/footshock association were tested 24 hr later for the context memory. To determine the effect of ELS on footshock sensitivity, a separate cohort of mice were exposed to footshocks of increasing intensity (0.06 to 0.40 mA) and behavioral responses (jump and audible vocalization) were assessed by observers blind to treatment condition, sex, and cycle stage. ELS impaired context memory in female, but not male, mice. ELS increased footshock-induced threshold to vocalize, but not to jump, in both sexes. In female mice, this effect was most apparent during estrus. Decreased body weight, indicative of higher stress incurred by an individual mouse, correlated with increased threshold to jump in both sexes reared in ELS, and to audibly vocalize in ELS females. As ELS effects on shock sensitivity were present in both sexes, the contextual recall deficit in females was not likely driven by changes in the salience of aversive footshocks. No effects on anxietylike behavior, as measured in the elevated plus maze (EPM), were observed. More work is needed to better understand the impact of ELS on both somatic and gonadal development, and their potential contribution to threat learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Selective post-training time window for memory consolidation interference of cannabidiol into the prefrontal cortex: Reduced dopaminergic modulation and immediate gene expression in limbic circuits.

PubMed

Rossignoli, Matheus Teixeira; Lopes-Aguiar, Cleiton; Ruggiero, Rafael Naime; Do Val da Silva, Raquel Araujo; Bueno-Junior, Lezio Soares; Kandratavicius, Ludmyla; Peixoto-Santos, José Eduardo; Crippa, José Alexandre; Cecilio Hallak, Jaime Eduardo; Zuardi, Antonio Waldo; Szawka, Raphael Escorsim; Anselmo-Franci, Janete; Leite, João Pereira; Romcy-Pereira, Rodrigo Neves

2017-05-14

The prefrontal cortex (PFC), amygdala and hippocampus display a coordinated activity during acquisition of associative fear memories. Evidence indicates that PFC engagement in aversive memory formation does not progress linearly as previously thought. Instead, it seems to be recruited at specific time windows after memory acquisition, which has implications for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorders. Cannabidiol (CBD), the major non-psychotomimetic phytocannabinoid of the Cannabis sativa plant, is known to modulate contextual fear memory acquisition in rodents. However, it is still not clear how CBD interferes with PFC-dependent processes during post-training memory consolidation. Here, we tested whether intra-PFC infusions of CBD immediately after or 5h following contextual fear conditioning was able to interfere with memory consolidation. Neurochemical and cellular correlates of the CBD treatment were evaluated by the quantification of extracellular levels of dopamine (DA), serotonin, and their metabolites in the PFC and by measuring the cellular expression of activity-dependent transcription factors in cortical and limbic regions. Our results indicate that bilateral intra-PFC CBD infusion impaired contextual fear memory consolidation when applied 5h after conditioning, but had no effect when applied immediately after it. This effect was associated with a reduction in DA turnover in the PFC following retrieval 5days after training. We also observed that post-conditioning infusion of CBD reduced c-fos and zif-268 protein expression in the hippocampus, PFC, and thalamus. Our findings support that CBD interferes with contextual fear memory consolidation by reducing PFC influence on cortico-limbic circuits. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Preserved Affective Sharing But Impaired Decoding of Contextual Complex Emotions in Alcohol Dependence.

PubMed

Grynberg, Delphine; Maurage, Pierre; Nandrino, Jean-Louis

2017-04-01

Prior research has repeatedly shown that alcohol dependence is associated with a large range of impairments in psychological processes, which could lead to interpersonal deficits. Specifically, it has been suggested that these interpersonal difficulties are underpinned by reduced recognition and sharing of others' emotional states. However, this pattern of deficits remains to be clarified. This study thus aimed to investigate whether alcohol dependence is associated with impaired abilities in decoding contextual complex emotions and with altered sharing of others' emotions. Forty-one alcohol-dependent individuals (ADI) and 37 matched healthy individuals completed the Multifaceted Empathy Test, in which they were instructed to identify complex emotional states expressed by individuals in contextual scenes and to state to what extent they shared them. Compared to healthy individuals, ADI were impaired in identifying negative (Cohen's d = 0.75) and positive (Cohen's d = 0.46) emotional states but, conversely, presented preserved abilities in sharing others' emotional states. This study shows that alcohol dependence is characterized by an impaired ability to decode complex emotional states (both positive and negative), despite the presence of complementary contextual cues, but by preserved emotion-sharing. Therefore, these results extend earlier data describing an impaired ability to decode noncontextualized emotions toward contextualized and ecologically valid emotional states. They also indicate that some essential emotional competences such as emotion-sharing are preserved in alcohol dependence, thereby offering potential therapeutic levers. Copyright © 2017 by the Research Society on Alcoholism.

Knowledge-base browsing: an application of hybrid distributed/local connectionist networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Samad, Tariq; Israel, Peggy

1990-08-01

We describe a knowledge base browser based on a connectionist (or neural network) architecture that employs both distributed and local representations. The distributed representations are used for input and output thereby enabling associative noise-tolerant interaction with the environment. Internally all representations are fully local. This simplifies weight assignment and facilitates network configuration for specific applications. In our browser concepts and relations in a knowledge base are represented using " microfeatures. " The microfeatures can encode semantic attributes structural features contextual information etc. Desired portions of the knowledge base can then be associatively retrieved based on a structured cue. An ordered list of partial matches is presented to the user for selection. Microfeatures can also be used as " bookmarks" they can be placed dynamically at appropriate points in the knowledge base and subsequently used as retrieval cues. A proof-of-concept system has been implemented for an internally developed Honeywell-proprietary knowledge acquisition tool. 1.

Perceiving emotions: Cueing social categorization processes and attentional control through facial expressions.

PubMed

Cañadas, Elena; Lupiáñez, Juan; Kawakami, Kerry; Niedenthal, Paula M; Rodríguez-Bailón, Rosa

2016-09-01

Individuals spontaneously categorise other people on the basis of their gender, ethnicity and age. But what about the emotions they express? In two studies we tested the hypothesis that facial expressions are similar to other social categories in that they can function as contextual cues to control attention. In Experiment 1 we associated expressions of anger and happiness with specific proportions of congruent/incongruent flanker trials. We also created consistent and inconsistent category members within each of these two general contexts. The results demonstrated that participants exhibited a larger congruency effect when presented with faces in the emotional group associated with a high proportion of congruent trials. Notably, this effect transferred to inconsistent members of the group. In Experiment 2 we replicated the effects with faces depicting true and false smiles. Together these findings provide consistent evidence that individuals spontaneously utilise emotions to categorise others and that such categories determine the allocation of attentional control.

Aversive Startle Potentiation and Fear Pathology: Mediating Role of Threat Sensitivity and Moderating Impact of Depression

PubMed Central

Yancey, James R.; Vaidyanathan, Uma; Patrick, Christopher J.

2015-01-01

Enhanced startle during exposure to unpleasant cues (aversive startle potentiation; ASP) appears in the RDoC matrix as a physiological index of acute threat response. Increased ASP has been linked to focal fear disorders and to scale measures of dispositional fearfulness (i.e., threat sensitivity; THT+). However, some studies have reported reduced ASP for fear pathology accompanied by major depressive disorder (MDD) or pervasive distress. The current study evaluated whether (a) THT+ as indexed by reported dispositional fearfulness mediates the relationship between fear disorders (when unaccompanied by depression) and ASP, and (b) depression moderates relations of THT+ and fear disorders with ASP. Fear disorder participants without MDD showed enhanced ASP whereas those with MDD (or other distress conditions) showed evidence of reduced ASP. Continuous THT+ scores also predicted ASP, and this association: (a) was likewise moderated by depression/distress, and (b) accounted for the relationship between ASP and fear pathology without MDD. These findings point to a role for the RDoC construct of acute threat, operationalized dispositionally, in enhanced ASP shown by individuals with fear pathology unaccompanied by distress pathology. PMID:25448265

Divergent Routing of Positive and Negative Information from the Amygdala during Memory Retrieval.

PubMed

Beyeler, Anna; Namburi, Praneeth; Glober, Gordon F; Simonnet, Clémence; Calhoon, Gwendolyn G; Conyers, Garrett F; Luck, Robert; Wildes, Craig P; Tye, Kay M

2016-04-20

Although the basolateral amygdala (BLA) is known to play a critical role in the formation of memories of both positive and negative valence, the coding and routing of valence-related information is poorly understood. Here, we recorded BLA neurons during the retrieval of associative memories and used optogenetic-mediated phototagging to identify populations of neurons that synapse in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), the central amygdala (CeA), or ventral hippocampus (vHPC). We found that despite heterogeneous neural responses within each population, the proportions of BLA-NAc neurons excited by reward predictive cues and of BLA-CeA neurons excited by aversion predictive cues were higher than within the entire BLA. Although the BLA-vHPC projection is known to drive behaviors of innate negative valence, these neurons did not preferentially code for learned negative valence. Together, these findings suggest that valence encoding in the BLA is at least partially mediated via divergent activity of anatomically defined neural populations. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Exploring the Retrieval Dynamics of Delayed and Final Free Recall: Further Evidence for Temporal-Contextual Search

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Unsworth, Nash

2008-01-01

Retrieval dynamics in free recall were explored based on a two-stage search model that relies on temporal-contextual cues. Participants were tested on both delayed and final free recall and correct recalls, errors, and latency measures were examined. In delayed free recall, participants began recall with the first word presented and tended to…

Encoding and Retrieval Processes Involved in the Access of Source Information in the Absence of Item Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ball, B. Hunter; DeWitt, Michael R.; Knight, Justin B.; Hicks, Jason L.

2014-01-01

The current study sought to examine the relative contributions of encoding and retrieval processes in accessing contextual information in the absence of item memory using an extralist cuing procedure in which the retrieval cues used to query memory for contextual information were "related" to the target item but never actually studied.…

Contextual Influences on Eating Behaviors: Heuristic Processing and Dietary Choices

PubMed Central

Cohen, Deborah A.; Babey, Susan H.

2013-01-01

This paper reviews some of the evidence that dietary behaviors are, in large part, the consequence of automatic responses to contextual food cues, many of which lead to increased caloric consumption and poor dietary choices. We describe studies that illustrate how these automatic mechanisms underlie eating behaviors, as well as evidence that individuals are subject to inherent cognitive limitations, and mostly lack the capacity to consistently recognize, ignore or resist contextual cues that encourage eating. Restaurants and grocery stores are the primary settings from which people obtain food. These settings are often designed to maximize sales of food by strategically placing and promoting items to encourage impulse purchases. Although a great deal of marketing research is proprietary, this paper describes some of the published studies that indicate that changes in superficial characteristics of food products, including packaging and portion sizes, design, salience, health claims, and labeling strongly influence food choices and consumption in ways for which people generally lack insight. We discuss whether contextual influences might be considered environmental risk factors from which individuals may need the kinds of protections that fall under the mission of public health. PMID:22551473

Prescription opioid misusing chronic pain patients exhibit dysregulated context-dependent associations: Investigating associative learning in addiction with the cue-primed reactivity task.

PubMed

Garland, Eric L; Bryan, Craig J; Kreighbaum, Lydia; Nakamura, Yoshio; Howard, Matthew O; Froeliger, Brett

2018-06-01

Associative learning undergirds the development of addiction, such that drug-related cues serve as conditioned stimuli to elicit drug-seeking responses. Plausibly, among opioid misusing chronic pain patients, pain-related information may serve as a conditioned stimulus to magnify opioid cue-elicited autonomic and craving responses through a process of second-order conditioning. We utilized a novel psychophysiological probe of pain-opioid conditioned associations, the Cue-Primed Reactivity (CPR) task. In this task, participants were presented with images as primes (200 ms) and cues (6000 ms) in pairs organized in four task blocks: "control-opioid," "pain-opioid," "control-pain," and "opioid-pain." Opioid-treated chronic pain patients (N = 30) recruited from an Army base in the Western United States were classified as opioid misusers (n = 17) or non-misusers (n = 13) via a validated cutpoint on the Prescription Drug Use Questionnaire (PDUQ; Compton et al., 2008). Opioid misuse status was examined as a predictor of HRV, craving, and mood responses on the CPR task. HRV increased to a greater extent during the pain-opioid block compared to the control-opioid block for non-misusers compared to misusers (p = .003, η 2 partial  = 0.27). In contrast, craving increased to a greater extent from baseline to the pain-opioid block for misusers than for non-misusers (p = .03, η 2 partial  = .16). Findings suggest that opioid-treated chronic pain patients exhibit Pavlovian conditioned responses to opioid cues strengthened by an associative learning process of second-order conditioning when primed by pain-related images. This pain-opioid contingency appears to become disrupted among individuals who engage in opioid misuse, such that opioid-related stimuli elicit motivational responses irrespective of pain-related contextual stimuli. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An Integrative Perspective on the Role of Dopamine in Schizophrenia.

PubMed

Maia, Tiago V; Frank, Michael J

2017-01-01

We propose that schizophrenia involves a combination of decreased phasic dopamine responses for relevant stimuli and increased spontaneous phasic dopamine release. Using insights from computational reinforcement-learning models and basic-science studies of the dopamine system, we show that each of these two disturbances contributes to a specific symptom domain and explains a large set of experimental findings associated with that domain. Reduced phasic responses for relevant stimuli help to explain negative symptoms and provide a unified explanation for the following experimental findings in schizophrenia, most of which have been shown to correlate with negative symptoms: reduced learning from rewards; blunted activation of the ventral striatum, midbrain, and other limbic regions for rewards and positive prediction errors; blunted activation of the ventral striatum during reward anticipation; blunted autonomic responding for relevant stimuli; blunted neural activation for aversive outcomes and aversive prediction errors; reduced willingness to expend effort for rewards; and psychomotor slowing. Increased spontaneous phasic dopamine release helps to explain positive symptoms and provides a unified explanation for the following experimental findings in schizophrenia, most of which have been shown to correlate with positive symptoms: aberrant learning for neutral cues (assessed with behavioral and autonomic responses), and aberrant, increased activation of the ventral striatum, midbrain, and other limbic regions for neutral cues, neutral outcomes, and neutral prediction errors. Taken together, then, these two disturbances explain many findings in schizophrenia. We review evidence supporting their co-occurrence and consider their differential implications for the treatment of positive and negative symptoms. Copyright © 2016 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Comparative effects of pulmonary and parenteral Δ⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol exposure on extinction of opiate-induced conditioned aversion in rats.

PubMed

Manwell, Laurie A; Mallet, Paul E

2015-05-01

Evidence suggesting that the endogenous cannabinoid (eCB) system can be manipulated to facilitate or impair extinction of learned behaviours has important consequences for opiate withdrawal and abstinence. We demonstrated that the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) inhibitor URB597, which increases eCB levels, facilitates extinction of a naloxone-precipitated morphine withdrawal-induced conditioned place aversion (CPA). The potential of the exogenous CB1 ligand, Δ(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ(9)-THC), to facilitate extinction of this CPA was tested. Effects of both pulmonary and parenteral Δ(9)-THC exposure were evaluated using comparable doses previously determined. Rats trained to associate a naloxone-precipitated morphine withdrawal with a floor cue were administered Δ(9)-THC-pulmonary (1, 5, 10 mg vapour inhalation) or parenteral (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 mg/kg intraperitoneal injection)-prior to each of 20 to 28 extinction/testing trials. Vapourized Δ(9)-THC facilitated extinction of the CPA in a dose- and time-dependent manner: 5 and 10 mg facilitated extinction compared to vehicle and 1 mg Δ(9)-THC. Injected Δ(9)-THC significantly impaired extinction only for the 1.0-mg/kg dose: it prolonged the CPA fourfold longer than the vehicle and 0.5- and 1.5-mg/kg doses. These data suggest that both dose and route of Δ(9)-THC administration have important consequences for its pharmacokinetic and behavioural effects; specifically, pulmonary exposure at higher doses facilitates, whereas pulmonary and parenteral exposure at lower doses impairs, rates of extinction learning for CPA. Pulmonary-administered Δ(9)-THC may prove beneficial for potentiation of extinction learning for aversive memories, such as those supporting drug-craving/seeking in opiate withdrawal syndrome, and other causes of conditioned aversions, such as illness and stress.

Anticipating the perceived risk of nanotechnologies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Satterfield, Terre; Kandlikar, Milind; Beaudrie, Christian E. H.; Conti, Joseph; Herr Harthorn, Barbara

2009-11-01

Understanding emerging trends in public perceptions of nanomaterials is critically important for those who regulate risks. A number of surveys have explored public perceptions of their risks and benefits. In this paper we meta-analyse these surveys to assess the extent to which the following four hypotheses derived from previous studies of new technologies might be said to be valid for nanotechnologies: risk aversion will prevail over benefit appreciation; an increase in knowledge will not result in reduced aversion to risks; judgements will be malleable and subject to persuasion given risk-centric information; and contextual, psychometric and attitudinal predictors of perceived risk from prior studies can help anticipate future perceptions of nanotechnologies. We find that half the public has at least some familiarity with nanotechnology, and those who perceive greater benefits outnumber those who perceive greater risks by 3 to 1. However, a large minority of those surveyed (44%) is unsure, suggesting that risk judgements are highly malleable. Nanotechnology risk perceptions also appear to contradict some long-standing findings. In particular, unfamiliarity with nanotechnology is, contrary to expectations, not strongly associated with risk aversion and reduced `knowledge deficits' are correlated with positive perceptions in this early and controversy-free period. Psychometric variables, trust and affect continue to drive risk perceptions in this new context, although the influence of both trust and affect is mediated, even reversed, by demographic and cultural variables. Given the potential malleability of perceptions, novel methods for understanding future public responses to nanotechnologies will need to be developed.

18-Methoxycoronaridine Blocks Context-induced Reinstatement Following Cocaine Self-administration in Rats

PubMed Central

Polston, J.E.; Pritchett, C.E.; Sell, E.M.; Glick, S.D.

2012-01-01

Numerous studies utilizing drug self-administration have shown the importance of conditioned cues in maintaining and reinstating addictive behaviors. However, most used simple cues that fail to replicate the complexity of cues present in human craving and addiction. We have recently shown that music can induce behavioral and neurochemical changes in rats following classical conditioning with psychostimulants. However, such effects have yet to be characterized utilizing operant self-administration procedures, particularly with regard to craving and relapse. The goal of the present study was to validate the effectiveness of music as a contextual conditioned stimulus using cocaine in an operant reinstatement model of relapse. Rats were trained to lever press for cocaine with a musical cue, and were subsequently tested during reinstatement sessions to determine how musical conditioning affected drug seeking behavior. Additionally, in vivo microdialysis was used to determine basolateral amygdala involvement during reinstatement. Lastly, tests were conducted to determine whether the putative anti-addictive agent 18-methoxycoronaridine (18-MC) could attenuate cue-induced drug seeking behavior. Our results show that music-conditioned animals exhibited increased drug seeking behaviors when compared to controls during reinstatement test sessions. Furthermore, music-conditioned subjects exhibited increased extracellular dopamine in the basolateral amygdala during reinstatement sessions. Perhaps most importantly, 18-MC blocked musical cue-induced reinstatement. Thus, music can be a powerful contextual conditioned cue in rats, capable of inducing changes in both brain neurochemistry and drug seeking behavior during abstinence. The fact that 18-MC blocked cue-induced reinstatement suggests that α3β4 nicotinic receptors may be involved in the mechanism of craving, and that 18-MC may help prevent relapse to drug addiction in humans. PMID:22885280

Reducing the Impact of Temptation Cues on Health-Related Goal Cognitions among College Student Cigarette Smokers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zisserson, Rebecca N.

2011-01-01

Smoking is an increasing problem among college-age individuals. Despite having the desire to quit smoking, many students are unable to achieve this goal. One factor that contributes to difficulties in the self-control of smoking is the effect of temptation contexts on the valuation of goals related to smoking cessation. Contextual cues may…

Effects of temptations on the affective salience of weight control goals.

PubMed

Palfai, Tibor P; Macdonald, Alexandra

2007-03-01

Despite the value of weight control goals, the maintenance of healthy eating habits represents a challenge for most. Self-regulatory efforts are often challenged by the presence of high-risk cues (e.g., tempting foods) which provide short-term positive outcomes at the expense of these long-term health objectives. The current study examined contextual influences on self-regulation failure by exploring the effect of cues on an indirect measure of goal value. Two experiments were conducted with undergraduate students which examined the effect of temptation cues on the evaluation of information related to the goal of weight control. Results of Study 1 provided preliminary evidence for the utility of this task as an indirect measure of goal value and showed that food-related primes slowed evaluation response times for weight control-related targets. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings by demonstrating that temptation cues may not only decrease the affective salience of weight control related information but increase the salience of information related to the goal of affect enhancement. These results suggest that self-regulation failure may be influenced by contextual changes in the value of health-related goals. Implications for prevention and intervention efforts are discussed.

Cues Resulting in Desire for Sexual Activity in Women

PubMed Central

McCall, Katie; Meston, Cindy

2010-01-01

Introduction A number of questionnaires have been created to assess levels of sexual desire in women, but to our knowledge, there are currently no validated measures for assessing cues that result in sexual desire. A questionnaire of this nature could be useful for both clinicians and researchers, because it considers the contextual nature of sexual desire and it draws attention to individual differences in factors that can contribute to sexual desire. Aim The aim of the present study was to create a multidimensional assessment tool of cues for sexual desire in women that is validated in women with and without hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). Methods Factor analyses conducted on both an initial sample (N = 874) and a community sample (N = 138) resulted in the Cues for Sexual Desire Scale (CSDS) which included four factors: (i) Emotional Bonding Cues; (ii) Erotic/ Explicit Cues; (iii) Visual/Proximity Cues; and (iv) Implicit/Romantic Cues. Main Outcome Measures Scale construction of cues associated with sexual desire and differences between women with and without sexual dysfunction. Results The CSDS demonstrated good reliability and validity and was able to detect significant differences between women with and without HSDD. Results from regression analyses indicated that both marital status and level of sexual functioning predicted scores on the CSDS. The CSDS provided predictive validity for the Female Sexual Function Index desire and arousal domain scores, and increased cues were related to a higher reported frequency of sexual activity in women. Conclusions The findings from the present study provide valuable information regarding both internal and external triggers that can result in sexual desire for women. We believe that the CSDS could be beneficial in therapeutic settings to help identify cues that do and do not facilitate sexual desire in women with clinically diagnosed desire difficulties. PMID:16942529

A Time of Change: Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Adolescent Sensitivity to Appetitive and Aversive Environmental Cues

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Somerville, Leah H.; Jones, Rebecca M.; Casey, B. J.

2010-01-01

Adolescence is a developmental period that entails substantial changes in affective and incentive-seeking behavior relative to both childhood and adulthood, including a heightened propensity to engage in risky behaviors and experience persistent negative and labile mood states. This review discusses the emotional and incentive-driven behavioral…

Prior exposure to a single stress session facilitates subsequent contextual fear conditioning in rats. Evidence for a role of corticosterone.

PubMed

Cordero, M Isabel; Venero, Cesar; Kruyt, Nyika D; Sandi, Carmen

2003-11-01

Previous studies showed that exposure of rats to chronic restraint stress for 21 days enhances subsequent contextual fear conditioning. Since recent evidence suggest that this effect is not dependent on stress-induced neurodegenerative processes, but to elevated training-elicited glucocorticoid release in chronically stressed animals, we aimed to explore here whether a single exposure to restraint stress, which is not expected to induce neuronal damage, would also affect contextual fear conditioning. We also questioned whether post-training corticosterone levels might be associated with any potential effect of stress on fear conditioning. Adult male Wistar rats were exposed to acute restraint stress for 2 h and, two days later, trained in the contextual fear conditioning task, under training conditions involving either moderate (0.4 mA shock) or high (1 mA shock) stress levels. The results showed that acute stress enhanced conditioned freezing at both training conditions, although data from the 1 mA shock intensity experiment only approached significance. Stressed animals were shown to display higher post-training corticosterone levels. Furthermore, the facilitating effect of prior stress was not evident when animals were trained in the hippocampal-independent auditory-cued conditioning task. Therefore, these findings support the idea that stress experiences preceding exposure to new types of stressors facilitate the development of contextual fear conditioning. They also indicate that not only repeated, but also a single exposure to aversive stimulation is sufficient to facilitate context-dependent fear conditioning, and suggest that increased glucocorticoid release at training might be implicated in the mechanisms mediating the memory facilitating effects induced by prior stress experiences.

Reconsolidation or extinction: transcription factor switch in the determination of memory course after retrieval.

PubMed

de la Fuente, Verónica; Freudenthal, Ramiro; Romano, Arturo

2011-04-13

In fear conditioning, aversive stimuli are readily associated with contextual features. A brief reexposure to the training context causes fear memory reconsolidation, whereas a prolonged reexposure induces memory extinction. The regulation of hippocampal gene expression plays a key role in contextual memory consolidation and reconsolidation. However, the mechanisms that determine whether memory will reconsolidate or extinguish are not known. Here, we demonstrate opposing roles for two evolutionarily related transcription factors in the mouse hippocampus. We found that nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) is required for fear memory reconsolidation. Conversely, calcineurin phosphatase inhibited NF-κB and induced nuclear factor of activated T-cells (NFAT) nuclear translocation in the transition between reconsolidation and extinction. Accordingly, the hippocampal inhibition of both calcineurin and NFAT independently impaired memory extinction, whereas inhibition of NF-κB enhanced memory extinction. These findings represent the first insight into the molecular mechanisms that determine memory reprocessing after retrieval, supporting a transcriptional switch that directs memory toward reconsolidation or extinction. The precise molecular characterization of postretrieval processes has potential importance to the development of therapeutic strategies for fear memory disorders.

Long-term stabilization of place cell remapping produced by a fearful experience

PubMed Central

Wang, Melissa E.; Wann, Ellen G.; Yuan, Robin K.; Ramos Álvarez, Manuel M.; Stead, Squire M.; Muzzio, Isabel A.

2012-01-01

Fear is an emotional response to danger that is highly conserved throughout evolution because it is critical for survival. Accordingly, episodic memory for fearful locations is widely studied using contextual fear conditioning, a hippocampus-dependent task (Kim and Fanselow, 1992; Phillips and LeDoux, 1992). The hippocampus has been implicated in episodic emotional memory and is thought to integrate emotional stimuli within a spatial framework. Physiological evidence supporting the role of the hippocampus in contextual fear indicates that pyramidal cells in this region, which fire in specific locations as an animal moves through an environment, shift their preferred firing locations shortly after the presentation of an aversive stimulus (Moita et al., 2004). However, the long-term physiological mechanisms through which emotional memories are encoded by the hippocampus are unknown. Here we show that during and directly after a fearful experience, new hippocampal representations are established and persist in the long term. We recorded from the same place cells in mouse hippocampal area CA1 over several days during predator odor contextual fear conditioning and found that a subset of cells changed their preferred firing locations in response to the fearful stimulus. Furthermore, the newly formed representations of the fearful context stabilized in the long term. Our results demonstrate that place cells respond to the presence of an aversive stimulus, modify their firing patterns during emotional learning, and stabilize a long-term spatial representation in response to a fearful encounter. The persistent nature of these representations may contribute to the enduring quality of emotional memories. PMID:23136419

Contextual fear conditioning depresses infralimbic excitability.

PubMed

Soler-Cedeño, Omar; Cruz, Emmanuel; Criado-Marrero, Marangelie; Porter, James T

2016-04-01

Patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) show hypo-active ventromedial prefrontal cortices (vmPFC) that correlate with their impaired ability to discriminate between safe and dangerous contexts and cues. Previously, we found that auditory fear conditioning depresses the excitability of neurons populating the homologous structure in rodents, the infralimbic cortex (IL). However, it is undetermined if IL depression was mediated by the cued or contextual information. The objective of this study was to examine whether contextual information was sufficient to depress IL neuronal excitability. After exposing rats to context-alone, pseudoconditioning, or contextual fear conditioning, we used whole-cell current-clamp recordings to examine the excitability of IL neurons in prefrontal brain slices. We found that contextual fear conditioning reduced IL neuronal firing in response to depolarizing current steps. In addition, neurons from contextual fear conditioned animals showed increased slow afterhyperpolarization potentials (sAHPs). Moreover, the observed changes in IL excitability correlated with contextual fear expression, suggesting that IL depression may contribute to the encoding of contextual fear. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Alcohol craving in adolescents: bridging the laboratory and natural environment.

PubMed

Ramirez, Jason; Miranda, Robert

2014-04-01

Initial lab studies suggest that adolescent drinkers crave alcohol when presented with alcohol cues. Whether this effect generalizes to the natural environment, however, remains unknown, and studies have not examined whether craving predicts drinking among youths. This study builds on existing research by pairing controlled lab-based cue reactivity assessments (CRAs) with data collected in the natural environment using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods. We examined whether alcohol cues evoke craving among adolescent drinkers in the lab and natural environment, and tested the clinical relevance of craving during adolescence by examining the prospective association between craving and alcohol use. Non-treatment-seeking adolescent drinkers (N = 42; ages 15 to 20 years) completed a lab-based CRA followed by a 1-week EMA monitoring period. During the EMA period, youth were prompted randomly throughout the day to record momentary data on craving and contextual factors (e.g., alcohol cues, peers present). Alcohol cues elicited craving in the lab, and this effect generalized to the natural environment, especially among adolescents with more alcohol problems. In addition, craving predicted subsequent drinking levels in the natural environment. This study demonstrates the utility of pairing lab paradigms with EMA methods to better characterize adolescents' reactivity to alcohol cues. Results implicate craving as a clinically meaningful motivator for drinking among adolescents and highlight a potentially important target of pharmacological or behavioral intervention.

Behavioral and neurochemical effects of repeated MDMA administration during late adolescence in the rat

PubMed Central

Cox, Brittney M.; Shah, Mrudang M.; Cichon, Teri; Tancer, Manuel E.; Galloway, Matthew P.; Thomas, David M.; Perrine, Shane A.

2015-01-01

Adolescents and young adults disproportionately abuse 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA; ‘Ecstasy’); however, since most MDMA research has concentrated on adults, the effects of MDMA on the developing brain remain obscure. Therefore, we evaluated place conditioning to MDMA (or saline) during late adolescence and assessed anxiety-like behavior and monoamine levels during abstinence. Rats were conditioned to associate 5 or 10 mg/kg MDMA or saline with contextual cues over 4 twice-daily sessions. Five days after conditioning, anxiety-like behavior was examined with the open field test and brain tissue was collected to assess serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) and its metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) in the dorsal raphe, amygdala, and hippocampus by high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). In a separate group of rats, anxiety-like and avoidant behaviors were measured using the light–dark box test under similar experimental conditions. MDMA conditioning caused a place aversion at 10, but not at 5, mg/kg, as well as increased anxiety-like behavior in the open field and avoidant behavior in light–dark box test at the same dose. Additionally, 10 mg/kg MDMA decreased 5-HT in the dorsal raphe, increased 5-HT and 5-HIAA in the amygdala, and did not alter levels in the hippocampus. Overall, we show that repeated high (10 mg/kg), but not low (5 mg/kg), dose MDMA during late adolescence in rats increases anxiety-like and avoidant behaviors, accompanied by region-specific alterations in 5-HT levels during abstinence. These results suggest that MDMA causes a region-specific dysregulation of the serotonin system during adolescence that may contribute to maladaptive behavior. PMID:24121061

Behavioral and neurochemical effects of repeated MDMA administration during late adolescence in the rat.

PubMed

Cox, Brittney M; Shah, Mrudang M; Cichon, Teri; Tancer, Manuel E; Galloway, Matthew P; Thomas, David M; Perrine, Shane A

2014-01-03

Adolescents and young adults disproportionately abuse 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA; 'Ecstasy'); however, since most MDMA research has concentrated on adults, the effects of MDMA on the developing brain remain obscure. Therefore, we evaluated place conditioning to MDMA (or saline) during late adolescence and assessed anxiety-like behavior and monoamine levels during abstinence. Rats were conditioned to associate 5 or 10mg/kg MDMA or saline with contextual cues over 4 twice-daily sessions. Five days after conditioning, anxiety-like behavior was examined with the open field test and brain tissue was collected to assess serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) and its metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) in the dorsal raphe, amygdala, and hippocampus by high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). In a separate group of rats, anxiety-like and avoidant behaviors were measured using the light-dark box test under similar experimental conditions. MDMA conditioning caused a place aversion at 10, but not at 5, mg/kg, as well as increased anxiety-like behavior in the open field and avoidant behavior in light-dark box test at the same dose. Additionally, 10mg/kg MDMA decreased 5-HT in the dorsal raphe, increased 5-HT and 5-HIAA in the amygdala, and did not alter levels in the hippocampus. Overall, we show that repeated high (10mg/kg), but not low (5mg/kg), dose MDMA during late adolescence in rats increases anxiety-like and avoidant behaviors, accompanied by region-specific alterations in 5-HT levels during abstinence. These results suggest that MDMA causes a region-specific dysregulation of the serotonin system during adolescence that may contribute to maladaptive behavior. © 2013.

A direct comparison of appetitive and aversive anticipation: Overlapping and distinct neural activation.

PubMed

Sege, Christopher T; Bradley, Margaret M; Weymar, Mathias; Lang, Peter J

2017-05-30

fMRI studies of reward find increased neural activity in ventral striatum and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), whereas other regions, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and anterior insula, are activated when anticipating aversive exposure. Although these data suggest differential activation during anticipation of pleasant or of unpleasant exposure, they also arise in the context of different paradigms (e.g., preparation for reward vs. threat of shock) and participants. To determine overlapping and unique regions active during emotional anticipation, we compared neural activity during anticipation of pleasant or unpleasant exposure in the same participants. Cues signalled the upcoming presentation of erotic/romantic, violent, or everyday pictures while BOLD activity during the 9-s anticipatory period was measured using fMRI. Ventral striatum and a ventral mPFC subregion were activated when anticipating pleasant, but not unpleasant or neutral, pictures, whereas activation in other regions was enhanced when anticipating appetitive or aversive scenes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Transient acidosis while retrieving a fear-related memory enhances its lability

PubMed Central

Du, Jianyang; Price, Margaret P; Taugher, Rebecca J; Grigsby, Daniel; Ash, Jamison J; Stark, Austin C; Hossain Saad, Md Zubayer; Singh, Kritika; Mandal, Juthika; Wemmie, John A; Welsh, Michael J

2017-01-01

Attenuating the strength of fearful memories could benefit people disabled by memories of past trauma. Pavlovian conditioning experiments indicate that a retrieval cue can return a conditioned aversive memory to a labile state. However, means to enhance retrieval and render a memory more labile are unknown. We hypothesized that augmenting synaptic signaling during retrieval would increase memory lability. To enhance synaptic transmission, mice inhaled CO2 to induce an acidosis and activate acid sensing ion channels. Transient acidification increased the retrieval-induced lability of an aversive memory. The labile memory could then be weakened by an extinction protocol or strengthened by reconditioning. Coupling CO2 inhalation to retrieval increased activation of amygdala neurons bearing the memory trace and increased the synaptic exchange from Ca2+-impermeable to Ca2+-permeable AMPA receptors. The results suggest that transient acidosis during retrieval renders the memory of an aversive event more labile and suggest a strategy to modify debilitating memories. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.22564.001 PMID:28650315

Escape from harm: linking affective vision and motor responses during active avoidance

PubMed Central

Keil, Andreas

2014-01-01

When organisms confront unpleasant objects in their natural environments, they engage in behaviors that allow them to avoid aversive outcomes. Here, we linked visual processing of threat to its behavioral consequences by including a motor response that terminated exposure to an aversive event. Dense-array steady-state visual evoked potentials were recorded in response to conditioned threat and safety signals viewed in active or passive behavioral contexts. The amplitude of neuronal responses in visual cortex increased additively, as a function of emotional value and action relevance. The gain in local cortical population activity for threat relative to safety cues persisted when aversive reinforcement was behaviorally terminated, suggesting a lingering emotionally based response amplification within the visual system. Distinct patterns of long-range neural synchrony emerged between the visual cortex and extravisual regions. Increased coupling between visual and higher-order structures was observed specifically during active perception of threat, consistent with a reorganization of neuronal populations involved in linking sensory processing to action preparation. PMID:24493849

Social Threat and Motor Resonance: When a Menacing Outgroup Delays Motor Response

PubMed Central

Capellini, Roberta; Sacchi, Simona; Ricciardelli, Paola; Actis-Grosso, Rossana

2016-01-01

Motor resonance (MR) involves the activation of matching motor representations while observing others’ actions. Recent research has shown that such a phenomenon is likely to be influenced by higher order variables such as social factors (e.g., ethnic group membership). The present study investigates whether and how the perception of a social threat elicited by an outgroup member and by contextual cues can modulate motor responses while an individual observes others’ movements. In an experimental study based on an action observation paradigm, we asked participants to provide answers through computer mouse movements (MouseTracker). We manipulated the agents’ group membership (ingroup vs. outgroup) and the social valence of the objects present in a context (neutral vs. threatening) to elicit social menace through contextual cues. Response times and computer mouse trajectories were recorded. The results show a higher level of MR (i.e., participants started to respond earlier and were faster at responding) when observing an action performed by the ingroup members rather than by the outgroup members only when threatening objects are present in a given context. Participants seem to resonate better with their ingroup; conversely, the outgroup member movements tend to delay motor responses. Therefore, we extend prior research going beyond the general ingroup bias effect on MR and showing that the interaction between membership and contextual cues is likely to elicit threat-related stereotypes. Practical implications of these findings are discussed. PMID:27847491

Gazing at me: the importance of social meaning in understanding direct-gaze cues

PubMed Central

Hamilton, Antonia F. de C.

2016-01-01

Direct gaze is an engaging and important social cue, but the meaning of direct gaze depends heavily on the surrounding context. This paper reviews some recent studies of direct gaze, to understand more about what neural and cognitive systems are engaged by this social cue and why. The data show that gaze can act as an arousal cue and can modulate actions, and can activate brain regions linked to theory of mind and self-related processing. However, all these results are strongly modulated by the social meaning of a gaze cue and by whether participants believe that another person is really watching them. The implications of these contextual effects and audience effects for our theories of gaze are considered. PMID:26644598

Anticipatory coarticulation facilitates word recognition in toddlers.

PubMed

Mahr, Tristan; McMillan, Brianna T M; Saffran, Jenny R; Ellis Weismer, Susan; Edwards, Jan

2015-09-01

Children learn from their environments and their caregivers. To capitalize on learning opportunities, young children have to recognize familiar words efficiently by integrating contextual cues across word boundaries. Previous research has shown that adults can use phonetic cues from anticipatory coarticulation during word recognition. We asked whether 18-24 month-olds (n=29) used coarticulatory cues on the word "the" when recognizing the following noun. We performed a looking-while-listening eyetracking experiment to examine word recognition in neutral vs. facilitating coarticulatory conditions. Participants looked to the target image significantly sooner when the determiner contained facilitating coarticulatory cues. These results provide the first evidence that novice word-learners can take advantage of anticipatory sub-phonemic cues during word recognition. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cognitive function is associated with risk aversion in community-based older persons.

PubMed

Boyle, Patricia A; Yu, Lei; Buchman, Aron S; Laibson, David I; Bennett, David A

2011-09-11

Emerging data from younger and middle-aged persons suggest that cognitive ability is negatively associated with risk aversion, but this association has not been studied among older persons who are at high risk of experiencing loss of cognitive function. Using data from 369 community-dwelling older persons without dementia from the Rush Memory and Aging Project, an ongoing longitudinal epidemiologic study of aging, we examined the correlates of risk aversion and tested the hypothesis that cognition is negatively associated with risk aversion. Global cognition and five specific cognitive abilities were measured via detailed cognitive testing, and risk aversion was measured using standard behavioral economics questions in which participants were asked to choose between a certain monetary payment ($15) versus a gamble in which they could gain more than $15 or gain nothing; potential gamble gains ranged from $21.79 to $151.19 with the gain amounts varied randomly over questions. We first examined the bivariate associations of age, education, sex, income and cognition with risk aversion. Next, we examined the associations between cognition and risk aversion via mixed models adjusted for age, sex, education, and income. Finally, we conducted sensitivity analyses to ensure that our results were not driven by persons with preclinical cognitive impairment. In bivariate analyses, sex, education, income and global cognition were associated with risk aversion. However, in a mixed effect model, only sex (estimate = -1.49, standard error (SE) = 0.39, p < 0.001) and global cognitive function (estimate = -1.05, standard error (SE) = 0.34, p < 0.003) were significantly inversely associated with risk aversion. Thus, a lower level of global cognitive function and female sex were associated with greater risk aversion. Moreover, performance on four out of the five cognitive domains was negatively related to risk aversion (i.e., semantic memory, episodic memory, working memory, and perceptual speed); performance on visuospatial abilities was not. A lower level of cognitive ability and female sex are associated with greater risk aversion in advanced age.

A High-Resolution Study of Hippocampal and Medial Temporal Lobe Correlates of Spatial Context and Prospective Overlapping Route Memory

PubMed Central

Brown, Thackery I.; Hasselmo, Michael E.; Stern, Chantal E.

2015-01-01

When navigating our world we often first plan or retrieve an ideal route to our goal, avoiding alternative paths that lead to other destinations. The medial temporal lobe (MTL) has been implicated in processing contextual information, sequence memory, and uniquely retrieving routes that overlap or “cross paths.” However, the identity of subregions of the hippocampus and neighboring cortex that support these functions in humans remains unclear. The present study used high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (hr-fMRI) in humans to test whether the CA3/DG hippocampal subfield and para-hippocampal cortex are important for processing spatial context and route retrieval, and whether the CA1 subfield facilitates prospective planning of mazes that must be distinguished from alternative overlapping routes. During hr-fMRI scanning, participants navigated virtual mazes that were well-learned from prior training while also learning new mazes. Some routes learned during scanning shared hallways with those learned during pre-scan training, requiring participants to select between alternative paths. Critically, each maze began with a distinct spatial contextual Cue period. Our analysis targeted activity from the Cue period, during which participants identified the current navigational episode, facilitating retrieval of upcoming route components and distinguishing mazes that overlap. Results demonstrated that multiple MTL regions were predominantly active for the contextual Cue period of the task, with specific regions of CA3/DG, parahippocampal cortex, and perirhinal cortex being consistently recruited across trials for Cue periods of both novel and familiar mazes. During early trials of the task, both CA3/DG and CA1 were more active for overlapping than non-overlapping Cue periods. Trial-by-trial Cue period responses in CA1 tracked subsequent overlapping maze performance across runs. Together, our findings provide novel insight into the contributions of MTL subfields to processing spatial context and route retrieval, and support a prominent role for CA1 in distinguishing overlapping episodes during navigational “look-ahead” periods. PMID:24659134

A magnetoencephalography study of multi-modal processing of pain anticipation in primary sensory cortices.

PubMed

Gopalakrishnan, R; Burgess, R C; Plow, E B; Floden, D P; Machado, A G

2015-09-24

Pain anticipation plays a critical role in pain chronification and results in disability due to pain avoidance. It is important to understand how different sensory modalities (auditory, visual or tactile) may influence pain anticipation as different strategies could be applied to mitigate anticipatory phenomena and chronification. In this study, using a countdown paradigm, we evaluated with magnetoencephalography the neural networks associated with pain anticipation elicited by different sensory modalities in normal volunteers. When encountered with well-established cues that signaled pain, visual and somatosensory cortices engaged the pain neuromatrix areas early during the countdown process, whereas the auditory cortex displayed delayed processing. In addition, during pain anticipation, the visual cortex displayed independent processing capabilities after learning the contextual meaning of cues from associative and limbic areas. Interestingly, cross-modal activation was also evident and strong when visual and tactile cues signaled upcoming pain. Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and mid-cingulate cortex showed significant activity during pain anticipation regardless of modality. Our results show pain anticipation is processed with great time efficiency by a highly specialized and hierarchical network. The highest degree of higher-order processing is modulated by context (pain) rather than content (modality) and rests within the associative limbic regions, corroborating their intrinsic role in chronification. Copyright © 2015 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

New perspectives in gaze sensitivity research.

PubMed

Davidson, Gabrielle L; Clayton, Nicola S

2016-03-01

Attending to where others are looking is thought to be of great adaptive benefit for animals when avoiding predators and interacting with group members. Many animals have been reported to respond to the gaze of others, by co-orienting their gaze with group members (gaze following) and/or responding fearfully to the gaze of predators or competitors (i.e., gaze aversion). Much of the literature has focused on the cognitive underpinnings of gaze sensitivity, namely whether animals have an understanding of the attention and visual perspectives in others. Yet there remain several unanswered questions regarding how animals learn to follow or avoid gaze and how experience may influence their behavioral responses. Many studies on the ontogeny of gaze sensitivity have shed light on how and when gaze abilities emerge and change across development, indicating the necessity to explore gaze sensitivity when animals are exposed to additional information from their environment as adults. Gaze aversion may be dependent upon experience and proximity to different predator types, other cues of predation risk, and the salience of gaze cues. Gaze following in the context of information transfer within social groups may also be dependent upon experience with group-members; therefore we propose novel means to explore the degree to which animals respond to gaze in a flexible manner, namely by inhibiting or enhancing gaze following responses. We hope this review will stimulate gaze sensitivity research to expand beyond the narrow scope of investigating underlying cognitive mechanisms, and to explore how gaze cues may function to communicate information other than attention.

Wheel running reduces ethanol seeking by increasing neuronal activation and reducing oligodendroglial/neuroinflammatory factors in the medial prefrontal cortex

PubMed Central

Somkuwar, Sucharita S.; Fannon, McKenzie J.; Ghofranian, Atoosa; Quigley, Jacqueline A.; Dutta, Rahul R.; Galinato, Melissa H.; Mandyam, Chitra D.

2016-01-01

The therapeutic effects of wheel running (WR) during abstinence on reinstatement of ethanol seeking behaviors in rats that self-administered ethanol only (ethanol drinking, ED) or ED with concurrent chronic intermittent ethanol vapor experience (CIE-ED) were investigated. Neuronal activation as well as oligodendroglial and neuroinflammatory factors were measured in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) tissue to determine cellular correlates associated with enhanced ethanol seeking. CIE-ED rats demonstrated escalated and unregulated intake of ethanol and maintained higher drinking than ED rats during abstinence. CIE-ED rats were more resistant to extinction from ethanol self-administration, however, demonstrated similar ethanol seeking triggered by ethanol contextual cues compared to ED rats. Enhanced seeking was associated with reduced neuronal activation, and increased number of myelinating oligodendrocyte progenitors and PECAM-1 expression in the mPFC, indicating enhanced oligodendroglial and neuroinflammatory response during abstinence. WR during abstinence enhanced self-administration in ED rats, indicating a deprivation effect. WR reduced reinstatement of ethanol seeking in CIE-ED and ED rats, indicating protection against relapse. The reduced ethanol seeking was associated with enhanced neuronal activation, reduced number of myelinating oligodendrocyte progenitors, and reduced PECAM-1 expression. The current findings demonstrate a protective role of WR during abstinence in reducing ethanol seeking triggered by ethanol contextual cues and establish a role for oligodendroglia-neuroinflammatory response in ethanol seeking. Taken together, enhanced oligodendroglia-neuroinflammatory response during abstinence may contribute to brain trauma in chronic alcohol drinking subjects and be a risk factor for enhanced propensity for alcohol relapse. PMID:27542327

Do preschool children learn to read words from environmental prints?

PubMed

Zhao, Jing; Zhao, Pei; Weng, Xuchu; Li, Su

2014-01-01

Parents and teachers worldwide believe that a visual environment rich with print can contribute to young children's literacy. Children seem to recognize words in familiar logos at an early age. However, most of previous studies were carried out with alphabetic scripts. Alphabetic letters regularly correspond to phonological segments in a word and provide strong cues about the identity of the whole word. Thus it was not clear whether children can learn to read words by extracting visual word form information from environmental prints. To exclude the phonological-cue confound, this study tested children's knowledge of Chinese words embedded in familiar logos. The four environmental logos were employed and transformed into four versions with the contextual cues (i.e., something apart from the presentation of the words themselves in logo format like the color, logo and font type cues) gradually minimized. Children aged from 3 to 5 were tested. We observed that children of different ages all performed better when words were presented in highly familiar logos compared to when they were presented in a plain fashion, devoid of context. This advantage for familiar logos was also present when the contextual information was only partial. However, the role of various cues in learning words changed with age. The color and logo cues had a larger effect in 3- and 4- year-olds than in 5-year-olds, while the font type cue played a greater role in 5-year-olds than in the other two groups. Our findings demonstrated that young children did not easily learn words by extracting their visual form information even from familiar environmental prints. However, children aged 5 begin to pay more attention to the visual form information of words in highly familiar logos than those aged 3 and 4.

Do Preschool Children Learn to Read Words from Environmental Prints?

PubMed Central

Zhao, Jing; Zhao, Pei; Weng, Xuchu; Li, Su

2014-01-01

Parents and teachers worldwide believe that a visual environment rich with print can contribute to young children's literacy. Children seem to recognize words in familiar logos at an early age. However, most of previous studies were carried out with alphabetic scripts. Alphabetic letters regularly correspond to phonological segments in a word and provide strong cues about the identity of the whole word. Thus it was not clear whether children can learn to read words by extracting visual word form information from environmental prints. To exclude the phonological-cue confound, this study tested children's knowledge of Chinese words embedded in familiar logos. The four environmental logos were employed and transformed into four versions with the contextual cues (i.e., something apart from the presentation of the words themselves in logo format like the color, logo and font type cues) gradually minimized. Children aged from 3 to 5 were tested. We observed that children of different ages all performed better when words were presented in highly familiar logos compared to when they were presented in a plain fashion, devoid of context. This advantage for familiar logos was also present when the contextual information was only partial. However, the role of various cues in learning words changed with age. The color and logo cues had a larger effect in 3- and 4- year-olds than in 5-year-olds, while the font type cue played a greater role in 5-year-olds than in the other two groups. Our findings demonstrated that young children did not easily learn words by extracting their visual form information even from familiar environmental prints. However, children aged 5 begin to pay more attention to the visual form information of words in highly familiar logos than those aged 3 and 4. PMID:24465677

Disentangling Metaphor from Context: An ERP Study.

PubMed

Bambini, Valentina; Bertini, Chiara; Schaeken, Walter; Stella, Alessandra; Di Russo, Francesco

2016-01-01

A large body of electrophysiological literature showed that metaphor comprehension elicits two different event-related brain potential responses, namely the so-called N400 and P600 components. Yet most of these studies test metaphor in isolation while in natural conversation metaphors do not come out of the blue but embedded in linguistic and extra-linguistic context. This study aimed at assessing the role of context in the metaphor comprehension process. We recorded EEG activity while participants were presented with metaphors and equivalent literal expressions in a minimal context (Experiment 1) and in a supportive context where the word expressing the ground between the metaphor's topic and vehicle was made explicit (Experiment 2). The N400 effect was visible only in minimal context, whereas the P600 was visible both in the absence and in the presence of contextual cues. These findings suggest that the N400 observed for metaphor is related to contextual aspects, possibly indexing contextual expectations on upcoming words that guide lexical access and retrieval, while the P600 seems to reflect truly pragmatic interpretative processes needed to make sense of a metaphor and derive the speaker's meaning, also in the presence of contextual cues. In sum, previous information in the linguistic context biases toward a metaphorical interpretation but does not suppress interpretative pragmatic mechanisms to establish the intended meaning.

Interface of Linguistic and Visual Information During Audience Design.

PubMed

Fukumura, Kumiko

2015-08-01

Evidence suggests that speakers can take account of the addressee's needs when referring. However, what representations drive the speaker's audience design has been less clear. This study aims to go beyond previous studies by investigating the interplay between the visual and linguistic context during audience design. Speakers repeated subordinate descriptions (e.g., firefighter) given in the prior linguistic context less and used basic-level descriptions (e.g., man) more when the addressee did not hear the linguistic context than when s/he did. But crucially, this effect happened only when the referent lacked the visual attributes associated with the expressions (e.g., the referent was in plain clothes rather than in a firefighter uniform), so there was no other contextual cue available for the identification of the referent. This suggests that speakers flexibly use different contextual cues to help their addressee map the referring expression onto the intended referent. In addition, speakers used fewer pronouns when the addressee did not hear the linguistic antecedent than when s/he did. This suggests that although speakers may be egocentric during anaphoric reference (Fukumura & Van Gompel, 2012), they can cooperatively avoid pronouns when the linguistic antecedents were not shared with their addressee during initial reference. © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Historical Psychology and the Milgram Paradigm: Tests of an Experimentally Derived Model of Defiance Using Accounts of Massacres by Nazi Reserve Police Battalion 101

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Navarick, Douglas J.

2012-01-01

In Milgram's (1963, 1965a, 1965b, 1974/2004) experiments on destructive obedience, an authority figure repeatedly ordered a resistant participant to deliver what seemed to be increasingly painful shocks to a confederate victim who demanded to be released. A three- stage behavioral model (aversive conditioning of contextual stimuli, emergence of a…

Medial Amygdala Lesions Selectively Block Aversive Pavlovian–Instrumental Transfer in Rats

PubMed Central

McCue, Margaret G.; LeDoux, Joseph E.; Cain, Christopher K.

2014-01-01

Pavlovian conditioned stimuli (CSs) play an important role in the reinforcement and motivation of instrumental active avoidance (AA). Conditioned threats can also invigorate ongoing AA responding [aversive Pavlovian–instrumental transfer (PIT)]. The neural circuits mediating AA are poorly understood, although lesion studies suggest that lateral, basal, and central amygdala nuclei, as well as infralimbic prefrontal cortex, make key, and sometimes opposing, contributions. We recently completed an extensive analysis of brain c-Fos expression in good vs. poor avoiders following an AA test (Martinez et al., 2013, Learning and Memory). This analysis identified medial amygdala (MeA) as a potentially important region for Pavlovian motivation of instrumental actions. MeA is known to mediate defensive responding to innate threats as well as social behaviors, but its role in mediating aversive Pavlovian–instrumental interactions is unknown. We evaluated the effect of MeA lesions on Pavlovian conditioning, Sidman two-way AA conditioning (shuttling) and aversive PIT in rats. Mild footshocks served as the unconditioned stimulus in all conditioning phases. MeA lesions had no effect on AA but blocked the expression of aversive PIT and 22 kHz ultrasonic vocalizations in the AA context. Interestingly, MeA lesions failed to affect Pavlovian freezing to discrete threats but reduced freezing to contextual threats when assessed outside of the AA chamber. These findings differentiate MeA from lateral and central amygdala, as lesions of these nuclei disrupt Pavlovian freezing and aversive PIT, but have opposite effects on AA performance. Taken together, these results suggest that MeA plays a selective role in the motivation of instrumental avoidance by general or uncertain Pavlovian threats. PMID:25278858

Improvement of encoding and retrieval in normal and pathological aging with word-picture paradigm.

PubMed

Iodice, Rosario; Meilán, Juan José G; Carro, Juan

2015-01-01

During the aging process, there is a progressive deficit in the encoding of new information and its retrieval. Different strategies are used in order to maintain, optimize or diminish these deficits in people with and without dementia. One of the classic techniques is paired-associate learning (PAL), which is based on improving the encoding of memories, but it has yet to be used to its full potential in people with dementia. In this study, our aim is to corroborate the importance of PAL tasks as instrumental tools for creating contextual cues, during both the encoding and retrieval phases of memory. Additionally, we aim to identify the most effective form of presenting the related items. Pairs of stimuli were shown to healthy elderly people and to patients with moderate and mild Alzheimer's disease. The encoding conditions were as follows: word/word, picture/picture, picture/word, and word/picture. Associative cued recall of the second item in the pair shows that retrieval is higher for the word/picture condition in the two groups of patients with dementia when compared to the other conditions, while word/word is the least effective in all cases. These results confirm that PAL is an effective tool for creating contextual cues during both the encoding and retrieval phases in people with dementia when the items are presented using the word/picture condition. In this way, the encoding and retrieval deficit can be reduced in these people.

Contextual representations increase analogue traumatic intrusions: evidence against a dual-representation account of peri-traumatic processing.

PubMed

Pearson, David G

2012-12-01

Information processing accounts of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) state that intrusive memories emerge due to a lack of integration between perceptual and contextual trauma representations in autobiographical memory. This hypothesis was tested experimentally using an analogue trauma paradigm in which participants viewed an aversive film designed to elicit involuntary recollections. Participants viewed scenes from the film either paired with contextual information or with the contextual information omitted. After viewing the film participants were asked to record for one week any involuntary intrusions for the film using a provided intrusions diary. The results revealed a significant increase in analogue intrusions for the film when viewed with contextual information in comparison to when the film was viewed with the contextual information omitted. In contrast there was no effect of contextual information on valence ratings or voluntary memory for the film, or on the reported vividness and emotionality of the intrusions. The analogue trauma paradigm may have failed to reproduce the effect of extreme stress on encoding that is postulated to occur during PTSD. The findings have potential implications for trauma intervention as they suggest that the contextual understanding of a scene during encoding can be integral to the subsequent occurrence of traumatic intrusions. The pattern of results found in the study are inconsistent with dual-representation accounts of intrusive memory formation, and instead provide new evidence that contextual representations play a casual role in increasing the frequency of involuntary intrusions for traumatic material. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Toward semantic-based retrieval of visual information: a model-based approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Park, Youngchoon; Golshani, Forouzan; Panchanathan, Sethuraman

2002-07-01

This paper center around the problem of automated visual content classification. To enable classification based image or visual object retrieval, we propose a new image representation scheme called visual context descriptor (VCD) that is a multidimensional vector in which each element represents the frequency of a unique visual property of an image or a region. VCD utilizes the predetermined quality dimensions (i.e., types of features and quantization level) and semantic model templates mined in priori. Not only observed visual cues, but also contextually relevant visual features are proportionally incorporated in VCD. Contextual relevance of a visual cue to a semantic class is determined by using correlation analysis of ground truth samples. Such co-occurrence analysis of visual cues requires transformation of a real-valued visual feature vector (e.g., color histogram, Gabor texture, etc.,) into a discrete event (e.g., terms in text). Good-feature to track, rule of thirds, iterative k-means clustering and TSVQ are involved in transformation of feature vectors into unified symbolic representations called visual terms. Similarity-based visual cue frequency estimation is also proposed and used for ensuring the correctness of model learning and matching since sparseness of sample data causes the unstable results of frequency estimation of visual cues. The proposed method naturally allows integration of heterogeneous visual or temporal or spatial cues in a single classification or matching framework, and can be easily integrated into a semantic knowledge base such as thesaurus, and ontology. Robust semantic visual model template creation and object based image retrieval are demonstrated based on the proposed content description scheme.

Multiperson visual focus of attention from head pose and meeting contextual cues.

PubMed

Ba, Sileye O; Odobez, Jean-Marc

2011-01-01

This paper introduces a novel contextual model for the recognition of people's visual focus of attention (VFOA) in meetings from audio-visual perceptual cues. More specifically, instead of independently recognizing the VFOA of each meeting participant from his own head pose, we propose to jointly recognize the participants' visual attention in order to introduce context-dependent interaction models that relate to group activity and the social dynamics of communication. Meeting contextual information is represented by the location of people, conversational events identifying floor holding patterns, and a presentation activity variable. By modeling the interactions between the different contexts and their combined and sometimes contradictory impact on the gazing behavior, our model allows us to handle VFOA recognition in difficult task-based meetings involving artifacts, presentations, and moving people. We validated our model through rigorous evaluation on a publicly available and challenging data set of 12 real meetings (5 hours of data). The results demonstrated that the integration of the presentation and conversation dynamical context using our model can lead to significant performance improvements.

Gazing at me: the importance of social meaning in understanding direct-gaze cues.

PubMed

de C Hamilton, Antonia F

2016-01-19

Direct gaze is an engaging and important social cue, but the meaning of direct gaze depends heavily on the surrounding context. This paper reviews some recent studies of direct gaze, to understand more about what neural and cognitive systems are engaged by this social cue and why. The data show that gaze can act as an arousal cue and can modulate actions, and can activate brain regions linked to theory of mind and self-related processing. However, all these results are strongly modulated by the social meaning of a gaze cue and by whether participants believe that another person is really watching them. The implications of these contextual effects and audience effects for our theories of gaze are considered. © 2015 The Author(s).

Cognitive function is associated with risk aversion in community-based older persons

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background Emerging data from younger and middle-aged persons suggest that cognitive ability is negatively associated with risk aversion, but this association has not been studied among older persons who are at high risk of experiencing loss of cognitive function. Methods Using data from 369 community-dwelling older persons without dementia from the Rush Memory and Aging Project, an ongoing longitudinal epidemiologic study of aging, we examined the correlates of risk aversion and tested the hypothesis that cognition is negatively associated with risk aversion. Global cognition and five specific cognitive abilities were measured via detailed cognitive testing, and risk aversion was measured using standard behavioral economics questions in which participants were asked to choose between a certain monetary payment ($15) versus a gamble in which they could gain more than $15 or gain nothing; potential gamble gains ranged from $21.79 to $151.19 with the gain amounts varied randomly over questions. We first examined the bivariate associations of age, education, sex, income and cognition with risk aversion. Next, we examined the associations between cognition and risk aversion via mixed models adjusted for age, sex, education, and income. Finally, we conducted sensitivity analyses to ensure that our results were not driven by persons with preclinical cognitive impairment. Results In bivariate analyses, sex, education, income and global cognition were associated with risk aversion. However, in a mixed effect model, only sex (estimate = -1.49, standard error (SE) = 0.39, p < 0.001) and global cognitive function (estimate = -1.05, standard error (SE) = 0.34, p < 0.003) were significantly inversely associated with risk aversion. Thus, a lower level of global cognitive function and female sex were associated with greater risk aversion. Moreover, performance on four out of the five cognitive domains was negatively related to risk aversion (i.e., semantic memory, episodic memory, working memory, and perceptual speed); performance on visuospatial abilities was not. Conclusion A lower level of cognitive ability and female sex are associated with greater risk aversion in advanced age. PMID:21906402

Individual differences in epistemic motivation and brain conflict monitoring activity.

PubMed

Kossowska, Małgorzata; Czarnek, Gabriela; Wronka, Eligiusz; Wyczesany, Miroslaw; Bukowski, Marcin

2014-06-06

It is well documented that motivation toward closure (NFC), defined as a desire for a quick and unambiguous answer to a question and an aversion to uncertainty, is linked to more structured, rigid, and persistent cognitive styles. However, the neurocognitive correlates of NFC have never been tested. Thus, using event-related potentials, we examined the hypothesis that NFC is associated with the neurocognitive process for detecting discrepancies between response tendencies and higher level intentions. We found that greater NFC is associated with lower conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting lower sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern and lower sensitivity to committing errors. This study provides evidence that high NFC acts as a bulwark against anxiety-producing uncertainty and minimizes the experience of error. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Early life programming of innate fear and fear learning in adult female rats.

PubMed

Stevenson, Carl W; Meredith, John P; Spicer, Clare H; Mason, Rob; Marsden, Charles A

2009-03-02

The early rearing environment can impact on emotional reactivity and learning later in life. In this study the effects of neonatal maternal separation (MS) on innate fear and fear learning were assessed in the adult female rat. Pups were subjected to MS (360 min), brief handling (H; 15 min), or animal facility rearing (AFR) on post-natal days 2-14. In the first experiment, innate fear was tested in the open field. No differences between the early rearing groups were observed in unconditioned fear. In the second experiment, separate cohorts were used in a 3-day fear learning paradigm which tested the acquisition (Day 1), expression and extinction (both Day 2) of conditioning to an auditory cue; extinction recall was determined as well (Day 3). Contextual fear conditioning was also assessed prior to cue presentations on Days 2 and 3. Whereas MS attenuated the acquisition and expression of fear conditioning to the cue, H potentiated extinction learning. Cue-induced fear was reduced on Day 3, compared to Day 2, indicating that the recall of extinction learning was evident; however, no early rearing group differences in extinction recall were observed. Similarly, while contextual fear was decreased on Day 3, compared to Day 2, there were no differences between the early rearing groups on either day tested. The present findings of altered cue-conditioned fear learning, in the absence of innate fear changes, lend further support for the important role of the early rearing environment in mediating cognition in adulthood.

Context-specific adaptation of pursuit initiation in humans

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Takagi, M.; Abe, H.; Hasegawa, S.; Usui, T.; Hasebe, H.; Miki, A.; Zee, D. S.; Shelhauser, M. (Principal Investigator)

2000-01-01

PURPOSE: To determine if multiple states for the initiation of pursuit, as assessed by acceleration in the "open-loop" period, can be learned and gated by context. METHODS: Four normal subjects were studied. A modified step-ramp paradigm for horizontal pursuit was used to induce adaptation. In an increasing paradigm, target velocity doubled 230 msec after onset; in a decreasing paradigm, it was halved. In the first experiment, vertical eye position (+/-5 degrees ) was used as the context cue, and the training paradigm (increasing or decreasing) changed with vertical eye position. In the second experiment, with vertical position constant, when the target was red, training was decreasing, and when green, increasing. The average eye acceleration in the first 100 msec of tracking was the index of open-loop pursuit performance. RESULTS: With vertical position as the cue, pursuit adaptation differed between up and down gaze. In some cases, the direction of adaptation was in exact accord with the training stimuli. In others, acceleration increased or decreased for both up and down gaze but always in correct relative proportion to the training stimuli. In contrast, multiple adaptive states were not induced with color as the cue. CONCLUSIONS: Multiple values for the relationship between the average eye acceleration during the initiation of pursuit and target velocity could be learned and gated by context. Vertical position was an effective contextual cue but not target color, implying that useful contextual cues must be similar to those occurring naturally, for example, orbital position with eye muscle weakness.

Extinction of Contextual Cocaine Memories Requires Cav1.2 within D1R-Expressing Cells and Recruits Hippocampal Cav1.2-Dependent Signaling Mechanisms

PubMed Central

Lee, Anni S.; Fischer, Delaney K.; Van Kempen, Tracey A.; Mudragel, Vladimir; Glass, Michael J.

2017-01-01

Exposure to cocaine-associated contextual cues contributes significantly to relapse. Extinction of these contextual associations, which involves a new form of learning, reduces cocaine-seeking behavior; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying this process remain largely unknown. We report that extinction, but not acquisition, of cocaine conditioned place preference (CPP) in male mice increased Cav1.2 L-type Ca2+ channel mRNA and protein in postsynaptic density (PSD) fractions of the hippocampus, a brain region involved in drug–context associations. Moreover, viral-mediated deletion of Cav1.2 in the dorsal hippocampus attenuated extinction of cocaine CPP. Molecular studies examining downstream Cav1.2 targets revealed that extinction recruited calcium/calmodulin (Ca2+/CaMK)-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) to the hippocampal PSD. This occurred in parallel with an increase in phosphorylation of the AMPA GluA1 receptor subunit at serine 831 (S831), a CaMKII site, along with an increase in total PSD GluA1. The necessity of S831 GluA1 was further demonstrated by the lack of extinction in S831A GluA1 phosphomutant mice. Of note hippocampal GluA1 levels remained unaltered at the PSD, but were reduced near the PSD and at perisynaptic sites of dendritic spines in extinction-resistant S831A mutant mice. Finally, conditional knock-out of Cav1.2 in dopamine D1 receptor (D1R)-expressing cells resulted in attenuation of cocaine CPP extinction and lack of extinction-dependent changes in hippocampal PSD CaMKII expression and S831 GluA1 phosphorylation. In summary, we demonstrate an essential role for the hippocampal Cav1.2/CaMKII/S831 GluA1 pathway in cocaine CPP extinction, with data supporting contribution of hippocampal D1R-expressing cells in this process. These findings demonstrate a novel role for Cav1.2 channels in extinction of contextual cocaine-associated memories. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Continued drug-seeking behavior, a defining characteristic of cocaine addiction, can be precipitated by contextual cues, yet the molecular mechanisms required for extinction of these context-specific memories remain poorly understood. Here, we have uncovered a novel and selective role of the Cav1.2 L-type Ca2+ channel and its downstream signaling pathway in the hippocampus that mediate extinction of cocaine conditioned place preference (CPP). We additionally provide evidence that supports a role of Cav1.2 within dopamine D1 receptor-expressing cells of the hippocampus for extinction of cocaine CPP. Therefore, these findings reveal a previously unknown role of Cav1.2 channels within the hippocampus and in D1 receptor-expressing cells in extinction of cocaine-associated memories, providing a framework for further exploration of mechanisms underlying extinction of cocaine-seeking behavior. PMID:29089442

Juvenile stress potentiates aversive 22-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations and freezing during auditory fear conditioning in adult male rats.

PubMed

Yee, Nicole; Schwarting, Rainer K W; Fuchs, Eberhard; Wöhr, Markus

2012-09-01

Traumatic experiences that occur during adolescence can render individuals vulnerable to mood and anxiety disorders. A model in juvenile rats (age: 27-29 days) was developed previously to study the long-term effects of adolescent stress exposure on behaviour and physiology. This paradigm, termed juvenile stress, involves subjecting juvenile rats to different stressors on consecutive days over a 3-day period. Here, we investigated the effects of the juvenile stress paradigm on freezing behaviour and aversive 22-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) during auditory fear conditioning in adult male rats (age: 68-90 days). We found that rats previously subjected to juvenile stress increased aversive 22-kHz USVs (total calls and time spent calling) compared with controls during fear-conditioning training. The acoustic USV parameters between control and juvenile stress rats were largely equivalent, including duration, peak frequency and amplitude. While rats did not differ in freezing behaviour during fear conditioning, juvenile stress rats exhibited greater cue-conditioned freezing upon testing 24 h later. Our results show that juvenile stress elicited different long-term changes in freezing and aversive USVs during fear conditioning. Furthermore, they highlight the importance of assessing USVs to detect experience-dependent differences between control and stress-exposed animals which are not detectable by measuring visible behaviour.

Effect of brain structure, brain function, and brain connectivity on relapse in alcohol-dependent patients.

PubMed

Beck, Anne; Wüstenberg, Torsten; Genauck, Alexander; Wrase, Jana; Schlagenhauf, Florian; Smolka, Michael N; Mann, Karl; Heinz, Andreas

2012-08-01

In alcohol-dependent patients, brain atrophy and functional brain activation elicited by alcohol-associated stimuli may predict relapse. However, to date, the interaction between both factors has not been studied. To determine whether results from structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging are associated with relapse in detoxified alcohol-dependent patients. A cue-reactivity functional magnetic resonance experiment with alcohol-associated and neutral stimuli. After a follow-up period of 3 months, the group of 46 detoxified alcohol-dependent patients was subdivided into 16 abstainers and 30 relapsers. Faculty for Clinical Medicine Mannheim at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. A total of 46 detoxified alcohol-dependent patients and 46 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects Local gray matter volume, local stimulus-related functional magnetic resonance imaging activation, joint analyses of structural and functional data with Biological Parametric Mapping, and connectivity analyses adopting the psychophysiological interaction approach. Subsequent relapsers showed pronounced atrophy in the bilateral orbitofrontal cortex and in the right medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex, compared with healthy controls and patients who remained abstinent. The local gray matter volume-corrected brain response elicited by alcohol-associated vs neutral stimuli in the left medial prefrontal cortex was enhanced for subsequent relapsers, whereas abstainers displayed an increased neural response in the midbrain (the ventral tegmental area extending into the subthalamic nucleus) and ventral striatum. For alcohol-associated vs neutral stimuli in abstainers compared with relapsers, the analyses of the psychophysiological interaction showed a stronger functional connectivity between the midbrain and the left amygdala and between the midbrain and the left orbitofrontal cortex. Subsequent relapsers displayed increased brain atrophy in brain areas associated with error monitoring and behavioral control. Correcting for gray matter reductions, we found that, in these patients, alcohol-related cues elicited increased activation in brain areas associated with attentional bias toward these cues and that, in patients who remained abstinent, increased activation and connectivity were observed in brain areas associated with processing of salient or aversive stimuli.

Serotonin and dopamine differentially affect appetitive and aversive general Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer.

PubMed

Hebart, Martin N; Gläscher, Jan

2015-01-01

Human motivation and decision-making is influenced by the interaction of Pavlovian and instrumental systems. The neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin have been suggested to play a major role in motivation and decision-making, but how they affect this interaction in humans is largely unknown. We investigated the effect of these neurotransmitters in a general Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT) task which measured the nonspecific effect of appetitive and aversive Pavlovian cues on instrumental responses. For that purpose, we used selective dietary depletion of the amino acid precursors of serotonin and dopamine: tryptophan (n = 34) and tyrosine/phenylalanine (n = 35), respectively, and compared the performance of these groups to a control group (n = 34) receiving a nondepleted (balanced) amino acid drink. We found that PIT differed between groups: Relative to the control group that exhibited only appetitive PIT, we found reduced appetitive PIT in the tyrosine/phenylalanine-depleted group and enhanced aversive PIT in the tryptophan-depleted group. These results demonstrate a differential involvement of serotonin and dopamine in motivated behavior. They suggest that reductions in serotonin enhance the motivational influence of aversive stimuli on instrumental behavior and do not affect the influence of appetitive stimuli, while reductions in dopamine diminish the influence of appetitive stimuli. No conclusions could be drawn about how dopamine affects the influence of aversive stimuli. The interplay of both neurotransmitter systems allows for flexible and adaptive responses depending on the behavioral context.

An effective attentional set for a specific colour does not prevent capture by infrequently presented motion distractors.

PubMed

Retell, James D; Becker, Stefanie I; Remington, Roger W

2016-01-01

An organism's survival depends on the ability to rapidly orient attention to unanticipated events in the world. Yet, the conditions needed to elicit such involuntary capture remain in doubt. Especially puzzling are spatial cueing experiments, which have consistently shown that involuntary shifts of attention to highly salient distractors are not determined by stimulus properties, but instead are contingent on attentional control settings induced by task demands. Do we always need to be set for an event to be captured by it, or is there a class of events that draw attention involuntarily even when unconnected to task goals? Recent results suggest that a task-irrelevant event will capture attention on first presentation, suggesting that salient stimuli that violate contextual expectations might automatically capture attention. Here, we investigated the role of contextual expectation by examining whether an irrelevant motion cue that was presented only rarely (∼3-6% of trials) would capture attention when observers had an active set for a specific target colour. The motion cue had no effect when presented frequently, but when rare produced a pattern of interference consistent with attentional capture. The critical dependence on the frequency with which the irrelevant motion singleton was presented is consistent with early theories of involuntary orienting to novel stimuli. We suggest that attention will be captured by salient stimuli that violate expectations, whereas top-down goals appear to modulate capture by stimuli that broadly conform to contextual expectations.

The Effect of Age and Type of Noise on Speech Perception under Conditions of Changing Context and Noise Levels.

PubMed

Taitelbaum-Swead, Riki; Fostick, Leah

2016-01-01

Everyday life includes fluctuating noise levels, resulting in continuously changing speech intelligibility. The study aims were: (1) to quantify the amount of decrease in age-related speech perception, as a result of increasing noise level, and (2) to test the effect of age on context usage at the word level (smaller amount of contextual cues). A total of 24 young adults (age 20-30 years) and 20 older adults (age 60-75 years) were tested. Meaningful and nonsense one-syllable consonant-vowel-consonant words were presented with the background noise types of speech noise (SpN), babble noise (BN), and white noise (WN), with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 0 and -5 dB. Older adults had lower accuracy in SNR = 0, with WN being the most difficult condition for all participants. Measuring the change in speech perception when SNR decreased showed a reduction of 18.6-61.5% in intelligibility, with age effect only for BN. Both young and older adults used less phonemic context with WN, as compared to other conditions. Older adults are more affected by an increasing noise level of fluctuating informational noise as compared to steady-state noise. They also use less contextual cues when perceiving monosyllabic words. Further studies should take into consideration that when presenting the stimulus differently (change in noise level, less contextual cues), other perceptual and cognitive processes are involved. © 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Increased contextual cue utilization with tDCS over the prefrontal cortex during a recognition task

PubMed Central

Pergolizzi, Denise; Chua, Elizabeth F.

2016-01-01

The precise role of the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices in recognition performance remains controversial, with questions about whether these regions contribute to recognition via the availability of mnemonic evidence or via decision biases and retrieval orientation. Here we used an explicit memory cueing paradigm, whereby external cues probabilistically predict upcoming memoranda as old or new, in our case with 75% validity, and these cues affect recognition decision biases in the direction of the cue. The present study applied bilateral transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over prefrontal or posterior parietal cortex, or sham tDCS, to test the causal role of these regions in recognition accuracy or decision biasing. Participants who received tDCS over prefrontal cortex showed increased cue utilization compared to tDCS over posterior parietal cortex and sham tDCS, suggesting that the prefrontal cortex is involved in processes that contribute to decision biases in memory. PMID:27845032

(No) time for control: Frontal theta dynamics reveal the cost of temporally guided conflict anticipation.

PubMed

van Driel, Joram; Swart, Jennifer C; Egner, Tobias; Ridderinkhof, K Richard; Cohen, Michael X

2015-12-01

During situations of response conflict, cognitive control is characterized by prefrontal theta-band (3- to 8-Hz) activity. It has been shown that cognitive control can be triggered proactively by contextual cues that predict conflict. Here, we investigated whether a pretrial preparation interval could serve as such a cue. This would show that the temporal contingencies embedded in the task can be used to anticipate upcoming conflict. To this end, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from 30 human subjects while they performed a version of a Simon task in which the duration of a fixation cross between trials predicted whether the next trial would contain response conflict. Both their behavior and EEG activity showed a consistent but unexpected pattern of results: The conflict effect (increased reaction times and decreased accuracy on conflict as compared to nonconflict trials) was stronger when conflict was cued, and this was associated with stronger conflict-related midfrontal theta activity and functional connectivity. Interestingly, intervals that predicted conflict did show a pretarget increase in midfrontal theta power. These findings suggest that temporally guided expectations of conflict do heighten conflict anticipation, but also lead to less efficiently applied reactive control. We further explored this post-hoc interpretation by means of three behavioral follow-up experiments, in which we used nontemporal cues, semantically informative cues, and neutral cues. Together, this body of results suggests that the counterintuitive cost of conflict cueing may not be uniquely related to the temporal domain, but may instead be related to the implicitness and validity of the cue.

Neural correlates of instrumental responding in the context of alcohol-related cues index disorder severity and relapse risk.

PubMed

Schad, Daniel J; Garbusow, Maria; Friedel, Eva; Sommer, Christian; Sebold, Miriam; Hägele, Claudia; Bernhardt, Nadine; Nebe, Stephan; Kuitunen-Paul, Sören; Liu, Shuyan; Eichmann, Uta; Beck, Anne; Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich; Walter, Henrik; Sterzer, Philipp; Zimmermann, Ulrich S; Smolka, Michael N; Schlagenhauf, Florian; Huys, Quentin J M; Heinz, Andreas; Rapp, Michael A

2018-01-08

The influence of Pavlovian conditioned stimuli on ongoing behavior may contribute to explaining how alcohol cues stimulate drug seeking and intake. Using a Pavlovian-instrumental transfer task, we investigated the effects of alcohol-related cues on approach behavior (i.e., instrumental response behavior) and its neural correlates, and related both to the relapse after detoxification in alcohol-dependent patients. Thirty-one recently detoxified alcohol-dependent patients and 24 healthy controls underwent instrumental training, where approach or non-approach towards initially neutral stimuli was reinforced by monetary incentives. Approach behavior was tested during extinction with either alcohol-related or neutral stimuli (as Pavlovian cues) presented in the background during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Patients were subsequently followed up for 6 months. We observed that alcohol-related background stimuli inhibited the approach behavior in detoxified alcohol-dependent patients (t = - 3.86, p < .001), but not in healthy controls (t = - 0.92, p = .36). This behavioral inhibition was associated with neural activation in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) (t (30)  = 2.06, p < .05). Interestingly, both the effects were only present in subsequent abstainers, but not relapsers and in those with mild but not severe dependence. Our data show that alcohol-related cues can acquire inhibitory behavioral features typical of aversive stimuli despite being accompanied by a stronger NAcc activation, suggesting salience attribution. The fact that these findings are restricted to abstinence and milder illness suggests that they may be potential resilience factors. LeAD study, http://www.lead-studie.de , NCT01679145.

Hierarchical layered and semantic-based image segmentation using ergodicity map

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yadegar, Jacob; Liu, Xiaoqing

2010-04-01

Image segmentation plays a foundational role in image understanding and computer vision. Although great strides have been made and progress achieved on automatic/semi-automatic image segmentation algorithms, designing a generic, robust, and efficient image segmentation algorithm is still challenging. Human vision is still far superior compared to computer vision, especially in interpreting semantic meanings/objects in images. We present a hierarchical/layered semantic image segmentation algorithm that can automatically and efficiently segment images into hierarchical layered/multi-scaled semantic regions/objects with contextual topological relationships. The proposed algorithm bridges the gap between high-level semantics and low-level visual features/cues (such as color, intensity, edge, etc.) through utilizing a layered/hierarchical ergodicity map, where ergodicity is computed based on a space filling fractal concept and used as a region dissimilarity measurement. The algorithm applies a highly scalable, efficient, and adaptive Peano- Cesaro triangulation/tiling technique to decompose the given image into a set of similar/homogenous regions based on low-level visual cues in a top-down manner. The layered/hierarchical ergodicity map is built through a bottom-up region dissimilarity analysis. The recursive fractal sweep associated with the Peano-Cesaro triangulation provides efficient local multi-resolution refinement to any level of detail. The generated binary decomposition tree also provides efficient neighbor retrieval mechanisms for contextual topological object/region relationship generation. Experiments have been conducted within the maritime image environment where the segmented layered semantic objects include the basic level objects (i.e. sky/land/water) and deeper level objects in the sky/land/water surfaces. Experimental results demonstrate the proposed algorithm has the capability to robustly and efficiently segment images into layered semantic objects/regions with contextual topological relationships.

Bidirectional switch of the valence associated with a hippocampal contextual memory engram.

PubMed

Redondo, Roger L; Kim, Joshua; Arons, Autumn L; Ramirez, Steve; Liu, Xu; Tonegawa, Susumu

2014-09-18

The valence of memories is malleable because of their intrinsic reconstructive property. This property of memory has been used clinically to treat maladaptive behaviours. However, the neuronal mechanisms and brain circuits that enable the switching of the valence of memories remain largely unknown. Here we investigated these mechanisms by applying the recently developed memory engram cell- manipulation technique. We labelled with channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) a population of cells in either the dorsal dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus or the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA) that were specifically activated during contextual fear or reward conditioning. Both groups of fear-conditioned mice displayed aversive light-dependent responses in an optogenetic place avoidance test, whereas both DG- and BLA-labelled mice that underwent reward conditioning exhibited an appetitive response in an optogenetic place preference test. Next, in an attempt to reverse the valence of memory within a subject, mice whose DG or BLA engram had initially been labelled by contextual fear or reward conditioning were subjected to a second conditioning of the opposite valence while their original DG or BLA engram was reactivated by blue light. Subsequent optogenetic place avoidance and preference tests revealed that although the DG-engram group displayed a response indicating a switch of the memory valence, the BLA-engram group did not. This switch was also evident at the cellular level by a change in functional connectivity between DG engram-bearing cells and BLA engram-bearing cells. Thus, we found that in the DG, the neurons carrying the memory engram of a given neutral context have plasticity such that the valence of a conditioned response evoked by their reactivation can be reversed by re-associating this contextual memory engram with a new unconditioned stimulus of an opposite valence. Our present work provides new insight into the functional neural circuits underlying the malleability of emotional memory.

Bidirectional switch of the valence associated with a hippocampal contextual memory engram

PubMed Central

Redondo, Roger L; Kim, Joshua; Arons, Autumn L; Ramirez, Steve; Liu, Xu; Tonegawa, Susumu

2014-01-01

The valence of memories is malleable because of their intrinsic reconstructive property1. This property of memory has been used clinically to treat maladaptive behaviours2. However, the neuronal mechanisms and brain circuits that enable the switching of the valence of memories remain largely unknown. Here, we investigated these mechanisms by applying the recently developed memory engram cell-labelling and -manipulation technique 3,4. We labelled, with Channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), a population of cells in either the dorsal dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus or the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA) that were specifically activated during contextual fear or reward conditioning. Both groups of fear-conditioned mice displayed aversive light-dependent responses in an optogenetic place avoidance test, whereas both DG- and BLA-labelled mice that underwent reward conditioning exhibited an appetitive response in an optogenetic place preference test. Next, in an attempt to reverse the valence of memory within a subject, mice whose DG or BLA engram had initially been labelled by contextual fear or reward conditioning were subjected to a second conditioning of the opposite valence while their original DG or BLA engram was reactivated by blue light. Subsequent optogenetic place avoidance and preference tests revealed that while the DG-engram group displayed a response indicating a switch of the memory valence, the BLA-engram group did not. This switch was also evident at the cellular level by a change in functional connectivity between DG engram-bearing cells and BLA engram-bearing cells. Thus, we found that in the DG, the neurons carrying the memory engram of a given neutral context have plasticity such that the valence of a conditioned response evoked by their reactivation can be reversed by re-associating this contextual memory engram with a new US of an opposite valence. Our present work provides new insight into the functional neural circuit underlying the malleability of emotional memory. PMID:25162525

The time-course of activation in the dorsal and ventral visual streams during landmark cueing and perceptual discrimination tasks.

PubMed

Lambert, Anthony J; Wootton, Adrienne

2017-08-01

Different patterns of high density EEG activity were elicited by the same peripheral stimuli, in the context of Landmark Cueing and Perceptual Discrimination tasks. The C1 component of the visual event-related potential (ERP) at parietal - occipital electrode sites was larger in the Landmark Cueing task, and source localisation suggested greater activation in the superior parietal lobule (SPL) in this task, compared to the Perceptual Discrimination task, indicating stronger early recruitment of the dorsal visual stream. In the Perceptual Discrimination task, source localisation suggested widespread activation of the inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) and fusiform gyrus (FFG), structures associated with the ventral visual stream, during the early phase of the P1 ERP component. Moreover, during a later epoch (171-270ms after stimulus onset) increased temporal-occipital negativity, and stronger recruitment of ITG and FFG were observed in the Perceptual Discrimination task. These findings illuminate the contrasting functions of the dorsal and ventral visual streams, to support rapid shifts of attention in response to contextual landmarks, and conscious discrimination, respectively. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The roles of Eph receptors in contextual fear conditioning memory formation.

PubMed

Dines, Monica; Grinberg, Svetlana; Vassiliev, Maria; Ram, Alon; Tamir, Tal; Lamprecht, Raphael

2015-10-01

Eph receptors regulate glutamate receptors functions, neuronal morphology and synaptic plasticity, cellular events believed to be involved in memory formation. In this study we aim to explore the roles of Eph receptors in learning and memory. Toward that end, we examined the roles of EphB2 and EphA4 receptors, key regulators of synaptic functions, in fear conditioning memory formation. We show that mice lacking EphB2 (EphB2(-/-)) are impaired in short- and long-term contextual fear conditioning memory. Mice that express a carboxy-terminally truncated form of EphB2 that lacks forward signaling, instead of the full EphB2, are impaired in long-term, but not short-term, contextual fear conditioning memory. Long-term contextual fear conditioning memory is attenuated in CaMKII-cre;EphA4(lx/-) mice where EphA4 is removed from all pyramidal neurons of the forebrain. Mutant mice with targeted kinase-dead EphA4 (EphA4(KD)) exhibit intact long-term contextual fear conditioning memory showing that EphA4 kinase-mediated forward signaling is not needed for contextual fear memory formation. The ability to form long-term conditioned taste aversion (CTA) memory is not impaired in the EphB2(-/-) and CaMKII-cre;EphA4(lx/-) mice. We conclude that EphB2 forward signaling is required for long-term contextual fear conditioning memory formation. In contrast, EphB2 mediates short-term contextual fear conditioning memory formation in a forward signaling-independent manner. EphA4 mediates long-term contextual fear conditioning memory formation in a kinase-independent manner. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Disentangling Metaphor from Context: An ERP Study

PubMed Central

Bambini, Valentina; Bertini, Chiara; Schaeken, Walter; Stella, Alessandra; Di Russo, Francesco

2016-01-01

A large body of electrophysiological literature showed that metaphor comprehension elicits two different event-related brain potential responses, namely the so-called N400 and P600 components. Yet most of these studies test metaphor in isolation while in natural conversation metaphors do not come out of the blue but embedded in linguistic and extra-linguistic context. This study aimed at assessing the role of context in the metaphor comprehension process. We recorded EEG activity while participants were presented with metaphors and equivalent literal expressions in a minimal context (Experiment 1) and in a supportive context where the word expressing the ground between the metaphor's topic and vehicle was made explicit (Experiment 2). The N400 effect was visible only in minimal context, whereas the P600 was visible both in the absence and in the presence of contextual cues. These findings suggest that the N400 observed for metaphor is related to contextual aspects, possibly indexing contextual expectations on upcoming words that guide lexical access and retrieval, while the P600 seems to reflect truly pragmatic interpretative processes needed to make sense of a metaphor and derive the speaker's meaning, also in the presence of contextual cues. In sum, previous information in the linguistic context biases toward a metaphorical interpretation but does not suppress interpretative pragmatic mechanisms to establish the intended meaning. PMID:27199799

Memory Retrieval Re-Activates Erk1/2 Signaling in the Same Set of CA1 Neurons Recruited During Conditioning.

PubMed

Zamorano, Cristina; Fernández-Albert, Jordi; Storm, Daniel R; Carné, Xavier; Sindreu, Carlos

2018-02-01

The hippocampus enables a range of behaviors through its intrinsic circuits and concerted actions with other brain regions. One such important function is the retrieval of episodic memories. How hippocampal cells support retrieval of contextual fear memory remains largely unclear. Here we monitored phospho-activation of extracellular-regulated kinase (Erk1/2) across neuronal populations of the hippocampus to find that CA1 pyramidal neurons, but not cells in CA3 or dentate gyrus, specifically respond to retrieval of an aversive context. In contrast, retrieval of a neutral context that fails to elicit a threat response did not activate Erk1/2. Moreover, retrieval preferentially re-activated Erk1/2 in the same set of CA1 neurons previously activated during conditioning in a context-specific manner. By confining drug inhibition within dorsal CA1, we established the crucial role for Erk1/2 activity in retrieval of long-term memory, as well as in amygdala activation associated with fear expression. These data provide functional evidence that Erk1/2 signaling in CA1 encodes a specific neural representation of contextual memory with emotional value. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Pontine and Thalamic Influences on Fluid Rewards: II. Sucrose and Corn Oil Conditioned Aversions

PubMed Central

Liang, Nu-Chu; Grigson, Patricia S.; Norgren, Ralph

2011-01-01

In this study conditioned aversions were produced in sham feeding rats to limit postingestive feedback from the oral stimulus. All control rats learned an aversion to either 100% corn oil or 0.3M sucrose when ingestion of these stimuli was followed by an injection of lithium chloride (LiCl). Rats with lesions of the ventroposteromedial thalamus also learned to avoid either corn oil or sucrose. After 3 trials, rats with damage to the parabrachial nuclei (PBN) learned to avoid 100% corn oil, but failed to do so when the stimulus was 0.3M sucrose. These results support our hypothesis that the PBN is necessary to appropriately respond to a taste, but not an oil cue as a function of experience (i.e., pairings with LiCl). The results also are consistent with our results from operant tasks demonstrating that the trigeminal thalamus, the ventroposteromedial nucleus, is not required for responding to the rewarding properties of sucrose, oil, or for modifying the response to these stimuli as a function of experience. PMID:21699909

Peer status and aggression as predictors of dating popularity in adolescence.

PubMed

Houser, John J; Mayeux, Lara; Cross, Cassandra

2015-03-01

Research has identified links between dating and aversive behavior such as aggression and bullying in adolescence, highlighting the need for studies that further our understanding of romantic relationships and their dynamics during this period. This study tested the associations between dating popularity and overt and relational aggression, social preference, and peer popularity. Of particular interest were the moderating roles of social preference and peer popularity in the association of aggression with dating popularity. Further moderation by gender was also explored. Participants were 478 ninth-graders (48% girls) with peer nomination scores for peer status, aggression, and dating popularity. Dating popularity was positively correlated with popularity, social preference, and overt and relational aggression. Regression models indicated that popular, overtly aggressive girls were seen as desirable dating partners by their male peers. Relational aggression was associated with dating popularity for both boys and girls, especially for youths who were well-liked by peers. These findings are interpreted in light of developmental-contextual perspectives on adolescent romantic relationships and Resource Control Theory.

Brain mechanisms of successful recognition through retrieval of semantic context.

PubMed

Flegal, Kristin E; Marín-Gutiérrez, Alejandro; Ragland, J Daniel; Ranganath, Charan

2014-08-01

Episodic memory is associated with the encoding and retrieval of context information and with a subjective sense of reexperiencing past events. The neural correlates of episodic retrieval have been extensively studied using fMRI, leading to the identification of a "general recollection network" including medial temporal, parietal, and prefrontal regions. However, in these studies, it is difficult to disentangle the effects of context retrieval from recollection. In this study, we used fMRI to determine the extent to which the recruitment of regions in the recollection network is contingent on context reinstatement. Participants were scanned during a cued recognition test for target words from encoded sentences. Studied target words were preceded by either a cue word studied in the same sentence (thus congruent with encoding context) or a cue word studied in a different sentence (thus incongruent with encoding context). Converging fMRI results from independently defined ROIs and whole-brain analysis showed regional specificity in the recollection network. Activity in hippocampus and parahippocampal cortex was specifically increased during successful retrieval following congruent context cues, whereas parietal and prefrontal components of the general recollection network were associated with confident retrieval irrespective of contextual congruency. Our findings implicate medial temporal regions in the retrieval of semantic context, contributing to, but dissociable from, recollective experience.

Led into temptation? Rewarding brand logos bias the neural encoding of incidental economic decisions.

PubMed

Murawski, Carsten; Harris, Philip G; Bode, Stefan; Domínguez D, Juan F; Egan, Gary F

2012-01-01

Human decision-making is driven by subjective values assigned to alternative choice options. These valuations are based on reward cues. It is unknown, however, whether complex reward cues, such as brand logos, may bias the neural encoding of subjective value in unrelated decisions. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we subliminally presented brand logos preceding intertemporal choices. We demonstrated that priming biased participants' preferences towards more immediate rewards in the subsequent temporal discounting task. This was associated with modulations of the neural encoding of subjective values of choice options in a network of brain regions, including but not restricted to medial prefrontal cortex. Our findings demonstrate the general susceptibility of the human decision making system to apparently incidental contextual information. We conclude that the brain incorporates seemingly unrelated value information that modifies decision making outside the decision-maker's awareness.

Led into Temptation? Rewarding Brand Logos Bias the Neural Encoding of Incidental Economic Decisions

PubMed Central

Murawski, Carsten; Harris, Philip G.; Bode, Stefan; Domínguez D., Juan F.; Egan, Gary F.

2012-01-01

Human decision-making is driven by subjective values assigned to alternative choice options. These valuations are based on reward cues. It is unknown, however, whether complex reward cues, such as brand logos, may bias the neural encoding of subjective value in unrelated decisions. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we subliminally presented brand logos preceding intertemporal choices. We demonstrated that priming biased participants' preferences towards more immediate rewards in the subsequent temporal discounting task. This was associated with modulations of the neural encoding of subjective values of choice options in a network of brain regions, including but not restricted to medial prefrontal cortex. Our findings demonstrate the general susceptibility of the human decision making system to apparently incidental contextual information. We conclude that the brain incorporates seemingly unrelated value information that modifies decision making outside the decision-maker's awareness. PMID:22479547

Context and explicit threat cue modulation of the startle reflex: Preliminary evidence of distinctions between adolescents with principal fear disorders versus distress disorders

PubMed Central

Waters, Allison M.; Nazarian, Maria; Mineka, Susan; Zinbarg, Richard E.; Griffith, James W.; Naliboff, Bruce; Ornitz, Edward M.; Craske, Michelle G.

2014-01-01

Anxiety and depression are prevalent, impairing disorders. High comorbidity has raised questions about how to define and classify them. Structural models emphasise distinctions between “fear” and “distress” disorders while other initiatives propose they be defined by neurobiological indicators that cut across disorders. This study examined startle reflex (SR) modulation in adolescents with principal fear disorders (specific phobia; social phobia) (n = 20), distress disorders (unipolar depressive disorders, dysthymia, generalized anxiety disorder; post-traumatic stress disorder) (n = 9), and controls (n = 29) during (a) baseline conditions, (b) threat context conditions (presence of contraction pads over the biceps muscle), and (c) an explicit threat cue paradigm involving phases that signalled safety from aversive stimuli (early and late stages of safe phases; early stages of danger phases) and phases that signalled immediate danger of an aversive stimulus (late stages of danger phases). Adolescents with principal fear disorders showed larger SRs than other groups throughout safe phases and early stages of danger phases. SRs did not differ between groups during late danger phases. Adolescents with principal distress disorders showed attenuated SRs during baseline and context conditions compared to other groups. Preliminary findings support initiatives to redefine emotional disorders based on neurobiological functioning. PMID:24679992

Incubation of Fear Is Regulated by TIP39 Peptide Signaling in the Medial Nucleus of the Amygdala

PubMed Central

Tsuda, Mumeko C.; Yeung, Ho-Man; Kuo, Jonathan

2015-01-01

Fear-related psychopathologies such as post-traumatic stress disorder are characterized by impaired extinction of fearful memories. Recent behavioral evidence suggests that the neuropeptide tuberoinfundibular peptide of 39 residues (TIP39), via its receptor, the parathyroid hormone 2 receptor (PTH2R), modulates fear memory. Here we examined the anatomical and cellular localization of TIP39 signaling that contributes to the increase in fear memory over time following a traumatic event, called fear memory incubation. Contextual freezing, a behavioral sign of fear memory, was significantly greater in PTH2R knock-out than wild-type male mice 2 and 4 weeks after a 2 s 1.5 mA footshock. PTH2R knock-out mice had significantly reduced c-Fos activation in the medial amygdala (MeA) following both footshock and fear recall, but had normal activation in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus and the amygdalar central nucleus compared with wild-type. We therefore investigated the contribution of MeA TIP39 signaling to fear incubation. Similar to the effect of global TIP39 signaling loss, blockade of TIP39 signaling in the MeA by lentivirus-mediated expression of a secreted PTH2R antagonist augmented fear incubation. Ablation of MeA PTH2R-expressing neurons also strengthened the fear incubation effect. Using the designer receptor exclusively activated by designer drug pharmacogenetic approach, transient inhibition of MeA PTH2R-expressing neurons before or immediately after the footshock, but not at the time of fear recall, enhanced fear incubation. Collectively, the findings demonstrate that TIP39 signaling within the MeA at the time of an aversive event regulates the increase over time in fear associated with the event context. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Fear-related psychopathologies such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are characterized by excessive responses to trauma-associated cues. Fear responses can increase over time without additional cue exposure or stress. This work shows that modulatory processes within the medial nucleus of the amygdala near the time of a traumatic event influence the strength of fear responses that occur much later. The modulatory processes include signaling by the neuropeptide TIP39 and neurons that express its receptor. These findings will help in the understanding of why traumatic events sometimes have severe psychological consequences. One implication is that targeting neuromodulation in the medial amygdala could potentially help prevent development of PTSD. PMID:26338326

Incubation of Fear Is Regulated by TIP39 Peptide Signaling in the Medial Nucleus of the Amygdala.

PubMed

Tsuda, Mumeko C; Yeung, Ho-Man; Kuo, Jonathan; Usdin, Ted B

2015-09-02

Fear-related psychopathologies such as post-traumatic stress disorder are characterized by impaired extinction of fearful memories. Recent behavioral evidence suggests that the neuropeptide tuberoinfundibular peptide of 39 residues (TIP39), via its receptor, the parathyroid hormone 2 receptor (PTH2R), modulates fear memory. Here we examined the anatomical and cellular localization of TIP39 signaling that contributes to the increase in fear memory over time following a traumatic event, called fear memory incubation. Contextual freezing, a behavioral sign of fear memory, was significantly greater in PTH2R knock-out than wild-type male mice 2 and 4 weeks after a 2 s 1.5 mA footshock. PTH2R knock-out mice had significantly reduced c-Fos activation in the medial amygdala (MeA) following both footshock and fear recall, but had normal activation in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus and the amygdalar central nucleus compared with wild-type. We therefore investigated the contribution of MeA TIP39 signaling to fear incubation. Similar to the effect of global TIP39 signaling loss, blockade of TIP39 signaling in the MeA by lentivirus-mediated expression of a secreted PTH2R antagonist augmented fear incubation. Ablation of MeA PTH2R-expressing neurons also strengthened the fear incubation effect. Using the designer receptor exclusively activated by designer drug pharmacogenetic approach, transient inhibition of MeA PTH2R-expressing neurons before or immediately after the footshock, but not at the time of fear recall, enhanced fear incubation. Collectively, the findings demonstrate that TIP39 signaling within the MeA at the time of an aversive event regulates the increase over time in fear associated with the event context. Fear-related psychopathologies such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are characterized by excessive responses to trauma-associated cues. Fear responses can increase over time without additional cue exposure or stress. This work shows that modulatory processes within the medial nucleus of the amygdala near the time of a traumatic event influence the strength of fear responses that occur much later. The modulatory processes include signaling by the neuropeptide TIP39 and neurons that express its receptor. These findings will help in the understanding of why traumatic events sometimes have severe psychological consequences. One implication is that targeting neuromodulation in the medial amygdala could potentially help prevent development of PTSD. Copyright © 2015 the authors 0270-6474/15/3512152-10$15.00/0.

Cue-Induced Ethanol Seeking in Drosophila melanogaster Is Dose-Dependent

PubMed Central

Nunez, Kavin M.; Azanchi, Reza; Kaun, Karla R.

2018-01-01

Alcohol use disorder generates devastating social, medical and economic burdens, making it a major global health issue. The persistent nature of memories associated with intoxication experiences often induces cravings and triggers relapse in recovering individuals. Despite recent advances, the neural and molecular mechanisms underlying these memories are complex and not well understood. This makes finding effective pharmacological targets challenging. The investigation of persistent alcohol-associated memories in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, presents a unique opportunity to gain a comprehensive understanding of the memories for ethanol reward at the level of genes, molecules, neurons and circuits. Here we characterize the dose-dependent nature of ethanol on the expression of memory for an intoxication experience. We report that the concentration of ethanol, number of ethanol exposures, length of ethanol exposures, and timing between ethanol exposures are critical in determining whether ethanol is perceived as aversive or appetitive, and in how long the memory for the intoxicating properties of ethanol last. Our study highlights that fruit flies display both acute and persistent memories for ethanol-conditioned odor cues, and that a combination of parameters that determine the intoxication state of the fly influence the seemingly complex retention and expression of memories associated with intoxication. Our thorough behavioral characterization provides the opportunity to interrogate the biological underpinnings of these observed preference differences in future studies. PMID:29740347

What is the context of contextual cueing?

PubMed

Makovski, Tal

2016-12-01

People have a powerful ability to extract regularities from noisy environments and to utilize this knowledge to assist in visual search. Extensive research has shown that this ability, termed contextual cueing (CC), is robust and ubiquitous, but it is still unclear what exactly is the context that is being leaned. Researchers have typically focused on how people learn spatial configuration regularities and have hence used simplified, meaningless search stimuli. Here, observers performed visual search tasks using images of real-world objects. The results revealed that, contrary to past findings, the repetition of either arbitrary spatial information or identity information was not sufficient to produce context learning. Instead, learning was found only when both types of information were repeated together. These results were further replicated in hybrid search tasks, in which subjects looked for multiple target templates. Together, these data suggest that CC is more limited than typically assumed, yet this learning is highly robust.

The role of working memory capacity in autobiographical retrieval: individual differences in strategic search.

PubMed

Unsworth, Nash; Spillers, Gregory J; Brewer, Gene A

2012-01-01

Remembering previous experiences from one's personal past is a principal component of psychological well-being, personality, sense of self, decision making, and planning for the future. In the current study the ability to search for autobiographical information in memory was examined by having college students recall their Facebook friends. Individual differences in working memory capacity manifested itself in the search of autobiographical memory by way of the total number of friends remembered, the number of clusters of friends, size of clusters, and the speed with which participants could output their friends' names. Although working memory capacity was related to the ability to search autobiographical memory, participants did not differ in the manner in which they approached the search and used contextual cues to help query their memories. These results corroborate recent theorising, which suggests that working memory is a necessary component of self-generating contextual cues to strategically search memory for autobiographical information.

Motor learning and consolidation: the case of visuomotor rotation.

PubMed

Krakauer, John W

2009-01-01

Adaptation to visuomotor rotation is a particular form of motor learning distinct from force-field adaptation, sequence learning, and skill learning. Nevertheless, study of adaptation to visuomotor rotation has yielded a number of findings and principles that are likely of general importance to procedural learning and memory. First, rotation learning is implicit and appears to proceed through reduction in a visual prediction error generated by a forward model, such implicit adaptation occurs even when it is in conflict with an explicit task goal. Second, rotation learning is subject to different forms of interference: retrograde, anterograde through aftereffects, and contextual blocking of retrieval. Third, opposite rotations can be recalled within a short time interval without interference if implicit contextual cues (effector change) rather than explicit cues (color change) are used. Fourth, rotation learning consolidates both over time and with increased initial training (saturation learning).