Selection and effort are central to attention, yet it is unclear whether they draw on a common pool of cognitive resources, and if so, whether there are differences for early versus later stages of ...cognitive processing. This study assessed effort by quantifying the vigilance decrement, and spatial processing at early and later stages as a function of time‐on‐task. Participants performed an auditory spatial attention task, with occasional “catch” trials requiring no response. Psychophysiological measures included bilateral cerebral blood flow (transcranial Doppler), pupil dilation, and blink rate. The shape of attention gradients using reaction time indexed early processing, and did not significantly vary over time. Later stimulus‐response conflict was comparable over time, except for a reduction to left hemispace stimuli. Target and catch trial accuracy decreased with time, with a more abrupt decrease for catch versus target trials. Diffusion decision modeling found progressive decreases in information accumulation rate and non‐decision time, and the adoption of more liberal response criteria. Cerebral blood flow increased from baseline and then decreased over time, particularly in the left hemisphere. Blink rate steadily increased over time, while pupil dilation increased only at the beginning and then returned towards baseline. The findings suggest dissociations between resources for selectivity and effort. Measures of high subjective effort and temporal declines in catch trial accuracy and cerebral blood flow velocity suggest a standard vigilance decrement was evident in parallel with preserved selection. Different attentional systems and classes of computations that may account for dissociations between selectivity versus effort are discussed.
This study probed the relations between auditory attentional selection and effort by examining selectivity of spatial processing at early and later cognitive stages as a function of effort during the vigilance decrement. The results showed dissociations between attentional selection and vigilance effort using behavioral, diffusion decision modeling, and psychophysiological measures. Potential differences in the cognitive computations that underlie selection and effort are discussed as they relate to the observed dissociations.
Sex as a biological variable is an essential element of preclinical research. Sex-specific differences in lung volume, alveolar number, body weight, and the relationship between lung and body weight ...result in important questions about generating equivalent injuries in males and females so that comparisons in their responses can be assessed. Few studies compare stimulus dosing methods for murine lung models investigating immune responses. To examine sex-specific effects, we explored several dosing techniques for three stimuli, LPS,
, and influenza A, on survival, injury parameters in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), and immune cell numbers in single-cell lung suspensions after injury. These data demonstrate that body weight-based dosing produced fewer differences between sexes when compared with injury initiated with inocula containing the same number of organisms. Comparison of the lung and body weights showed that females had a greater lung-to-body weight ratio than males. However, in LPS-induced injury, adjusting the dose for sex differences in this ratio in addition to body weight provided no new information about sex differences compared with dosing by body weight alone, most likely due to the variability in measures of the immune response. Studies evaluating BAL volumes revealed that smaller but more lavages resulted in greater returns and lower protein concentrations, particularly in the smaller female lungs. Thus, designing dosing and measurement methods that generate equivalent injuries facilitates comparison of immune responses between sexes. Continued development of methods for both induction and evaluation of injury will likely facilitate identification of sex differences in immune responses.
Numbers in Short-Term Memory Bias Auditory Spatial Perception Anderson, Maxwell T.; Kaminski, Nativita R.; Mock, Jeffrey R. ...
Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance,
04/2021, Letnik:
47, Številka:
4
Journal Article
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The cognitive penetration literature suggests that top-down knowledge influences perception, but whether such influences exist is controversial. We tested for top-down influences on perception by ...loading short-term memory with digits and then had participants make perceptual judgments to index spatial hearing. Memory of spatial number codes were predicted to bias spatial judgments to the left for small digits and rightward for larger digits. Participants encoded one or more digits and then made spatial judgments in either spatial hearing or dichotic listening tasks. Results across five experiments supported the predicted spatial biases. Digits had to be deliberately encoded, and at least two were needed to be memorized before a small number left-right bias in dichotic listening was evident. In dichotic listening, smaller numbers in memory also promoted more intrusions, and a mix of small and large numbers enhanced the right ear advantage. Results suggest that long-term knowledge about number magnitude imparts a top-down bias on auditory spatial perception.
Public Significance StatementPerceptual systems represent information sampled from the environment. It is important for such systems to accurately preserve this information, which may interact with other cognitive functions such as attention, memory, executive functions, decision making, and action. Prior work suggests that information from other cognitive systems might infiltrate perception ("cognitive penetration"), leading to subtle perceptual biases. However, there are multiple conceptual and methodological challenges that argue against the existence of cognitive penetration. This study took a different approach by experimentally manipulating the contents of short-term memory while participants performed auditory spatial perception tasks. We found that the magnitude of numerical information in short-term memory has a systematic influence on auditory spatial perception.
Background: Methamphetamine-related deaths have been rising along with those involving synthetic opioids, mostly fentanyl and fentanyl analogs (FAs). However, the extent to which methamphetamine ...involvement in deaths differs from those changes occurring in synthetic opioid involvement is unknown.
Objectives: To determine the patterns and temporal changes in methamphetamine-related deaths with and without other drug involvement.
Methods: Data from all methamphetamine-related deaths in West Virginia from 2013 to 2018 were analyzed. Quasi-Poisson regression analyses over time were conducted to compare the rates of change in death counts among methamphetamine and fentanyl//FA subgroups.
Results: A total of 815 methamphetamine-related deaths were analyzed; 572 (70.2%) were male and 527 (64.7%) involved an opioid. The proportion of methamphetamine only deaths stayed relatively flat over time although the actual numbers of deaths increased. Combined fentanyl/FAs and methamphetamine were involved in 337 deaths (41.3%) and constituted the largest increase from 2013 to 2018. The modeling of monthly death counts in 2017-2018 found that the average number of deaths involving fentanyl without methamphetamine significantly declined (rate of change −0.025, p < .001), while concomitant fentanyl with methamphetamine and methamphetamine only death counts increased significantly (rate of change 0.056 and 0.057, respectively, p < .001).
Conclusions: Fentanyl and FAs played an increasingly significant role in methamphetamine-related deaths. The accelerating number of deaths involving fentanyl/FAs and methamphetamine indicates the importance of stimulants and opioids in unintentional deaths. Comprehensive surveillance efforts should continue to track substance use patterns to ensure that appropriate prevention programs are undertaken.
Correlations of Upper Triassic magnetic stratigraphies from Tethyan sections have been hampered by difficulties with conodont biostratigraphy and taxonomy, and discontinuous sedimentation, ...particularly in the ‘Hallstatt Limestones’ of Turkey and Austria. The magnetic stratigraphy and conodont biostratigraphy from the Upper Carnian to Upper Norian limestones exposed at Silická Brezová (Slovakia) can be correlated to other Tethyan sections and to the continental succession in the Newark Basin. The resulting correlations help to resolve some of the apparent discrepancies in existing conodont zonations, and result in a revised correlation to North American terrestrial vertebrate and palynological zones. The correlations imply that the Norian–Rhaetian boundary lies within Newark polarity zone E17r at ∼207 Ma. The Carnian–Norian boundary lies close to the base of Newark polarity zone E7r at ∼226 Ma. This implies durations for the Norian and Rhaetian stages of 19 Myr and 7 Myr, respectively.
Highlights • Speech preparation in people who stutter was tested by recording EEG in a modified CNV paradigm. • Beta desynchronization and auditory ERPs during speech preparation correlated to ...stuttering rate. • Similar correlations were seen in a passive CNV task, show generality beyond speech preparation.
•Speaking non-word pairs increased stuttering frequency vs. conversation and reading.•Non-word pairs elicited a near even ratio of stuttered and fluent trials.•Stuttering frequency was stable over ...five sessions for most participants.•Stuttering frequency promptly dropped to baseline levels after the non-word task.•Stuttering frequency was positively correlated with non-word syllable length.
The variable and intermittent nature of stuttering makes it difficult to consistently elicit a sufficient number of stuttered trials for longitudinal experimental research. This study tests the efficacy of using non-word pairs that phonetically mimic English words with no associated meaning, to reliably elicit balanced numbers of stuttering and fluent trials over multiple sessions. The study also evaluated the effect of non-word length on stuttering frequency, the consistency of stuttering frequency across sessions, and potential carry-over effects of increased stuttering frequency in the experimental task to conversational and reading speech after the task.
Twelve adults who stutter completed multiple sessions (mean of 4.8 sessions) where they were video-recorded during pre-task reading and conversation, followed by an experimental task where they read 400 non-word pairs randomized for each session, and then a post-task reading and conversation sample.
On average, across sessions and participants, non-word pairs consistently yielded a balanced distribution of fluent (60.7%) and stuttered (39.3%) trials over five sessions. Non-word length had a positive effect on stuttering frequency. No carryover effects from experimental to post-task conversation and reading were found.
Non-word pairs effectively and consistently elicited balanced proportions of stuttered and fluent trials. This approach can be used to gather longitudinal data to better understand the neurophysiological and behavioral correlates of stuttering.
Medications used to treat opioid use disorder (OUD) reduce drug overdose risk. Buprenorphine is often the preferred treatment for OUD because of its high safety profile. Given expanding buprenorphine ...use, this study sought to examine buprenorphine-involved deaths (BIDs) and compare them with other drug-related deaths.
West Virginia drug-related deaths from 2005 to early 2020 were identified. Study data included decedent demographics, toxicology, autopsy findings, and medical and prescription histories. Characteristics of BIDs compared with other drug-related deaths were statistically analyzed.
Among 11,764 drug-related deaths, only 564 (4.8%) involved buprenorphine. Buprenorphine alone was present in 32 deaths, of which 20 were considered the direct cause of death (0.2% of all drug-related deaths). Significantly more BIDs involved five or more drugs (23%) compared with other opioid deaths (14.9%). Co-intoxicants found most frequently in BIDs were benzodiazepines (47.3%), methamphetamine (27.1%), and fentanyl (22.9%). Cardiovascular and pulmonary comorbidities were identified in 43% and 21% of BIDs, respectively. Of the 564 BIDs, a current buprenorphine prescription was present in 132 deaths (23.4%).
Despite increasing buprenorphine use, BIDs comprised less than 5% of overall West Virginia drug-related deaths. Seldom was it the only drug found, and most decedents did not have current prescriptions for buprenorphine. Although buprenorphine is effective, with a wide safety margin, clinicians and patients should be aware that buprenorphine can be involved in overdose deaths, especially when buprenorphine is taken in combination with drugs such as benzodiazepines, methamphetamine, or fentanyl, and in persons with underlying cardiovascular or pulmonary comorbidities.
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