Abstract■ In explicit sequence learning tasks, an improvement in performance (skill) typically occurs after sleep-leading to the recent literature on sleep-dependent motor consolidation. Consolidation can also be facilitated during wakefulness if declarative knowledge for the sequence is reduced through a secondary cognitive task. Accordingly, declarative and procedural consolidation processes appear to mutually interact. Here we used TMS to test the hypothesis that functions in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) that support declarative memory formation indirectly reduce the formation of procedural representations. We hypothesize that disrupting the DLPFC immediately after sequence learning would degrade the retention or the consolidation of the sequence within the declarative memory system and thus facilitate consolidation within procedural memory systems, evident as wakeful off-line skill improvement. Inhibitory thetaburst TMS was applied to the left DLPFC (n = 10), to the right DLPFC (n = 10), or to an occipital cortical control site (n = 10) immediately after training on the serial reaction time task (SRTT). All groups were retested after eight daytime hours without sleep. TMS of either left or right DLPFC lead to skill improvements on the SRTT. Increase in skill was greater following right DLPFC stimulation than left DLPFC stimulation; there was no improvement in skill for the control group. Across all participants, free recall of the sequence was inversely related to the improvements in performance on the SRTT. These results support the hypothesis of interference between declarative and procedural consolidation processes and are discussed in the framework of the interactions between memory systems. ■
Cognitive training is an effective tool to improve a variety of cognitive functions, and a small number of studies have now shown that brain stimulation accompanying these training protocols can enhance their effects. In the domain of behavioral inhibition, little is known about how training can affect this skill. As for transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), it was previously found that stimulation over the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) facilitates behavioral inhibition performance and modulates its electrophysiological correlates. This study aimed to investigate this behavioral facilitation in the context of a learning paradigm by giving tDCS over rIFG repetitively over four consecutive days of training on a behavioral inhibition task (stop signal task (SST)). Twenty-two participants took part; ten participants were assigned to receive anodal tDCS (1.5 mA, 15 min), 12 were assigned to receive training but not active stimulation. There was a significant effect of training on learning and performance in the SST, and the integration of the training and rIFG-tDCS produced a more linear learning slope. Better performance was also found in the active stimulation group. Our findings show that tDCS-combined cognitive training is an effective tool for improving the ability to inhibit responses. The current study could constitute a step toward the use of tDCS and cognitive training as a therapeutic tool for cognitive control impairments in conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or schizophrenia.
Although psychological and computational models of time estimation have postulated the existence of neural representations tuned for specific durations, empirical evidence of this notion has been lacking. Here, using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) adaptation paradigm, we show that the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) (corresponding to the supramarginal gyrus) exhibited reduction in neural activity due to adaptation when a visual stimulus of the same duration was repeatedly presented. Adaptation was strongest when stimuli of identical durations were repeated, and it gradually decreased as the difference between the reference and test durations increased. This tuning property generalized across a broad range of durations, indicating the presence of general time-representation mechanisms in the IPL. Furthermore, adaptation was observed irrespective of the subject’s attention to time. Repetition of a nontemporal aspect of the stimulus (i.e., shape) did not produce neural adaptation in the IPL. These results provide neural evidence for duration-tuned representations in the human brain.
Figural aftereffects are commonly believed to be transient and to fade away in the course of milliseconds. We tested face aftereffects using familiar faces and found sustained effects lasting up to 1 week. In 3 experiments, participants were first exposed to distorted pictures of famous persons and then had to select the veridical face in a 2-alternative forced choice task. Veridicality aftereffects were found in a direction opposite to the adapting distortion; these effects generalized to other pictures of the same individual and also to pictures of celebrities that had not been shown during adaptation. The findings support hierarchical theories of norm-based face coding and suggest that face adaptation effects have a representational basis. They also point toward multiple timescales in the operation of adaptation mechanisms, thereby providing a link between high-level adaptation and more general aspects of neuro-cognitive plasticity, that is, learning and memory.
Prior studies using the peripheral cueing paradigm have shown that singleton cues that do not match to the top-down search settings of the observer can impair performance in visual search when the cue appears at the target location (in valid conditions) compared with when the cue appears at a location away from the target (in invalid conditions). This pattern, the same-location cost (SLC), has recently been suggested to originate from an awareness-dependent updating of object files in working memory. It has also been argued that the processes underlying the SLC could have obscured results of prior studies by masking attentional capture effects by peripheral cues under certain conditions. Here, we investigated to which extent the object-file updating hypothesis can be generalized and delineate necessary side conditions for object-file updating to produce the SLC. In Experiments 1 to 3, we show that during search for spatial frequencies, SLCs emerged that are at odds with the object-file updating hypothesis. SLCs were not dependent on cue awareness and were, unlike SLCs with color cues and targets (Experiment 4), not entirely eliminated where feature updating was necessary in valid and invalid conditions. We conclude that some instances of the SLC can be explained by object-file updating, but, as the present study shows, other instances of the SLC are at odds with this explanation and are therefore more likely of an attentional origin. We end with a discussion of which side conditions might favor the emergence of SLCs as a result of object-file updating. (PsycINFO Database Record
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.