Neurocognitive and neurophysiological correlates of motor planning during familiar and novel contexts.

Abstract

Contextual novelty alone can decrease performance and neural activation during complex sequencing. The general link between preparatory activation and EF suggests that capacity limitations drive novelty effects, and implies a common substrate underlying motor planning and higher-order behavioral control.

Neuropsychological Practice Effects in the Context of Cognitive Decline: Contributions from Learning and Task Novelty

“…Novelty effects may also be related to fluid intelligence as lower fluid intelligence is associated with larger PE (Blalock & McCabe, 2011). Lastly, we recently demonstrated that novel contexts lead not only to behavioral novelty effects, but also to degradation of the EEG-assessed motor readiness potential (Euler et al, 2015), suggesting that the ability to overcome novelty may reflect the efficiency of neuronal synchronization in face of the distracting properties of novel contexts.…”

“…Cognitive reserve may mask cognitive decline through greater activation or broader recruitment of brain regions to support performance of novel tasks (Eyler, Sherzai, Kaup, & Jeste, 2011; Lenzi et al, 2011). However, activation of broader neural networks may lead to subtle costs early on in task performance; these costs may take the form of delayed re-emergence of motor readiness potentials, which then results in longer latencies before response initiation (Euler et al, 2015). While the present results provide support for the clinical utility of PE (Duff, 2012; Duff et al, 2007; Duff, Callister, et al, 2012; Duff, Chelune, et al, 2012; Machulda et al, 2013) and novelty effect (Suchy et al, 2011), they also demonstrate needs for future research examining PE as a non-unitary construct and tailoring PE assessment to different clinical populations.…”

“…Following our prior work (Euler et al, 2015; Suchy, Euler, & Eastvold, 2014; Suchy et al, 2011), novelty effect was measured using the Push-Turn-Taptap (PTT) task (Suchy & Kraybill, 2007), an electronically administered sequence learning task from the Behavioral Dyscontrol Scale, Electronic Version (BDS-EV; Suchy, Derbidge, & Cope, 2005). Participants perform sequences of three hand movements across four blocks, using a response console (Figure 2).…”

“…Rather, novelty-related improvements reflect a recovery to baseline from an initial suppression of performance. Because novelty effect can be observed even on tasks that have been previously learned but are presented in novel contexts (Euler, Niermeyer, & Suchy, 2015; Larson & Suchy, 2014; Ouellet, Beauchamp, Owen, & Doyon, 2004), it appears to represent a construct that is distinct from memory. Whereas learning-related improvements reflect better ability to acquire and retain new knowledge or skill, improvements due to novelty effect reflect poorer rapid adaptation to novel task demands (e.g., manipulating novel materials or maintaining instructions in working memory).…”

Reported Expressive Suppression in Daily Life Is Associated with Slower Action Planning

“…To assess the relationships between reported ES and individual aspects of motor-sequence learning, we computed four scores from the PTT that align with the constructs of action planning, action learning, motor-control speed, and motorcontrol accuracy. As done previously (Euler, Niermeyer, & Suchy, 2015;Larson & Suchy, 2015;Marchand et al, 2013Marchand et al, , 2011Suchy, Kraybill, & Franchow, 2011;Suchy et al, 2010), action planning was operationalized as the median time between completion of one sequence and initiation of the next; action learning as total number of errors (excluding double-tap perseverative errors); motor control as the ability to perform a single movement smoothly and correctly, reflected in both the number of perseverative tapping errors (e.g., triple-or quadruple-taps) on the double-tap movement (accuracy) and the time between the two taps (speed). 3…”