Cognitive Control

The phenomenology of error processing: the dorsal anterior cingulate response to stop-signal errors tracks reports of negative affect

by Robert Spunt

In press at Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience; co-authored with Matthew D. Lieberman, Jessica R. Cohen, and Naomi I. Eisenberger

A reliable observation in neuroimaging studies of cognitive control is the response of dorsal anterior cingulate... more A reliable observation in neuroimaging studies of cognitive control is the response of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) to events that demand increased cognitive control (e.g., response conflicts and performance errors). This observation is apparently at odds with a comparably reliable association of the dACC with the subjective experience of negative affective states such as pain, fear, and anxiety. While the latter, ‘affective’ associates of the dACC are based on studies that explicitly manipulate and/or measure the subjective experience of negative affect, the former, ‘cognitive’ associates of dACC are based on studies using tasks designed to manipulate the demand for cognitive control, such as the Stroop, flanker, and stop-signal. Critically, extant neuroimaging research has not systematically considered the extent to which these ‘cognitive’ tasks induce negative affective experiences, and if so, to what extent negative affect can account for any variance in the dACC response during task performance. While undergoing fMRI, participants in the present study performed a stop-signal task while regularly reporting their experience of performance on several dimensions. We observed that within-subject variability in the dACC response to stop-signal errors tracked changes in subjective frustration throughout task performance. This association remained when controlling for within-subject variability in subjective reports of cognitive engagement and several performance-related variables indexing task difficulty. These results fit with existing models characterizing the dACC as a hub for monitoring ongoing behavior and motivating adjustments when necessary, and further emphasize that such a function may be linked to the subjective experience of negative affect.

Resolving response, decision, and strategic control: Evidence for a functional topography in dorsomedial prefrontal cortext

by Alexandra Rosati

Venkatraman, V., Rosati, A.G., Taren, A.A., & Huettel, S.A. (2009). Journal of Neuroscience

The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) plays a central role in aspects of cognitive control and decision making.... more The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) plays a central role in aspects of cognitive control and decision making. Here, we provide evidence for an anterior-to-posterior topography within the DMPFC using tasks that evoke three distinct forms of control demands— response, decision, and strategic— each of which could be mapped onto independent behavioral data. Specifically, we identify three spatially distinct regions within the DMPFC: a posterior region associated with control demands evoked by multiple incompatible responses, a middle region associated with control demands evoked by the relative desirability of decision options, and an anterior region that predicts control demands related to deviations from an individual’s preferred decision-making strategy. These results provide new insight into the functional organization of DMPFC and suggest how recent controversies about its role in complex decision making and response mapping can be reconciled.

Swimming Speed Control and on-board Flow Sensing of an Artificial Trout

by Maarja Kruusmaa

M. Kruusmaa, T. Salumäe, G. Toming, J. Ježov, A. Ernits, Swimming Speed Control and on-board Flow Sensing of an Artificial Trout. In Proceedings of the Int. Conf. of Robotics and Automation (IEEE ICRA 2011), Shanghai, China, May 9-13, 2011.

This paper describes a sensing-actuation coupling of a robotic trout that detects changes of the laminar flow speed... more This paper describes a sensing-actuation coupling of a robotic trout that detects changes of the laminar flow speed using an on-board pressure sensor and adjusts its tail-beat frequency for steady swimming.
The caudal fin actuator closely mimics the morphology of a real trout, in particular the geometry, stiffness and stiffness distribution of the body and the caudal fin. We hypothesize that the linear relationship between the tail-beat frequency and speed, well-known and proven to hold for all fish studied so far, also holds for an artificial fish. We validate the hypothesis and use the results to derive a linear control law to adjust the tail- beat frequency to the swimming speed. We use an onboard pressure sensor to detect the flow speed and test the actuation in a controlled hydrodynamic environment in a flow pipe.

Working memory demands modulate cognitive control in the Stroop paradigm.

by Tilo Strobach

Soutschek, A., Strobach, T., & Schubert, T. (in press). Working memory demands modulate cognitive control in the Stroop paradigm. Psychological Research.

Cognitive Control in Auditory Processing

by Bjørn Sætrevik

PhD thesis

The dichotic listening experimental paradigm creates an ambiguous situation for the participant by presenting two... more The dichotic listening experimental paradigm creates an ambiguous situation for the participant by presenting two auditory stimuli simultaneously, one in each ear. Which of the stimuli the participant reports has previously been shown to depend on language lateralization and attention instructions. The current work presents three studies that introduce a novel way of manipulating which stimulus is reported in dichotic listening. The first report showed that priming one of the stimuli in the dichotic situation biases response selection away from the primed dichotic stimulus, and that the manipulation is effective with both auditory and visual priming. The second report showed that the priming manipulation can be combined with the more traditional attention instructions manipulation, and that the two types of experimental manipulation showed an interaction. The third report used fMRI to show that the task evokes activation in posterior medial frontal and right ventrolateral brain areas, and presented a theoretical model in which the activations reflect detection of cognitive conflict and inhibition, respectively. The present thesis thus shows that priming in the dichotic listening experimental paradigm modulates cognitive mechanisms, which has effects on response selection. The experimental task may prove useful as an easily administered test of inhibition in the auditory domain, with implications for examining attention functions in healthy and clinical groups.

Jasinska_Ramamoorthy_Crew_JNeurosci_2011

by Agnes Jasinska

Jasinska_Ramamoorthy_Crew_JNeurosci_2011

by Agnes Jasinska

Meta-learning, cognitive control, and physiological interactions between medial and lateral prefrontal cortex.

by Charlie Wilson

The neural basis of predicting the outcomes of planned actions

by Andrew Jahn

Event-related potential (ERP) correlates of memory blocking and priming during a word fragment test

by Olga Rass

Memory blocking in schizophrenia reflects deficient retrieval control mechanisms

by Olga Rass

Eliminating the memory blocking effect

by Olga Rass

When do primes go bad? A corpus of orthographically related primes that inhibit fragment completion

by Olga Rass

Deduction without awareness

by Carlo Reverberi

Reverberi, C., Pischedda, D., Burigo, M., & Cherubini, P. (2012). Deduction without awareness. Acta psychologica, 139(1), 244-53. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2011.09.011

We investigated whether two basic forms of deductive inference, Modus Ponens and Disjunctive Syllogism, occur... more We investigated whether two basic forms of deductive inference, Modus Ponens and Disjunctive Syllogism, occur automatically and without awareness. In Experiment 1, we used a priming paradigm with a set of conditional and disjunctive problems. For each trial, two premises were shown. The second premise was presented at a rate designed to be undetectable. After each problem, participants had to evaluate whether a newly-presented target number was odd or even. The target number matched or did not match a conclusion endorsed by the two previous premises. We found that when the target matched the conclusion of a Modus Ponens inference, the evaluation of the target number was reliably faster than baseline even when participants reported that they were not aware of the second premise. This priming effect did not occur for any other valid or invalid inference that we tested, including the Disjunctive Syllogism. In Experiment 2, we used a forced-choice paradigm in which we found that some participants were able to access some information on the second premise when their attention was explicitly directed to it. In Experiment 3, we showed that the priming effect for Modus Ponens was present also in subjects who could not access any information about P(2). In Experiment 4 we explored whether spatial relations (e.g., "a before b") or sentences with quantifiers (e.g., "all a with b") could generate a priming effect similar to the one observed for Modus Ponens. A priming effect could be found for Modus Ponens only, but not for the other relations tested. These findings show that the Modus Ponens inference, in contrast to other deductive inferences, can be carried out automatically and unconsciously. Furthermore, our findings suggest that critical deductive inference schemata can be included in the range of high-level cognitive activities that are carried out unconsciously.

Self-ordered pointing as a test of working memory in typically developing children

by Lucy Cragg

Brain regions associated with moment-to-moment adjustments in control and stable task-set maintenance

by Heather Wilk

Article in press

While there is some consensus that cognitive control involves both a capacity to rapidly adjust to unexpected... more While there is some consensus that cognitive control involves both a capacity to rapidly adjust to unexpected challenges and a capacity to prospectively maintain task-sets over longer timescales, there is disagreement concerning the neural implementation of these capacities. Some accounts, for example, associate rapid adjustments in control with a network of lateral prefrontal and parietal cortices and task-set maintenance with a network of anterior cingulate and insular cortices. Other accounts propose almost the opposite associations. The present study compared these accounts by means of a hybrid fMRI design. Twenty-three right-handed adults were administered a conflict-adaptation paradigm in which the frequency of compatible trials, and therefore, demands on rapid adjustments and stable task-set maintenance, varied parametrically across conditions. Increased demands on moment-to-moment adjustments were associated with a profile of phasic activity in anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, and inferior parietal cortex. By contrast, increased demands on stable task-set maintenance were associated with increased sustained activity in medial superior frontal gyrus. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Separable neural mechanisms contribute to feedback processing in a rule-learning task

by Kiki Zanolie

A Simple Oscillatory Short-Term Memory

by Jared Sylvester

Proc. of the Biologically-Inspired Cognitive Architecture Symposium, AAAI Fall Symposium Series. Arlington, VA, 2009.

Authored with Jim Reggia, Scott Weems and Mike Bunting

Oscillatory neural network models have been an increasing focus of study over the last several years. These models... more Oscillatory neural network models have been an increasing focus of study over the last several years. These models consist of recurrent neural networks whose dynamics are characterized by persistent learned/designed rhythmic activity. Here we consider simple oscillatory memories for short-term retention of items occurring as temporal sequences. By incorporating decay as well as interference, we find that it is easy to match behavioral data from human subjects recalling temporal sequences under different situations by adjusting a single parameter in the model. These results suggest that simple oscillatory memories capture at least some key properties of human short-term memory, and might be used effectively in future biologically-inspired cognitive architectures.

A Temporally Asymmetric Hebbian Network for Sequential Working Memory

by Jared Sylvester

Proc. of the Int'l Conf. on Cognitive Modeling, pp. 241–246. Philadelphia, PA, August 2010.

Authored with Jim Reggia, Scott Weems and Mike Bunting.

Recurrent connections combined with the appropriate dynamics enable oscillatory neural networks to produce rhythmic... more Recurrent connections combined with the appropriate dynamics enable oscillatory neural networks to produce rhythmic activity patterns. Such oscillatory activity can represent multiple stored patterns simultaneously, rather than the single pattern of a fixed-point network. However, retrieving these stored patterns in the same order as they were seen has proven challenging. In this paper we modify a recently developed simple oscillatory memory capable of storing temporal sequences so that it will now retrieve remembered items in the same order presented. This was achieved through the use of a temporally asymmetric weight matrix. The network is still capable of matching the recall performance of human subjects, reproducing the recency effect they exhibit in working memory tasks and displaying similar position-specific recall rates. We conclude that augmenting simple oscillatory neural network models with temporally asymmetric synaptic connections substantially improves their ability to match human short term memory properties.

Cognitive Control as a Gated Cortical Net

by Jared Sylvester

Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures, 2011. Pages 371–376.

Authored with Jim Reggia and Scott Weems.

We present a cortical model of cognitive control based on attractor networks, correlational learning, and gating. Our... more We present a cortical model of cognitive control based on attractor networks, correlational learning, and gating. Our model does not make use of production rules or local representations. It is capable of completing a demonstration task requiring adding to and examining working memory. The architecture used is easily generalizable to other tasks.