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The role of perceptual learning on modality-specific visual attentional effects.

Morrone et al. [Morrone, M. C., Denti, V., & Spinelli, D. (2002). Color and luminance contrasts attract independent attention. Current Biology, 12, 1134-1137] reported that the detrimental effect on contrast discrimination thresholds of performing a concomitant task is modality specific: performing a secondary luminance task has no effect on colour contrast thresholds, and vice versa. Here we confirm this result with a novel task involving learning of spatial position, and go on to show that it is not specific to the cardinal colour axes: secondary tasks with red-green stimuli impede performance on a blue-yellow task and vice versa. We further show that the attentional effect can be abolished with continued training over 2-4 training days (2-20 training sessions), and that the effect of learning is transferable to new target positions. Given the finding of transference, we discuss the possibility that V4 is a site of plasticity for both stimulus types, and that the separation is due to a luminance-colour separation within this cortical area.

Attention↗

Effects of explicit knowledge of workspace rotation in visuomotor sequence learning.

Previous experimental and theoretical studies have suggested that two separate neural networks contribute to visuomotor learning of spatial sequences, one to the accuracy of performance and the other to the speed of performance (Nakahara et al. in J Cogn Neurosci 13:626-647, 2001). This study examined the influence of explicit knowledge of stimulus configuration (workspace) in visuomotor sequence learning. Twenty-eight right-handed subjects learned the sequences of button presses by trial and error (Hikosaka et al. in J Neurophysiol 76:617-621, 1996) in the course of two sessions. In the first session, both the number of completion failures (accuracy measure) and the performance time to complete a sequence (speed measure) decreased. In the second session, the workspace was rotated without notifying the subjects. About half the subjects remained unaware of the workspace rotation, and no transfer of learning occurred (i.e., neither accuracy nor speed of performance was preserved in the second session). The remaining subjects spontaneously noticed the rotation and they were able to use this knowledge to perform the task with less completion failures in the second session. However, the knowledge of workspace rotation did not decrease the performance time in the second session. The lack of influence of explicit knowledge on the speed of performance is consistent with the two-loop model of visuomotor sequence learning (Nakahara et al. in J Cogn Neurosci 13:626-647, 2001).

Analysis of Variance↗

Training transfer between card sorting and false belief understanding: helping children apply conflicting descriptions.

Two studies investigated the parallel developmental progress in theory of mind and executive control, as exemplified by correlations between the Dimensional Change Card Sorting task (DCCS; Frye, Zelazo, & Palfai, 1995) and the false-belief task. Experiment 1 with sixty 3-year-old children confirmed earlier studies (e.g., Perner & Lang, 2002), suggesting that children's problem with the DCCS lies in the redescription of stimulus objects. Experiment 2 with forty-four 3- to 4-year-olds reinforced the correlational evidence for a developmental link by showing transfer of training: False-belief training improved DCCS performance, and DCCS training significantly increased children's performance on the false-belief task. Results are discussed in relation to 5 theories explaining the existing correlational evidence.

Awareness↗

The role of attention in automatization: does attention operate at encoding, or retrieval, or both?

In this research, we investigated whether attention operates in the encoding of automatized information, the retrieval of automatized information, or in both cases. Subjects searched two-word displays for members of a target category in focused-attention or divided-attention conditions that were crossed with block (training vs. transfer). To see whether subjects encoded all available items or only attended items, we compared performance for subjects in different training conditions but in the same transfer condition. Subjects encoded attended items. To see whether subjects retrieved all the items they had in memory, or only items associated with that to which they were attending at retrieval, we compared performance for subjects in the same training conditions but in different transfer conditions. Subjects retrieved attended items. Attention was found to operate at both encoding and retrieval. These findings support the instance theory of automaticity, which predicts the role of attention at encoding and retrieval.

Adult↗

Evaluation of a postgraduate training programme for community mental health practitioners.

Government guidelines on mental health care in England have considerable implications for the level of competency required by the mental health workforce. Implementing these changes requires the widespread introduction of training initiatives whose effectiveness in improving staff performance need to be demonstrated through programme evaluation. This exploratory study evaluates the impact of a 2-year mental health training programme by measuring skill acquisition and skill application, by identifying the key ingredients for facilitating the transfer of learning into practice, and by examining differences in outcome between the academic and the non-academic students. High skill acquisition and application was reported in the majority of interventions, however, low skill application was reported for some key interventions (assertive outreach, dual diagnosis). Statistically significant differences were found between student cohorts in one intervention for skill acquisition (crisis intervention) and two interventions for skill application (client strengths model; medication management). The main ingredients for facilitating transfer were found to be the credibility of the trainers and training alongside colleagues from their own workplace. Some of the possible explanatory factors for these findings are discussed.

Adult↗

Effects of specific versus variable practice on the retention and transfer of a continuous motor skill.

The effects of specific versus variable practice on retention and transfer was investigated. 30 participants were randomly assigned to one of three practice conditions. The variable speed group practiced on a pursuit rotor task at three different speeds (60, 45, 30 rpm) which were randomly distributed but equal in number for 30 10-sec. trials on Day 1. The Specific Practice group performed all 30 10-sec. trials at 45 rpm on Day 1. On Day 2, all groups performed 15 trials at the 45-rpm retention speed and 15 trials at the 75-rpm transfer speed. The Control group only performed on Day 2. Analysis showed the Specific Practice group had significantly higher scores on Day 1. On Day 2, the Specific Practice group had significantly higher retention scores and the Variable Practice group had higher transfer scores. Continuous motor skills might be practiced differently depending on the environmental context in which the skill may be used.

Adult↗

Action planning during the presentation of stimulus sequences: effects of compatible and incompatible stimuli.

Experimental designs that require the simultaneous perception and reproduction of a stimulus sequence could help to clarify the relationship between perception and action. This contribution examines a specific stimulus-response compatibility with the reproduction of simple stimulus sequences. In the procedure a response just prepared or one to be prepared is confronted with a new incoming stimulus that is compatible or incompatible with the response. Interference is predicted from a framework in which stimulus perception and action control are assumed to share common codes. Five arrows were successively presented at 1-s intervals. The arrows pointed either to the left or to the right with equal probability. One of the five arrows was accompanied by a randomly presented go signal. Subjects then had to reproduce the sequence by pressing corresponding left or right keys while the stimulus presentation continued. Reaction-time latencies and reaction intervals within a sequence were analyzed in six experiments. Results showed increasing reaction-time latencies the later the go signal was presented--that is, the longer the sequence to be reproduced was. In contrast to previous findings, this effect interacted with the compatibility between the arrow displayed together with the go signal and the first reaction. It is argued that the go signal initiates a transfer of a cognitive action plan to a peripheral motor program and that this process is subject to interference the more the current stimulus is at odds with one of the first parameter specification.

Adult↗

Further evidence of impaired tactile learning after removals of the second somatic sensory projection cortex (SII) in the monkey.

Four rhesus monkeys with bilateral removals of SII and five unoperated monkeys were trained on tests of tactile equivalence, weight discrimination and generalization, tactile discrimination learning (including concurrent learning and serial reversal) and inter-manual transfer of tactile learning. Lesioned animals were impaired on almost all tactile learning tasks and on inter-manual transfer but not on the test of tactile equivalence nor on the propioceptive tasks. The results are considered in the context of previous studies of somatosensory and parietal cortex.

Animals↗

Transference in social perception: the role of chronic accessibility in significant-other representations.

Research has shown that the activation and application of a significant-other representation to a new person, or transference, occurs in everyday social perception (S. M. Andersen & A. Baum, 1994; S. M. Andersen & S. W. Cole, 1990). Using a combined idiographic and nomothetic experimental paradigm, two studies examined the role of chronic accessibility of significant-other representations in transference. After learning about 4 fictional people, 1 of whom resembled a significant other, participants' recognition memory was assessed. Both studies showed greater false-positive memory in the significant-other condition, relative to control, even in the absence of priming. Study 2 showed that although the effect was greater when the significant-other representation was concretely applicable to the target information, it occurred even when no such applicability was present. Results implicate the chronic accessibility of significant-other representations in transference.

Adolescent↗

Learning to perceive pitch differences.

This paper reports two experiments concerning the stimulus specificity of pitch discrimination learning. In experiment 1, listeners were initially trained, during ten sessions (about 11,000 trials), to discriminate a monaural pure tone of 3000 Hz from ipsilateral pure tones with slightly different frequencies. The resulting perceptual learning (improvement in discrimination thresholds) appeared to be frequency-specific since, in subsequent sessions, new learning was observed when the 3000-Hz standard tone was replaced by a standard tone of 1200 Hz, or 6500 Hz. By contrast, a subsequent presentation of the initial tones to the contralateral ear showed that the initial learning was not, or was only weakly, ear-specific. In experiment 2, training in pitch discrimination was initially provided using complex tones that consisted of harmonics 3-7 of a missing fundamental (near 100 Hz for some listeners, 500 Hz for others). Subsequently, the standard complex was replaced by a standard pure tone with a frequency which could be either equal to the standard complex's missing fundamental or remote from it. In the former case, the two standard stimuli were matched in pitch. However, this perceptual relationship did not appear to favor the transfer of learning. Therefore, the results indicated that pitch discrimination learning is, at least to some extent, timbre-specific, and cannot be viewed as a reduction of an internal noise which would affect directly the output of a neural device extracting pitch from both pure tones and complex tones including low-rank harmonics.

Adult↗

Part-whole practice of movement sequences.

A 16-element movement sequence was taught under part-whole and whole-practice conditions. Participants (N = 18) produced a right-arm lever movement to sequentially presented target locations. The authors constructed part-whole practice by providing practice on only the 1st 8 elements on the 1st day of practice (100 repetitions of the 8-element sequence) and on all 16 elements on the 2nd day of practice (100 repetitions of the 16-element sequence). The whole-practice group practiced all 16 elements on both days (100 repetitions of the 16-element sequence per day). No differences in sequence structure or in movement duration of the 16-element sequence were noted on the retention test (Day 3). On transfer tests in which the 1st and last 8 elements were tested separately, however, the participants in the part-whole practice group performed more quickly than the participants in the whole-practice group, especially on the last 8 elements. Participants in the whole-practice group appeared to code the sequence so that it was relatively difficult to fully partition it into separate movements. Thus, on the transfer tests, there continued to be residual effects of the 8 elements that did not have to be produced but slowed down the rate of responding for the whole-practice group. That finding was not observed for the part-whole practice group.

Adult↗

Issues in educating health professionals to meet the diverse needs of patients and other service users from ethnic minority groups.

AIM: The main aim of the study was to undertake training needs analysis among a multi-professional group for the purpose of improving care for ethnic minority patients and other service users. BACKGROUND: Evidence from the literature identifies that some of the explanations advanced for the failure of health professionals to meet the needs of ethnic minorities include lack of understanding of cultural diversities, racism, racial stereotyping, lack of knowledge, exclusivity, and ethnocentrism. While these issues have been addressed in different countries, little work has been carried out to examine these from the perspective of health professionals caring for ethnic minorities. This study is therefore an attempt to find out what health professionals know about caring for patients and other service users from minority ethnic groups and their perception of training needs in this area of work. METHODS: A pre- and post-training design phase structured the qualitative approach. A purposive sample of individuals working across five health service organizations located in a multi-racial city yielded a multi-professional group of participants. Views of 22 participants were obtained by semi-structured interviews at a pretraining phase. Training needs of health professionals drew on Walklin's (1992) six stages used to structure data collection, data analysis and delivery of training. The post-training phase used questionnaires to evaluate immediate learning that based on a 4-week period of reflection and applied to practice. The questionnaires were complemented by a facilitator-lead focus group. RESULTS: The majority of the participants confirmed that no attention was given in their initial education to the health care needs of minority ethnic groups. Instead, participants engaged in self-initiated learning to improve their knowledge and understanding. The issue of communication was viewed with dissatisfaction and seen as affecting the sufficiency of caring for these patients. All participants rated meeting the needs of ethnic minorities as very important and believed that they had gained a better understanding of the concepts of ethnicity and race and resources available in local communities as a result of the training. They also reported changes in thinking about ethnic minorities and had started to acquire greater confidence to engage with colleagues about different cultural values and practices and the implications of these for caring. While a quarter of the participants had transferred some learning to practice, the majority were not able to bring about any change. This majority response challenged the sustainability of learning about ethnic minorities when training takes place away from the context in which professionals practise. CONCLUSION: Training embedded in clinical and nonclinical environment where patients and other service users and professionals interact is offered as a major finding.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

Sequential task predictability in task switching.

Many studies of task switching have found that a prolonged preparation time reduces switch costs. An alternative manipulation of task preparation is based on sequential task predictability, rather than preparation time. In Experiments 1 and 2 of the present study, participants performed explicitly instructed task sequences (i.e., AABB) and were then transferred to a random sequence. The observed benefit of predictability-based task preparation was not switch specific. In Experiment 3, the participants changed from random to predictable tasks. The observed predictability benefit again was not switch specific. The data thus suggest that task switching does not necessarily require a switch-specific reconfiguration process. Rather, task-specific control processes may be needed in both task switches and repetitions.

Association Learning↗

Recombination of automatic processing components: the effects of transfer, reversal, and conflict situations.

This research was conducted to evaluate the effects of compatible and incompatible automatic processes on performance. Subjects were trained for 8400 trials of consistent mapping practice in a semantic category visual search task and then transferred for 2352 trials to conditions that utilized the trained component processes in various ways. Results indicate that if the components were reused in a compatible fashion (target and distractor transfer), there was positive transfer. Target and distractor reversal resulted in equivalent and severe performance disruption that persisted for the entire retraining period. Target conflict produced disruption equivalent to the reversal conditions. Distractor conflict resulted in less initial disruption, which dissipated before the end of the retraining period. The results are discussed in terms of agreement with strength-theoretic views of visual search and in terms of practical training and retraining issues.

Adult↗

The conditioning of language in a nonverbal child conducted in a special education classroom.

The purpose of this study was twofold: first, to assess the feasibility of conducting speech conditioning sessions within a preschool classroom, and second, to examine the process of transfer of learned verbalizations from those sessions to classroom free time. The results indicated that the former was not only feasible but effective. A nonverbal boy, enrolled in a special education preschool, was taught to imitate reliably six words in 46 15-minute sessions. Furthermore, the child's use of spontaneous whole words during the rest of the classroom day seemed to be responsive to the contingencies of the speech sessions.

Behavior Therapy↗

Decoding TnsC Filament Assembly in CRISPR-Associated Transposons Using Interpretable Deep Learning and Molecular Simulations.

CRISPR-associated transposons (CASTs) enable programmable DNA integration, yet how the TnsC regulator forms processive filaments on DNA to coordinate RNA-guided transposition in type V-K CAST systems remains unknown. Here, we integrate large-scale molecular simulations, interpretable deep learning using graph attention networks (GATs), and causal inference analyses to define the molecular determinants of TnsC filament nucleation and elongation. We show that TnsC nucleates by inducing localized DNA deformation that propagates along extended filaments, with Granger causality revealing that TnsC motions precede and predict DNA deformation. Interpretable GAT models demonstrate that elongation is determined during early recognition between incoming and DNA-bound subunits, followed by structural reorganization that regenerates the recruitment interface and enables processive assembly. These results elucidate the molecular mechanism of processive TnsC filament assembly and explain why isolated TnsC filaments preferentially elongate in the 5' → 3' direction, while accessory transposition factors can reshape the interaction landscape and alter filament growth polarity. Together, these findings advance our understanding of CAST function and inform the engineering of programmable DNA integration platforms. Beyond CAST systems, this work introduces an interpretable GAT approach as a general and transferable deep learning strategy for uncovering molecular mechanisms in biological systems, while demonstrating the power of causal inference for dissecting directional relationships in molecular dynamics.

Deep Learning↗

Associative transfer and stimulus selection in classical conditioning of the rabbit's nictitating membrane response to serial compound CSs.

Four experiments were conducted to determine whether in conditioning to a serial compound, CS1-CS2-UCS, there are (a) associative mechanisms operating to extend conditioning beyond the bounds of a CS-UCS contiguity gradient and (b) stimulus selection processes acting to attenuate the potency of CS-UCS contiguity. In Experiments 1 and 2, the CS2-UCS interval was held at .35 sec while the CS1-UCS interval was varied across groups from .75 to 2.75 sec. CS1 test trials revealed substantial CR acquisition at all CS1-UCS intervals. Moreover, Experiment 2 indicated that when the contribution of cross-modal generalization from CS2 to CS1 was factored out, there still remained a substantial level of conditioning, which Experiment 3 indicated was attributable to an associative mechanism like higher-order or sensory conditioning. The observation of CR acquisition at CS1-UCS intervals of 4.75, 8.75, and 18.75 sec in Experiment 4 suggested that serial compound training yields conditioning to CSs located well beyond the single CS contiguity gradient for the rabbit's nictitating membrane response. Experiments 1 and 2 also indicated the presence of stimulus selection processes because, at the shorter CS1-UCS intervals (.75 and 1.25 sec), the levels of test-trial responding to CS2 fell below those observed to the less contiguous CS1.

Animals↗

The roles of similarity in transfer: separating retrievability from inferential soundness.

Similarity is universally acknowledged to be central in transfer, but recent research suggests that its role is complex. The present research attempts to isolate and compare the determinants of similarity-based access to memory and the determinants of the subjective soundness and similarity of a match. We predicted, based on structure-mapping theory, that subjective soundness would depend on the degree of shared relational structure, particularly higher-order structure such as causal bindings. In contrast, we predicted that memory retrieval would be highly sensitive to surface similarities such as common object attributes. To assess retrievability, in three studies, subjects were asked to read a large set of stories and were later given a set of probe stories that resembled the original stories in systematically different ways; e.g., purely relational analogies, surface-similarity matches, or overall (literal similarity) matches. Subjects were told to write out any of the original stories that came to mind. To assess subjective soundness, independent subjects (and also the same reminding subjects) were asked to rate the inferential soundness of each pair; i.e., how well inferences true of one story would apply to the other. As predicted, subjective soundness was highly related to the degree of common relational structure, while retrievability was chiefly related to the degree of surface similarity. Ratings of the similarity of the pairs did not predict the retrievability ordering, arguing against the possibility that the retrieval ordering simply reflected overall similarity. Further, a fourth study demonstrated that subjects given a forced-choice recognition task could discriminate between possible matches on the basis of relational structure, ruling out the possibility that the poor relational retrieval resulted from forgetting or failing to encode the relational structure. We conclude that there is a dissociation between the similarity that governs access to long-term memory and that which is used in evaluating and reasoning from a present match. We describe a model, called MAC/FAC ("Many are called but few are chosen"), that uses a two-stage similarity retrieval process to model these findings. Finally, we speculate on the implications of this view for learning and transfer.

Adult↗