Digital Commons Network^™

Feedback And Focus: Exploring Post-Secondary Students’ Perceptions Of Feedback, Mindfulness, And Stress, Cecilia S, Dong, Erin Isings, Samantha M. Jones, Hugh Samson, Lisa Mccorquodale, Thomas G. W. Telfer, Tracey Ropp, Christine E. Bell

FIMS Publications

Addressing feedback-associated stress as a barrier to learning is increasingly relevant to student success and well-being. Mindfulness practices support stress management for students during the academic feedback process. Even if students receive high-quality feedback, the receiving end of feedback can be stressful, perhaps raising feelings of anxiety, confusion, or inadequacy. Feedback literacy and mindfulness practices complement one another. Mindfulness can potentially support feedback literacy by focusing one’s attention on the tasks needed to address feedback, instead of being distracted by emotions triggered by feedback. This study, comprised of an online survey (n = 237) and focus groups (n …

Assessing The Impact Of Lipopolysaccharide On Learning And Memory In Rats, Anahat Luthra

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

The immune system and the central nervous system (CNS) have a bi-direction relationship, modulating one another.⁴ Proinflammatory cytokines released from CNS immune cells have an impact on cognitive processes such as learning and memory.¹ Liposaccharide (LPS), a cell wall component of Gram-negative bacteria, which is used to activate proinflammatory cytokine release has been found to impact learning and memory processes, such as in the anticipatory nausea paradigm (ANP).² Anticipatory nausea and vomiting is that which may occur before a chemotherapy treatment session begins in a patient who has had chemotherapy before. It is caused by triggers like …

Developmental Differences In The Learning And Consolidation Of Linguistic Regularities, Sarah Berger

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Relative to adults, children have a well-known advantage for learning linguistic regularities, which could be partially driven by their deeper sleep. To examine the relationship between consolidation and language learning across development, children and adults learned a novel article system with an implicit grammatical rule. Participants performed a judgment task on phrases containing the novel articles before and after a night of EEG-monitored sleep. We found that rule sensitivity emerged rapidly in children, whereas it did not emerge until the second session in adults. Children demonstrated better generalization of the rule than adults. Consolidation effects showed a developmental double dissociation, …

The Impact Of Levodopa Administration On Learning From Short-Term And Long-Term Action Consequences: A Paradigm Validation., Masood Rezaei

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Behavioral and neuroimaging studies have identified two valuation systems in the human brain for controlling behavior known as model-free (MF) and model-based (MB). MF is based on immediate evaluation and MB is based on long-term evaluation of the outcome of our decisions. Previous studies suggest that dopamine baseline activity may play an important role in the balance between the two systems and determine how they compete or interact in controlling our actions. The overarching aims of this study is to investigate the impact of levodopa administration on learning from immediate and long-term action consequences, and to dissociate the role of …

Striatum-Mediated Deficits In Stimulus-Response Learning And Decision-Making In Ocd, Nole M. Hiebert, Marc R. Lawrence, Hooman Ganjavi, Mark Watling, Adrian M. Owen, Ken N. Seergobin, Penny A. Macdonald

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© Copyright © 2020 Hiebert, Lawrence, Ganjavi, Watling, Owen, Seergobin and MacDonald. Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a prevalent psychiatric disorder characterized by obsessions and compulsions. Studies investigating symptomatology and cognitive deficits in OCD frequently implicate the striatum. The aim of this study was to explore striatum-mediated cognitive deficits in patients with OCD as they complete a stimulus-response learning task previously shown to differentially rely on the dorsal (DS) and ventral striatum (VS). We hypothesized that patients with OCD will show both impaired decision-making and learning, coupled with reduced task-relevant activity in DS and VS, respectively, compared to healthy controls. …

Translational Tests Involving Non-Reward: Methodological Considerations, Benjamin U. Phillips, Laura Lopez-Cruz, Lisa M. Saksida, Timothy J. Bussey

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2018, The Author(s). This review is concerned with methods for assessing the processing of unrewarded responses in experimental animals and the mechanisms underlying performance of these tasks. A number of clinical populations, including Parkinson’s disease, depression, compulsive disorders, and schizophrenia demonstrate either abnormal processing or learning from non-rewarded responses in laboratory-based reinforcement learning tasks. These effects are hypothesized to result from disturbances in modulatory neurotransmitter systems, including dopamine and serotonin. Parallel work in experimental animals has revealed consistent behavioral patterns associated with non-reward and, consistent with the human literature, modulatory roles for specific neurotransmitters. Classical tests involving an important …

Impaired Object-Location Learning And Recognition Memory But Enhanced Sustained Attention In M2 Muscarinic Receptor-Deficient Mice, Carola Romberg, Susan Bartko, Jürgen Wess, Lisa M. Saksida, Timothy J. Bussey

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2018, The Author(s). Rationale: Muscarinic acetylcholine receptors are known to play key roles in mediating cognitive processes, and impaired muscarinic cholinergic neurotransmission is associated with normal ageing processes and Alzheimer’s disease. However, the specific contributions of the individual muscarinic receptor subtypes (M1–M5) to cognition are presently not well understood. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the contribution of M2-type muscarinic receptor signalling to sustained attention, executive control and learning and memory. Methods: M2 receptor-deficient (M2−/−) mice were tested on a touchscreen-operated task battery testing visual discrimination, behavioural flexibility, object-location associative learning, attention and response control. Spontaneous …

Imidacloprid Impairs Performance On A Model Flower Handling Task In Bumblebees (Bombus Impatiens), Jordan D. Phelps

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Bumblebees exposed to neonicotinoid pesticides collect less pollen on foraging trips. Exposed bumblebees are also slower to learn to handle flowers, which may account for reduced pollen collection. It is unclear, however, why neonicotinoid exposure slows learning to handle flowers. I investigated the effect of imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid pesticide, on bumblebee motor learning using a lab model of flower handling. Bumblebees learned to invert inside a narrow tube and lift a petal-shaped barrier to reach a reward chamber. Imidacloprid-exposed bumblebees showed a dose-dependent delay to solve the task, which resulted from reduced switching between behavioural strategies and a subsequent delay …

Standing And Dynamic Sitting In The University Classroom, Siobhan Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Students almost exclusively sit in class, which translates to large amounts of forced sedentary behaviour and this in turn may have negative health consequences. The effect alternative postures have on classroom performance of university students remains unknown.

Using a randomized counterbalanced design, pilot study 1 (N=40) and 2 (N=20) investigated the effect of alternative postures on 3-minute and 50-minute classroom performance, respectively. In study 3, university students’ (N=1005) and faculty (N=218) acceptability to alternative workstations in the university classroom was assessed using a mixed method approach.

This thesis provides preliminary evidence that there is no difference between classic sitting, dynamic …

Vocabulary Learning Benefits From Rem After Slow-Wave Sleep., Laura J Batterink, Carmen E Westerberg, Ken A Paller

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Memory reactivation during slow-wave sleep (SWS) influences the consolidation of recently acquired knowledge. This reactivation occurs spontaneously during sleep but can also be triggered by presenting learning-related cues, a technique known as targeted memory reactivation (TMR). Here we examined whether TMR can improve vocabulary learning. Participants learned the meanings of 60 novel words. Auditory cues for half the words were subsequently presented during SWS in an afternoon nap. Memory performance for cued versus uncued words did not differ at the group level but was systematically influenced by REM sleep duration. Participants who obtained relatively greater amounts of REM showed a …

Rapid Statistical Learning Supporting Word Extraction From Continuous Speech., Laura J Batterink

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The identification of words in continuous speech, known as speech segmentation, is a critical early step in language acquisition. This process is partially supported by statistical learning, the ability to extract patterns from the environment. Given that speech segmentation represents a potential bottleneck for language acquisition, patterns in speech may be extracted very rapidly, without extensive exposure. This hypothesis was examined by exposing participants to continuous speech streams composed of novel repeating nonsense words. Learning was measured on-line using a reaction time task. After merely one exposure to an embedded novel word, learners demonstrated significant learning effects, as revealed by …

Online Neural Monitoring Of Statistical Learning., Laura J Batterink, Ken A Paller

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The extraction of patterns in the environment plays a critical role in many types of human learning, from motor skills to language acquisition. This process is known as statistical learning. Here we propose that statistical learning has two dissociable components: (1) perceptual binding of individual stimulus units into integrated composites and (2) storing those integrated representations for later use. Statistical learning is typically assessed using post-learning tasks, such that the two components are conflated. Our goal was to characterize the online perceptual component of statistical learning. Participants were exposed to a structured stream of repeating trisyllabic nonsense words and a …

Dose-Related Sex Differences In The Establishment Of Conditioned Disgust (Anticipatory Nausea), And The Effect Of Peripubertal And Adult Immune System Stimulation With The Endotoxin Lipopolysaccharide (Lps) On Learning And Memory In The Rat, Caylen J. Cloutier

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examined sex differences in the establishment of lithium chloride (LiCl) – induced conditioned disgust behavior (anticipatory nausea) to a distinct context, as well as, the establishment of conditioned place avoidance (CPA) using rodent models. Also examined were potential sex differences in response to treatment with the bacterial endotoxin, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and its effect on learning and memory. In Chapter 2, male and female naïve Long-Evans rats were injected (intraperitoneally; i.p.) with either 200 µg/kg LPS or 0.9% (NaCl), 90 minutes prior to i.p. injections of either 128 mg/kg LiCl or 0.9% NaCl, and immediately placed into a distinctive …

Neural Measures Reveal Implicit Learning During Language Processing., Laura J Batterink, Larry Y Cheng, Ken A Paller

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Language input is highly variable; phonological, lexical, and syntactic features vary systematically across different speakers, geographic regions, and social contexts. Previous evidence shows that language users are sensitive to these contextual changes and that they can rapidly adapt to local regularities. For example, listeners quickly adjust to accented speech, facilitating comprehension. It has been proposed that this type of adaptation is a form of implicit learning. This study examined a similar type of adaptation, syntactic adaptation, to address two issues: (1) whether language comprehenders are sensitive to a subtle probabilistic contingency between an extraneous feature (font color) and syntactic structure …

Dancing In The Dark: Sleep-Dependent Motor Skill Memory Consolidation And Periodic Limb Movement Disorder, Valya Sergeeva

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (PLMD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by dysfunction of the striatum and brief, repetitive limb movements during sleep. PLMD can severely disrupt non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Motor skills learning and memory consolidation are dependent on striatal activation, the latter enhanced by NREM sleep. Therefore, we investigated whether individuals with PLMD had learning and sleep-related memory deficits, and whether this putative deficit was related to sleep quality or symptom severity. 14 adults with a PLM index >15/hr underwent two nights (baseline, training) of polysomnographic recording. 15 age-matched healthy controls underwent three nights (baseline, undisturbed training and …

Functional Plasticity In Somatosensory Cortex Supports Motor Learning By Observing., Heather R Mcgregor, Joshua G A Cashaback, Paul L Gribble

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

An influential idea in neuroscience is that the sensory-motor system is activated when observing the actions of others [1, 2]. This idea has recently been extended to motor learning, in which observation results in sensory-motor plasticity and behavioral changes in both motor and somatosensory domains [3-9]. However, it is unclear how the brain maps visual information onto motor circuits for learning. Here we test the idea that the somatosensory system, and specifically primary somatosensory cortex (S1), plays a role in motor learning by observing. In experiment 1, we applied stimulation to the median nerve to occupy the somatosensory system with …

Category Learning In Older Adulthood: A Study Of The Shepard, Hovland, And Jenkins (1961) Tasks., Rahel Rabi, John Paul Minda

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Shepard, Hovland, and Jenkins (1961) examined the categorization abilities of younger adults using tasks involving single-dimensional rule learning, disjunctive rule learning, and family resemblance learning. The current study examined category learning in older adults using this well-known category set. Older adults, like younger adults, found category tasks with a single relevant dimension the easiest to learn. In contrast to younger adults, older adults found complex disjunctive rule-based categories harder to learn than family resemblance based categories. Disjunctive rule-based category learning appeared to be the most difficult for older adults to learn because this category set placed the heaviest demands on …

Sensory Plasticity In Human Motor Learning., David J Ostry, Paul L Gribble

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

There is accumulating evidence from behavioral, neurophysiological, and neuroimaging studies that the acquisition of motor skills involves both perceptual and motor learning. Perceptual learning alters movements, motor learning, and motor networks of the brain. Motor learning changes perceptual function and the sensory circuits of the brain. Here, we review studies of both human limb movement and speech that indicate that plasticity in sensory and motor systems is reciprocally linked. Taken together, this points to an approach to motor learning in which perceptual learning and sensory plasticity have a fundamental role.

Contrasting Styles In Cognition And Behaviour In Bumblebees And Honeybees., David F Sherry, Caroline G Strang

Psychology Publications

Bumblebees and honeybees have been the subjects of a great deal of recent research in animal cognition. Many of the major topics in cognition, including memory, attention, concept learning, numerosity, spatial cognition, timing, social learning, and metacognition have been examined in bumblebees, honeybees, or both. Although bumblebees and honeybees are very closely related, they also differ in important ways, including social organization, development, and foraging behaviour. We examine whether differences between bumblebees and honeybees in cognitive processes are related to differences in their natural history and behaviour. There are differences in some cognitive traits, such as serial reversal learning and …

Changes In Visual And Sensory-Motor Resting-State Functional Connectivity Support Motor Learning By Observing., Heather R Mcgregor, Paul L Gribble

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Motor learning occurs not only through direct first-hand experience but also through observation (Mattar AA, Gribble PL. Neuron 46: 153-160, 2005). When observing the actions of others, we activate many of the same brain regions involved in performing those actions ourselves (Malfait N, Valyear KF, Culham JC, Anton JL, Brown LE, Gribble PL. J Cogn Neurosci 22: 1493-1503, 2010). Links between neural systems for vision and action have been reported in neurophysiological (Strafella AP, Paus T. Neuroreport 11: 2289-2292, 2000; Watkins KE, Strafella AP, Paus T. Neuropsychologia 41: 989-994, 2003), brain imaging (Buccino G, Binkofski F, Fink GR, Fadiga L, …

Connectionist Perspectives On Language Learning, Representation And Processing., Marc F Joanisse, James L Mcclelland

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The field of formal linguistics was founded on the premise that language is mentally represented as a deterministic symbolic grammar. While this approach has captured many important characteristics of the world's languages, it has also led to a tendency to focus theoretical questions on the correct formalization of grammatical rules while also de-emphasizing the role of learning and statistics in language development and processing. In this review we present a different approach to language research that has emerged from the parallel distributed processing or 'connectionist' enterprise. In the connectionist framework, mental operations are studied by simulating learning and processing within …

Motor Skill Learning Between Selection And Execution., Jörn Diedrichsen, Katja Kornysheva

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Learning motor skills evolves from the effortful selection of single movement elements to their combined fast and accurate production. We review recent trends in the study of skill learning which suggest a hierarchical organization of the representations that underlie such expert performance, with premotor areas encoding short sequential movement elements (chunks) or particular component features (timing/spatial organization). This hierarchical representation allows the system to utilize elements of well-learned skills in a flexible manner. One neural correlate of skill development is the emergence of specialized neural circuits that can produce the required elements in a stable and invariant fashion. We discuss …

Mirror Reversal And Visual Rotation Are Learned And Consolidated Via Separate Mechanisms: Recalibrating Or Learning De Novo?, Sebastian Telgen, Darius Parvin, Jörn Diedrichsen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Motor learning tasks are often classified into adaptation tasks, which involve the recalibration of an existing control policy (the mapping that determines both feedforward and feedback commands), and skill-learning tasks, requiring the acquisition of new control policies. We show here that this distinction also applies to two different visuomotor transformations during reaching in humans: Mirror-reversal (left-right reversal over a mid-sagittal axis) of visual feedback versus rotation of visual feedback around the movement origin. During mirror-reversal learning, correct movement initiation (feedforward commands) and online corrections (feedback responses) were only generated at longer latencies. The earliest responses were directed into a nonmirrored …

Role Of Search, Human Capital And Learning In Occupational Mobility And Immigrant Assimilation, Masashi Miyairi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis contains three studies of job and occupational mobility, and their implications for earnings. The second chapter of the thesis develops and estimates a model of job and occupational search to examine how and how much learning influences young workers' job search and transition patterns. The model incorporates uncertainty regarding the accumulation processes of workers' different skills, and features directed search whereby workers choose search effort intensities for different occupations. The model is estimated using U.S. data, with individuals' occupational affiliations grouped into skilled white-collar, skilled blue-collar, and non-skilled occupations. The estimates show large differences in search frictions, skill …

Continuous Executive Function Disruption Interferes With Application Of An Information Integration Categorization Strategy., Sarah J Miles, Kazunaga Matsuki, John Paul Minda

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Category learning is often characterized as being supported by two separate learning systems. A verbal system learns rule-defined (RD) categories that can be described using a verbal rule and relies on executive functions (EFs) to learn via hypothesis testing. A nonverbal system learns non-rule-defined (NRD) categories that cannot be described by a verbal rule and uses automatic, procedural learning. The verbal system is dominant in that adults tend to use it during initial learning but may switch to the nonverbal system when the verbal system is unsuccessful. The nonverbal system has traditionally been thought to operate independently of EFs, but …

Effector-Independent Motor Sequence Representations Exist In Extrinsic And Intrinsic Reference Frames., Tobias Wiestler, Sheena Waters-Metenier, Jörn Diedrichsen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Many daily activities rely on the ability to produce meaningful sequences of movements. Motor sequences can be learned in an effector-specific fashion (such that benefits of training are restricted to the trained hand) or an effector-independent manner (meaning that learning also facilitates performance with the untrained hand). Effector-independent knowledge can be represented in extrinsic/world-centered or in intrinsic/body-centered coordinates. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and multivoxel pattern analysis to determine the distribution of intrinsic and extrinsic finger sequence representations across the human neocortex. Participants practiced four sequences with one hand for 4 d, and then performed these sequences …

Bihemispheric Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Enhances Effector-Independent Representations Of Motor Synergy And Sequence Learning., Sheena Waters-Metenier, Masud Husain, Tobias Wiestler, Jörn Diedrichsen

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Complex manual tasks-everything from buttoning up a shirt to playing the piano-fundamentally involve two components: (1) generating specific patterns of muscle activity (here, termed "synergies"); and (2) stringing these into purposeful sequences. Although transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the primary motor cortex (M1) has been found to increase the learning of motor sequences, it is unknown whether it can similarly facilitate motor synergy learning. Here, we determined the effects of tDCS on the learning of motor synergies using a novel hand configuration task that required the production of difficult muscular activation patterns. Bihemispheric tDCS was applied to M1 of …

Observing Object Lifting Errors Modulates Cortico-Spinal Excitability And Improves Object Lifting Performance., Gavin Buckingham, Jeremy D Wong, Minnie Tang, Paul L Gribble, Melvyn A Goodale

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Observing the actions of others has been shown to modulate cortico-spinal excitability and affect behaviour. However, the sensorimotor consequences of observing errors are not well understood. Here, participants watched actors lift identically weighted large and small cubes which typically elicit expectation-based fingertip force errors. One group of participants observed the standard overestimation and underestimation-style errors that characterise early lifts with these cubes (Error video--EV). Another group watched the same actors performing the well-adapted error-free lifts that characterise later, well-practiced lifts with these cubes (No error video--NEV). We then examined actual object lifting performance in the subjects who watched the EV …

Sign Language Ability In Young Deaf Signers Predicts Comprehension Of Written Sentences In English., Kathy N Andrew, Jennifer Hoshooley, Marc F Joanisse

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

We investigated the robust correlation between American Sign Language (ASL) and English reading ability in 51 young deaf signers ages 7;3 to 19;0. Signers were divided into 'skilled' and 'less-skilled' signer groups based on their performance on three measures of ASL. We next assessed reading comprehension of four English sentence structures (actives, passives, pronouns, reflexive pronouns) using a sentence-to-picture-matching task. Of interest was the extent to which ASL proficiency provided a foundation for lexical and syntactic processes of English. Skilled signers outperformed less-skilled signers overall. Error analyses further indicated greater single-word recognition difficulties in less-skilled signers marked by a higher …

Dopaminergic Medication Impairs Feedback-Based Stimulus-Response Learning But Not Response Selection In Parkinson's Disease., Andrew Vo, Nole M Hiebert, Ken N Seergobin, Stephanie Solcz, Allison Partridge, Penny A Macdonald

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Cognitive dysfunction is a feature of Parkinson's Disease (PD). Some cognitive functions are impaired by dopaminergic medications prescribed to address the movement symptoms that typify PD. Learning appears to be the cognitive function most frequently worsened by dopaminergic therapy. However, this result could reflect either impairments in learning (i.e., acquisition of associations among stimuli, responses, and outcomes) or deficits in performance based on learning (e.g., selecting responses). We sought to clarify the specific effects of dopaminergic medication on (a) stimulus-response association learning from outcome feedback and (b) response selection based on learning, in PD. We tested 28 PD patients on …