scholarly journals Dynamic interactions between top-down expectations and conscious awareness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik L. Meijs ◽  
Heleen A. Slagter ◽  
Floris P. de Lange ◽  
Simon van Gaal
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Blink ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Prediction Errors ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Electrophysiological Recordings ◽  
Stimulus Perception ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

AbstractIt is well known that top-down expectations affect perceptual processes. Yet, remarkably little is known about the relationship between expectations and conscious awareness We address three crucial questions that are outstanding: 1) How do predictions affect the likelihood of conscious stimulus perception?; 2) Does the brain register violations of predictions nonconsciously?; and 3) Do predictions need to be conscious to influence perceptual decisions? We performed three experiments in which we manipulated stimulus predictability within the attentional blink paradigm, while combining visual psychophysics with electrophysiological recordings. We found that valid stimulus expectations increase the likelihood of conscious access of stimuli. Furthermore, our findings suggest a clear dissociation in the interaction between expectations and consciousness: conscious awareness seems crucial for the implementation of top-down predictions, but not for the bottom-up generation of stimulus-evoked prediction errors. These results constrain and update influential theories about the role of consciousness in the predictive brain.

scholarly journals Państwo – polityka – Internet. Rola nowych mediów w funkcjonowaniu współczesnych systemów politycznych

1970 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 47-67
Author(s):  
Łukasz Rogowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
New Media ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Digital Citizenship ◽  
Election Campaigns ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The Relationship

The article presents the relationship between the Internet, the state and politics. It starts from describing similarities between politics and social aspects of the Internet. This is described in the context of Web 2.0, collective intelligence, informal circuits of cultural content and multitasking. Then two perspectives of the functioning of the Internet in the contemporary state and politics are shown. The first, which is a top-down perspective, describes the concepts of e-government and e-participation. The second one, which is bottom-up, refers to new types of election campaigns as well as the role of new media in social change. In conclusion, there are some questions regarding cyberdemocracy and digital citizenship.

Resilience

2019 ◽  
pp. 286-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Alexander ◽  
Justine Megan Gatt
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Control Networks ◽  
Effective Interventions ◽  
Adaptive Recovery ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Over Time

Resilience refers to the process of adaptive recovery following adversity or trauma. It is likely to include an intertwined series of dynamic interactions between neural, developmental, environmental, genetic, and epigenetic factors over time. Neuroscientific research suggests the potential role of the brain’s threat and reward systems, as well as executive control networks. Developmental research provides insight into how the environment may affect these neural systems across the lifespan towards greater risk or resilience to stress. Genetic work has revealed numerous targets that alter key neurochemical systems in the brain to influence mental health. Current challenges include ambiguities in the definition and measurement of resilience and a simplified focus on resilience as the absence of psychopathology, irrespective of levels of positive mental functioning. Greater emphasis on understanding the protective aspects of resilience and related well-being outcomes are important to delineate the unique neurobiological factors that underpin this process, so that effective interventions can be developed to assist vulnerable populations and resilience promotion.

scholarly journals Exploring the role of expectations and stimulus relevance on stimulus-specific neural representations and conscious report

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik L Meijs ◽  
Pim Mostert ◽  
Heleen A Slagter ◽  
Floris P de Lange ◽  
Simon van Gaal
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Blink ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Dependent Signal ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Abstract Subjective experience can be influenced by top-down factors, such as expectations and stimulus relevance. Recently, it has been shown that expectations can enhance the likelihood that a stimulus is consciously reported, but the neural mechanisms supporting this enhancement are still unclear. We manipulated stimulus expectations within the attentional blink (AB) paradigm using letters and combined visual psychophysics with magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings to investigate whether prior expectations may enhance conscious access by sharpening stimulus-specific neural representations. We further explored how stimulus-specific neural activity patterns are affected by the factors expectation, stimulus relevance and conscious report. First, we show that valid expectations about the identity of an upcoming stimulus increase the likelihood that it is consciously reported. Second, using a series of multivariate decoding analyses, we show that the identity of letters presented in and out of the AB can be reliably decoded from MEG data. Third, we show that early sensory stimulus-specific neural representations are similar for reported and missed target letters in the AB task (active report required) and an oddball task in which the letter was clearly presented but its identity was task-irrelevant. However, later sustained and stable stimulus-specific representations were uniquely observed when target letters were consciously reported (decision-dependent signal). Fourth, we show that global pre-stimulus neural activity biased perceptual decisions for a ‘seen’ response. Fifth and last, no evidence was obtained for the sharpening of sensory representations by top-down expectations. We discuss these findings in light of emerging models of perception and conscious report highlighting the role of expectations and stimulus relevance.

Part II The Relationship to Domestic Jurisdictions, 10 Admissibility Challenges before the ICC: From Quasi-Primacy to Qualified Deference?

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stahn Carsten
Keyword(s):  
Top Down ◽  
Domestic Jurisdiction ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Domestic Level

The ICC has faced admissibility challenges under Article 19 of the Statute in a number of situations and cases. The Court has set a high jurisprudential threshold through its interpretation of the ‘same conduct test’ under Article 17. The Libyan cases (Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi and Abdullah Al-Senussi) have provided some leeway for domestic jurisdictions. But jurisprudence continues to rely on top-down approaches and ‘mirroring’ imagery that is geared towards the replication of international practices at the domestic level. The role of time and the space for parallel engagement of the ICC and domestic jurisdictions have not received sufficient attention. This chapter argues that the modalities of deference to domestic jurisdiction need to be refined. It suggests that some of the existing deficiencies may be mitigated by greater attention to qualified deference, i.e. management of parallel proceedings, strengthening of monitoring structures, and clarification of conditions of deference (‘conditional admissibility’).

scholarly journals Kynurenic acid and cancer: facts and controversies

2019 ◽  
Vol 77 (8) ◽  
pp. 1531-1550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Walczak ◽  
Artur Wnorowski ◽  
Waldemar A. Turski ◽  
Tomasz Plech
Keyword(s):  
Kynurenic Acid ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Cancer Cell Proliferation ◽  
Gastrointestinal Microbiota ◽  
Tryptophan Metabolite ◽  
Peripheral Cells ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Kynurenic acid (KYNA) is an endogenous tryptophan metabolite exerting neuroprotective and anticonvulsant properties in the brain. However, its importance on the periphery is still not fully elucidated. KYNA is produced endogenously in various types of peripheral cells, tissues and by gastrointestinal microbiota. Furthermore, it was found in several products of daily human diet and its absorption in the digestive tract was evidenced. More recent studies were focused on the potential role of KYNA in carcinogenesis and cancer therapy; however, the results were ambiguous and the biological activity of KYNA in these processes has not been unequivocally established. This review aims to summarize the current views on the relationship between KYNA and cancer. The differences in KYNA concentration between physiological conditions and cancer, as well as KYNA production by both normal and cancer cells, will be discussed. The review also describes the effect of KYNA on cancer cell proliferation and the known potential molecular mechanisms of this activity.

Drugs and Drug Policy

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A.R. Kleiman ◽  
Jonathan P. Caulkins ◽  
Angela Hawken
Keyword(s):  
Drug Policy ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Control Drug ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Drugs And Crime ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Drug Free ◽  
The Brain

While there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs, explicit public policies--regulations, taxes, and prohibitions--designed to control drug abuse are a more recent phenomenon. Those policies sometimes have terrible side-effects: most prominently the development of criminal enterprises dealing in forbidden (or untaxed) drugs and the use of the profits of drug-dealing to finance insurgency and terrorism. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer, leaving citizens and officials to face the age-old problem: What are we going to do about drugs? In Drugs and Drug Policy, three noted authorities survey the subject with exceptional clarity, in this addition to the acclaimed series, What Everyone Needs to Know. They begin by, defining "drugs, " examining how they work in the brain, discussing the nature of addiction, and exploring the damage they do to users. The book moves on to policy, answering questions about legalization, the role of criminal prohibitions, and the relative legal tolerance for alcohol and tobacco. The authors then dissect the illicit trade, from street dealers to the flow of money to the effect of catching kingpins, and show the precise nature of the relationship between drugs and crime. They examine treatment, both its effectiveness and the role of public policy, and discuss the beneficial effects of some abusable substances. Finally they move outward to look at the role of drugs in our foreign policy, their relationship to terrorism, and the ugly politics that surround the issue. Crisp, clear, and comprehensive, this is a handy and up-to-date overview of one of the most pressing topics in today's world.

scholarly journals Associative learning and animal cognition

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1603) ◽  
pp. 2733-2742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
Associative Learning ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Prediction Errors ◽  
Associative Processes ◽  
Directed Action ◽  
Processing Architectures ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Component

Associative learning plays a variety of roles in the study of animal cognition from a core theoretical component to a null hypothesis against which the contribution of cognitive processes is assessed. Two developments in contemporary associative learning have enhanced its relevance to animal cognition. The first concerns the role of associatively activated representations, whereas the second is the development of hybrid theories in which learning is determined by prediction errors, both directly and indirectly through associability processes. However, it remains unclear whether these developments allow associative theory to capture the psychological rationality of cognition. I argue that embodying associative processes within specific processing architectures provides mechanisms that can mediate psychological rationality and illustrate such embodiment by discussing the relationship between practical reasoning and the associative-cybernetic model of goal-directed action.

scholarly journals Task errors contribute to implicit remapping in sensorimotor adaptation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li-Ann Leow ◽  
Welber Marinovic ◽  
Aymar de Rugy ◽  
Timothy J Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Feedback ◽  
Hand Position ◽  
Sensorimotor Adaptation ◽  
Prediction Errors ◽  
Reward Prediction ◽  
Strategic Processes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Sensory Prediction ◽  
Or Task

AbstractPerturbations of sensory feedback evoke sensory prediction errors (discrepancies between predicted and actual sensory outcomes of movements), and reward prediction errors (discrepancies between predicted rewards and actual rewards). Sensory prediction errors result in obligatory remapping of the relationship between motor commands and predicted sensory outcomes. The role of reward prediction errors in sensorimotor adaptation is less clear. When moving towards a target, we expect to obtain the reward of hitting the target, and so we experience a reward prediction error if the perturbation causes us to miss it. These discrepancies between desired task outcomes and actual task outcomes, or “task errors”, are thought to drive the use of strategic processes to restore success, although their role is not fully understood. Here, we investigated the role of task errors in sensorimotor adaptation: during target-reaching, we either removed task errors by moving the target mid-movement to align with cursor feedback of hand position, or enforced task error by moving the target away from the cursor feedback of hand position. Removing task errors not only reduced the rate and extent of adaptation during exposure to the perturbation, but also reduced the amount of post-adaptation implicit remapping. Hence, task errors contribute to implicit remapping resulting from sensory prediction errors. This suggests that the system which implicitly acquires new sensorimotor maps via exposure to sensory prediction errors is also sensitive to reward prediction errors.

scholarly journals The cutaneous borders of interoception: Active and social inference of pain and pleasure on the skin

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana von Mohr ◽  
Aikaterini Fotopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Active Inference ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Social Inference ◽  
Brain Levels ◽  
The Brain

Pain and pleasant touch have been recently classified as interoceptive modalities. This reclassification lies at the heart of long-standing debates questioning whether these modalities should be defined as sensations on their basis of neurophysiological specificity at the periphery or as homeostatic emotions on the basis of top-down convergence and modulation at the spinal and brain levels. Here, we outline the literature on the peripheral and central neurophysiology of pain and pleasant touch. We next recast this literature within a recent Bayesian predictive coding framework, namely active inference. This recasting puts forward a unifying model of bottom-up and top-down determinants of pain and pleasant touch and the role of social factors in modulating the salience of peripheral signals reaching the brain.

scholarly journals The Change in William I. Thomas’s View of Biology

Stan Rzeczy ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 75-94
Author(s):  
Łukasz Remisiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Psychological Development ◽  
Departure Point ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

In this article the author shows how the exploding role of biology in William Thomas’s sociology and social psychology has changed. Since the beginning of his career, this researcher addressed numerous topics that involved both biological and social factors – he commented on the nature of gender, race, instincts, prejudice and evolution. His departure point was biologism, which proclaimed that innate predispositions are a variable independent of social processes. In the following years, Thomas changed his beliefs, recognising that it was culture and society that left its mark on physiological and psychological development. The changes in Thomas’s reasoning are described by the author against the background of past and present views on the relationship between society and the brain, claiming that his late views could resonate with today’s approaches.

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