Evidence of Change of Intention in Picking Situations

Intending to perform an action and then immediately executing it is a mundane process. The cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in this process of “proximal” intention formation and execution, in the face of multiple options to choose from, are not clear, however. Especially, it is not clear how intentions are formed when the choice makes no difference. Here we used behavioral and electrophysiological measures to investigate the temporal dynamics of proximal intention formation and “change of intention” in a free picking scenario, in which the alternatives are on a par for the participant. Participants pressed a right or left button following either an instructive visible arrow cue or a visible neutral “free-choice” cue, both preceded by a masked arrow prime. The goal of the prime was to induce a bias toward pressing the left or right button. Presumably, when the choice is arbitrary, such bias should determine the decision. EEG lateralized readiness potentials and EMG measurements revealed that the prime indeed induced an intention to move in one direction. However, we discovered a signature of “change of intention” in both the Instructed and Free-choice decisions. These results suggest that, even in arbitrary choices, biases present in the neural system for choosing one or another option may be overruled and point to a curious “picking deliberation” phenomenon. We discuss a possible neural scenario that could explain this phenomenon.

Event-Related Correlations in Learning Impaired Children during a Hybrid Go/No-Go Choice Reaction Visual-Motor Task

One hundred sixty-nine learning impaired (LI) and 71 non-learning impaired (NLI) children underwent a hybrid go/no-go choice reaction time visual-motor task to study the behavioral and physiological fundamentals of learning disorders. A left button was pressed for Left Arrow (LA) stimuli, a right for Right Arrow (RA) stimuli, none (no-go) for a non-directional arrow. Stimulus specific visual evoked potentials were formed and, with PZ as index electrode, were lag-correlated to frontal electrodes to form Event-Related Correlations (ERC). Exploratory t-statistic significance probability maps (t-SPM) were used to define regions of interest (ROI). Behaviorally, there was a right-hand advantage over the left in the NLI group, but less in the LI group. Electrophysiologically, RA and LA conditions increased correlation between visual areas (PZ) and contralateral frontal areas (F3 and F4). A unilateral ROI, at electrode FC1, also preceded both left- and right-handed responses. Neurobehaviorally, increased visual-motor correlation was associated with better performance, especially for the left hemisphere, at F3 and FC1. Surprisingly, visual-motor correlations were not associated with performance for the NLI group in the RA and no-go condition. Our data support previously reported difficulties of learning impaired children in low-level information processing. Furthermore, we hypothesize that LI, in contrast to NLI children, demonstrate difficulty in automatizing routine tasks.