The research reported in this article was supported by a grant of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to Christian Frings (FR 2133/1-2).

The protocol follows the ethical guidelines of the American Psychological Association and the World Medical Association (revised declaration of Helsinki, 1989).
1. General Experimental Setup
<ol>
	<li>Collect data, concerning distractor-response binding effects, in reaction time experiments via computer.</li>
</ol>
2. Preparation of the Experiment
<ol>
	<li>Use a standard experimental software to program the experiment. Most of the previous studies used E-Prime.</li>
	<li>Decide on the stimulus material. Distractor-response binding has been shown with single letters, digits, colored dots, icons, and locations.</li>
	<li>Create one stimulus set from which both targets and distractors will be drawn. For example, this set can include the eight letters S, D, F, G, H, J, K, and L.
	<ol>
		<li>Separate the stimulus set into four groups and assign one response to each group. For example, assign S and D to a button press with the left middle finger, F and G to a button press with the left index Finger, H and J to a button press with the right index finger, and K and L to a button press with the right middle finger.</li>
		<li>Decide on a stimulus arrangement. Be sure to present target and distractor stimuli in a grouped fashion. Gestalt principles help to implement grouping of stimuli. For example, present letters in a horizontal rather than a vertical line.</li>
		<li>Decide on the criterion for target selection. This can remain unchanged throughout the experiment, but it can also be indicated before each display. For example, present targets and distractors in a horizontal line, and define certain locations to contain the target (e.g. &#8220;DKDKD&#8221;, with K as the target and D as the distractor). Use the same stimulus arrangement for all displays throughout the experiment.</li>
	</ol>
	</li>
	<li>Prepare six different kinds of trial types (i.e. prime probe sequences), orthogonally varying response relation (response repetition with same target vs. response repetition with different targets vs. response change) and distractor relation (distractor repetition vs. distractor change). In each prime and each probe arrangement, be careful to combine distractors and targets that are mapped to different responses.
	<ol>
		<li>For trial type RRi-DR, implement response repetition between the response to the prime target and the response to the probe target by presenting the same target stimulus identity on the prime and the probe display. Implement distractor repetition by presenting the same distractor stimulus on the prime and the probe display.</li>
		<li>For trial type RRi-DC, implement response repetition by presenting the same target stimulus identity on the prime and the probe display. Implement distractor change by presenting different distractor stimuli on the prime and the probe display.</li>
		<li>For trial type RR-DR, implement response repetition by presenting a target stimulus from the same response category on the prime and the probe display. Implement distractor repetition by presenting the same distractor stimulus on the prime and the probe display.</li>
		<li>For trial type RR-DC, implement response repetition by presenting a target stimulus from the same response category on the prime and the probe display. Implement distractor change by presenting different distractor stimuli on the prime and the probe display.</li>
		<li>For trial type RC-DR, implement response change by presenting a target stimulus from different response categories on the prime and the probe display. Implement distractor repetition by presenting the same distractor stimulus on the prime and the probe display.</li>
		<li>For trial type RC-DC, implement response change by presenting a target stimulus from different response categories on the prime and the probe display. Implement distractor change by presenting different distractor stimuli on the prime and the probe display.</li>
	</ol>
	</li>
	<li>Under the restrictions defined by the respective trial type, randomly assign stimuli from the stimulus set to the roles of prime target, prime distractor, probe target and probe distractor. Remember to be careful in each prime and each probe arrangement to use distractors that are mapped to a different than the target response. Do the assignments for each trial type and repeat this 30x, resulting in 180 trials.</li>
	<li>Randomize the order of the 180 trials.</li>
	<li>Use a random sample of 60 trials for a practice block.</li>
</ol>
3. Experimental Procedure
<ol>
	<li>Welcome participant(s) and assign computers. Testing in groups is possible. Testing participants in individual sound proof chambers is preferable.</li>
	<li>Collect additional data like age, gender and defective vision first.</li>
	<li>Give written instructions that include a description of the task (always press the button assigned to the target stimulus while ignoring the distractor stimulus) and the reminder to respond as fast as possible without making errors. Instructions can be given via the computer screen.</li>
	<li>Present the following displays in each trial (see Figure 1). The single letters should have a horizontal and vertical visual angle between 0.5&#176; and 1&#176;. Present target and distractor stimuli in each prime and each probe display adjacent to each other (maximizing grouping of the stimuli).
	<ol>
		<li>Present a cue (e.g. an asterisk) that indicates to the participants that the next trial can be started by pressing the space bar. Breaks can be taken at this point between trials, before pressing the space bar. (Alternatively, use an intertrial interval of 1,500 msec).</li>
		<li>Present a fixation marker (e.g. a plus sign) at the center of the screen for 500 msec.</li>
		<li>Present the prime display at the center of the screen until the participant responds by pressing one of the response buttons.</li>
		<li>Log the prime response time (prime onset until response) and accuracy of the prime response.</li>
		<li>In case of an inaccurate response, present a warning for 1,500 msec that reminds the participant to react as fast but also as correct as possible.</li>
		<li>Present a fixation marker (e.g. a plus sign) at the center of the screen for 500 msec. Be careful to keep this time between prime response and probe onset shorter than 1,000 msec.</li>
		<li>Present the probe display at the center of the screen until the participant responds by pressing one of the response buttons.</li>
		<li>Log the probe response time (probe onset until response) and accuracy of the probe response.</li>
		<li>In case of an inaccurate response, present a warning for 1,500 msec that reminds the participant to react as fast as possible but without making errors.</li>
	</ol>
	</li>
	<li>Omit response repetition trials with target identity repetition (i.e. RRi trials) to exclude influences of target identity repetition effects.</li>
	<li>For the analyses of probe response times, only consider trials with correct responses to the prime and the probe and exclude anticipatory (below 200 msec) and outlier response times (e.g. Tukey26).</li>
	<li>Enter probe response times into a 2 (Response Relation: repetition vs. change) &#215; 2 (Distractor Relation: repetition vs. change) ANOVA. The same ANOVA can be used to analyze probe error rates.</li>
</ol>

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The authors have nothing to disclose.

The paradigm of distractor-response binding is useful to investigate influences of distractors that compete with the target stimulus for a response execution. In particular, it can differentiate certain mechanisms that have been proposed to influence performance in selection tasks. Namely, both retrieval and inhibition effects concerning distractor stimuli can be analyzed separately. In addition, it is possible to manipulate the different aspects of distractor-response binding separately in this paradigm. If the effect a...

In order to maneuver our way through the endless stream of information to perceive, offering nearly infinite possibilities to behave in the world around us, our brain has to rely on a limited number of simple and efficient processes and mechanisms. One important mechanism is selective attention, that is, the ability to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant information. Once a stimulus is identified as being irrelevant, inhibition dampens the activation of the distractor representation1 or blocks its access to the response system to reduce interference2. Distractor inhibition is one of the core concepts of cognitive control3.
Another important characteristic of human behavior is that not each and every aspect of our actions can be intentionally controlled. Other mechanisms are necessary that translate intentional actions, resulting from a controlled and resource-demanding processing of information, into efficient behavioral routines. The retrieval of previous behavioral episodes might play an important role for such an automatization of behavior. According to recent instance based models, a specific stimulus can become integrated with a response that is executed in close temporal proximity to the occurrence of the stimulus. The compound of stimulus and response is then stored as an &#8220;instance&#8221;4 or &#8220;event file&#8221;5,6 in episodic memory. Re-encountering the stimulus of such an event file leads to a retrieval of the entire episode from memory, including the associated response4-8. This retrieval of previous actions operates fast and automatically, exerting efficient bottom up control of behavior by establishing stimulus driven behavioral routines. Recent evidence suggests that this mechanism can also be triggered by distractors, that is, distractor-based retrieval of previous episodes and responses has an impact on human action control as well9.
The paradigm of distractor-response binding was developed to specifically investigate the influence distractors that compete with a target stimulus for the response, have on action control. In particular, this technique allows to disentangle the two mechanisms that have been discussed in the context of distractor processing, namely distractor inhibition and distractor based retrieval of responses.
The distractor-response binding paradigm originates from research using the negative priming paradigm (for a review see Fox10). In a negative priming paradigm, prime distractors that are repeated as targets on the probe lead to slower response times or more errors as compared to probe responses to targets that did not appear on the prime (i.e. the negative priming effect). One difficulty with this paradigm has been that at least two different mechanisms can account for the negative priming effect. On the one hand it has been proposed that a prime distractor is inhibited at prime presentation, in order to enable responding to the prime target. Residual inhibition of the former distractor stimulus results in a disadvantage if a response to this inhibited stimulus is required on the probe1,11. On the other hand, negative priming can be the result of retrieval mechanisms12,13. For example, Neill assumed that the prime distractor is encoded together with a do-not-respond tag at the prime, which is then retrieved and in turn conflicts with responding to this stimulus if it is repeated as the probe target14.
More recently, the Stimulus Response Retrieval theory (SRR15) assumed that distractors are integrated with and can trigger the retrieval of responses. This opens new possibilities to investigate retrieval effects due to distractor repetition separately. Based on the Theory of Event Coding16, SRR proposes that target, distractor, and response features are encoded in one temporary episodic memory trace or event file. On the next encounter, any of these stimuli (i.e. also the distractor stimulus) can trigger the retrieval of the entire event file including the target response. These retrieval effects due to distractor repetition have been termed distractor-response binding. Distractor-response binding has been shown to influence performance in human reactions in the visual, the auditory, and the tactile modality17-19. It also modulates responses in location selection20. Various modulating factors of the effect evidence that distractor-response binding is not entirely automatic but influences behavior only under certain conditions21-23.
The effect is evidenced in sequential selection tasks by the influence distractor repetition has on performance depending on response repetition. If the same response has to be given on the prime and probe, distractor repetition leads to better performance as compared to distractor change because the distractor retrieves a compatible response. In contrast, if a change of response is required, repeating the distractor hampers responding as the distractor retrieves an incompatible response. Thus, distractor-based retrieval is indicated by the interaction effect of response repetition &#215; distractor repetition.
One advantage over the negative priming paradigm is that the paradigm of distractor-response binding can differentiate between effects of distractor inhibition and response retrieval24. While retrieval effects are evidenced by an interaction of response repetition and distractor repetition, distractor inhibition is measured as the main effect of distractor repetition. That is, an inhibition account1,25 would predict, that inhibiting the same stimulus two times in a row should always lead to benefits because after effects from distractor inhibition on the prime should facilitate distractor inhibition on the probe. This benefit effect of repeated distractors is, however, according to the inhibition theory independent of response repetition.
Further analyzing prerequisites and modulating factors of the distractor-response binding effect is important to get a better understanding of the way ignored objects in our everyday life influence human reaction. The present article gives a detailed description of the paradigm used to analyze the distractor-based retrieval and distractor inhibition.

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			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:216px;">Standard PC</td>
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			<td style="width:167px;">Various different models have been used in experiments investigating distractor-response binding</td>
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			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:216px;">E-Prime</td>
			<td style="width:113px;">Psychology Software Tools</td>
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			<td>Both version 1.0 and version 2.0 have been used</td>
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irrelevant stimuli and action control: analyzing the influence of ignored stimuli via the distractor-response binding paradigm

Selection tasks in which simple stimuli (e.g. letters) are presented and a target stimulus has to be selected against one or more distractor stimuli are frequently used in the research on human action control. One important question in these settings is how distractor stimuli, competing with the target stimulus for a response, influence actions. The distractor-response binding paradigm can be used to investigate this influence. It is particular useful to separately analyze response retrieval and distractor inhibition effects. Computer-based experiments are used to collect the data (reaction times and error rates). In a number of sequentially presented pairs of stimulus arrays (prime-probe design), participants respond to targets while ignoring distractor stimuli. Importantly, the factors response relation in the arrays of each pair (repetition vs. change) and distractor relation (repetition vs. change) are varied orthogonally. The repetition of the same distractor then has a different effect depending on response relation (repetition vs. change) between arrays. This result pattern can be explained by response retrieval due to distractor repetition. In addition, distractor inhibition effects are indicated by a general advantage due to distractor repetition. The described paradigm has proven useful to determine relevant parameters for response retrieval effects on human action.

In a 2 (Response Relation: repetition vs. change) &#215; 2 (Distractor Relation: repetition vs. change) ANOVA on probe response times, a significant interaction of response relation and distractor relation indicates the effect of distractor-response binding. The advantage of distractor repetition is larger in response repetition than in response change trials. That is, the difference in mean response times between RR-DC and RR-DR trials is significantly larger than the difference in mean response times between RC-DC and ...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Irrelevant Stimuli and Action Control: Analyzing the Influence of Ignored Stimuli via the Distractor-Response Binding Paradigm at JoVE.com

Irrelevant Stimuli and Action Control: Analyzing the Influence of Ignored Stimuli via the Distractor-Response Binding Paradigm

The distractor-response binding paradigm is described. It can be used to shed light on the influence irrelevant stimuli, competing with targets for a response, can have on human action. Both response retrieval effects and distractor inhibition effects can be analyzed within the paradigm.

Selection tasks in which simple stimuli (e.g. letters) are presented and a target stimulus has to be selected against one or more distractor stimuli are ...

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9.7K Views.  Trier University. The distractor-response binding paradigm is described. It can be used to shed light on the influence irrelevant stimuli, competing with targets for a response, can have on human action. Both response retrieval effects and distractor inhibition effects can be analyzed within the paradigm.

Video: Irrelevant Stimuli and Action Control: Analyzing the Influence of Ignored Stimuli via the Distractor-Response Binding Paradigm

Electrophysiological Motor Unit Number Estimation (MUNE) Measuring Compound Muscle Action Potential (CMAP) in Mouse Hindlimb Muscles

Compound muscle action potential (CMAP) and motor unit number estimation (MUNE) are electrophysiological techniques that can be used to monitor the functional status of a motor unit pool in vivo. These measures can provide insight into the normal development and degeneration of the neuromuscular system. These measures have clear translational potential because they are routinely applied in diagnostic and clinical human studies. We present electrophysiological techniques similar to those employed in humans to allow recordings of mouse sciatic nerve function. The CMAP response represents the electrophysiological output from a muscle or group of muscles following supramaximal stimulation of a peripheral nerve. MUNE is an electrophysiological technique that is based on modifications of the CMAP response. MUNE is a calculated value that represents the estimated number of motor neurons or axons (motor control input) supplying the muscle or group of muscles being tested. We present methods for recording CMAP responses from the proximal leg muscles using surface recording electrodes following the stimulation of the sciatic nerve in mice. An incremental MUNE technique is described using submaximal stimuli to determine the average single motor unit potential (SMUP) size. MUNE is calculated by dividing the CMAP amplitude (peak-to-peak) by the SMUP amplitude (peak-to-peak). These electrophysiological techniques allow repeated measures in both neonatal and adult mice in such a manner that facilitates rapid analysis and data collection while reducing the number of animals required for experimental testing. Furthermore, these measures are similar to those recorded in human studies allowing more direct comparisons.

Electrophysiological Motor Unit Number Estimation MUNE Measuring Compound Muscle Action Potential CMAP in Mouse Hindlimb Muscles

We present refined protocols that allow in vivo monitoring of motor unit function in the mouse. Techniques to measure compound muscle action potential (CMAP) and motor unit number estimation (MUNE) in the mouse hind limb muscles innervated by the sciatic nerve are described.

Compound muscle action potential (CMAP) and motor unit number estimation (MUNE) are electrophysiological techniques that can be used to monitor the ...

Eliciting and Analyzing Male Mouse Ultrasonic Vocalization (USV) Songs

Mice produce ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in a variety of social contexts throughout development and adulthood. These USVs are used for mother-pup retrieval1, juvenile interactions2, opposite and same sex interactions3,4,5, and territorial interactions6. For decades, the USVs have been used by investigators as proxies to study neuropsychiatric and developmental or behavioral disorders7,8,9, and more recently to understand mechanisms and evolution of vocal communication among vertebrates10. Within the sexual interactions, adult male mice produce USV songs, which have some features similar to courtship songs of songbirds11. The use of such multisyllabic repertoires can increase potential flexibility and information they carry, as they can be varied in how elements are organized and recombined, namely syntax. In this protocol a reliable method to elicit USV songs from male mice in various social contexts, such as exposure to fresh female urine, anesthetized animals, and estrus females is described. This includes conditions to induce a large amount of syllables from the mice. We reduce recording of ambient noises with inexpensive sound chambers, and present a quantification method to automatically detect, classify and analyze the USVs. The latter includes evaluation of call-rate, vocal repertoire, acoustic parameters, and syntax. Various approaches and insight on using playbacks to study an animal&#39;s preference for specific song types are described. These methods were used to describe acoustic and syntax changes across different contexts in male mice, and song preferences in female mice.

Eliciting and Analyzing Male Mouse Ultrasonic Vocalization USV Songs

Mice produce a complex multisyllabic repertoire of ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs). These USVs are widely used as readouts for neuropsychiatric disorders. This protocol describes some of the practices we learned and developed to consistently induce, collect, and analyze the acoustic features and syntax of mouse songs.

Mice produce ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in a variety of social contexts throughout development and adulthood. These USVs are used for mother-pup ...

A Method for Manipulating Blood Glucose and Measuring Resulting Changes in Cognitive Accessibility of Target Stimuli

Much research in social psychology has investigated the impact of bodily energy need on cognition and decision-making. As such, blood glucose, the body's primary energy source, has been of special interest to researchers for years. Fluctuations in blood glucose have been linked to a variety of changes in cognitive and behavioral processes, such as self-control, political attitudes, and eating behavior. To help meet growing interest in the links between bodily energy need and these processes, this manuscript offers a simple methodology to experimentally manipulate blood glucose using a fasting procedure followed by administration of a sugar-sweetened, unsweetened, or artificially-sweetened beverage. This is followed by presentation of a method for measuring resulting changes in implicit cognition using a lexical decision-task. In this task, participants are asked to identify whether strings of letters are words or non-words and response latencies are recorded. Sample results from a recent publication are presented as an example of the applications for the experimental manipulation of blood glucose and the lexical decision task measures.

The authors introduce a method for manipulating blood glucose and measuring resulting changes in cognitive accessibility of target words using a lexical decision task.

Much research in social psychology has investigated the impact of bodily energy need on cognition and decision-making.  As such, blood glucose, the body's ...

The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling

The protocol for the temptation resistance paradigm was designed to elicit 2- to 8-year-old children's strategic lie-telling behaviors. The reward of transgression was intended to be too tempting to resist, so that children's spontaneous lie-telling behavior in the presence of irreversible evidence due to the transgression could be observed. Conducted in a developmental psychology laboratory behind a one-way mirror and video recorded with a hidden camcorder, the protocol starts with a guessing game where the child is given three trials to guess the identities of hidden objects under an upside down cup. The experimenter gives hints in the first two trials to make sure the child "guess" them correctly. At the beginning of the final trial, the experimenter leaves the room briefly and asks the child not to peek under the cup. If the child could not resist the temptation and peeks, small particles previously filled in the cup would scatter on a grooved surface. Upon the experimenter's return, the child is asked if he/she has peeked. If he/she denies transgression contrary to the presence of the physical evidence, he/she is asked to explain why the particles are on the table. Three responses could be observed in the procedure, including the initial transgression, truth-telling or lie-telling behavior if the child peeked, and the strategic lie-telling behavior in the presence of the physical evidence.

The protocol for the temptation resistance paradigm was designed to elicit 2- to 8-year-old children&#39;s strategic lie-telling behaviors. The reward of transgression was intended to be too tempting to resist, so that children&#39;s spontaneous lie-telling behavior in the presence of irreversible evidence due to the transgression could be observed.

The protocol for the temptation resistance paradigm was designed to elicit 2- to 8-year-old children's strategic lie-telling behaviors. The reward of ...

Using Eye Movements Recorded in the Visual World Paradigm to Explore the Online Processing of Spoken Language

In a typical eye tracking study using the visual world paradigm, participants' eye movements to objects or pictures in the visual workspace are recorded via an eye tracker as the participant produces or comprehends a spoken language describing the concurrent visual world. This paradigm has high versatility, as it can be used in a wide range of populations, including those who cannot read and/or who cannot overtly give their behavioral responses, such as preliterate children, elderly adults, and patients. More importantly, the paradigm is extremely sensitive to fine grained manipulations of the speech signal, and it can be used to study the online processing of most topics in language comprehension at multiple levels, such as the fine grained acoustic phonetic features, the properties of words, and the linguistic structures. The protocol described in this article illustrates how a typical visual world eye tracking study is conducted, with an example showing how the online processing of some semantically complex statements can be explored with the visual world paradigm.

The visual world paradigm monitors participants' eye movements in the visual workspace as they are listening to or speaking a spoken language. This paradigm can be used to investigate the online processing of a wide range of psycholinguistic questions, including semantically complex statements, such as disjunctive statements.

In a typical eye tracking study using the visual world paradigm, participants' eye movements to objects or pictures in the visual workspace are recorded ...

Driving Under the Influence: How Music Listening Affects Driving Behaviors

Car driving is a daily activity for many individuals in modern societies. Drivers often listen to music while driving. The method presented here investigates how listening to music influences driving behaviors. A driving simulation was selected because it offers both a well-controlled environment and a good level of ecological validity. Driving behaviors were assessed through a car-following task. In practice, participants were instructed to follow a lead vehicle as they would do in real life. The lead vehicle speed changed over time requiring constant speed adjustments for the participants. The inter-vehicular time was used to assess driving behaviors. To complement the driving behaviors, the subjective mood and physiological level of arousal were also collected. As such, the results collected using this method offer insights on both the human internal state (i.e., subjective mood and physiological arousal) and driving behaviors in the car following task.

Here, we present a protocol to assess driving behaviors while following a vehicle in a simulated driving environment. The presented protocol is used to compare the impact of different auditory backgrounds on driving behaviors.

Car driving is a daily activity for many individuals in modern societies. Drivers often listen to music while driving. The method presented here ...

Using the Visual World Paradigm to Study Sentence Comprehension in Mandarin-Speaking Children with Autism

Sentence comprehension relies on the ability to rapidly integrate different types of linguistic and non-linguistic information. However, there is currently a paucity of research exploring how preschool children with autism understand sentences using different types of cues. The mechanisms underlying sentence comprehension remains largely unclear. The present study presents a protocol to examine the sentence comprehension abilities of preschool children with autism. More specifically, a visual world paradigm of eye-tracking is used to explore the moment-to-moment sentence comprehension in the children. The paradigm has multiple advantages. First, it is sensitive to the time course of sentence comprehension and thus can provide rich information about how sentence comprehension unfolds over time. Second, it requires minimal task and communication demands, so it is ideal for testing children with autism. To further minimize the computational burden of children, the present study measures eye movements that arise as automatic responses to linguistic input rather than measuring eye movements that accompany conscious responses to spoken instructions.

We present a protocol to examine the use of morphological cues during real-time sentence comprehension by children with autism.

Sentence comprehension relies on the ability to rapidly integrate different types of linguistic and non-linguistic information. However, there is ...

Simultaneous Recordings of Cortical Local Field Potentials and Electrocorticograms in Response to Nociceptive Laser Stimuli from Freely Moving Rats

Electrocortical responses, elicited by laser heat pulses that selectively activate nociceptive free nerve endings, are widely used in many animal and human studies to investigate the cortical processing of nociceptive information. These laser-evoked brain potentials (LEPs) consist of several transient responses that are time-locked to the onset of laser stimuli. However, the functional properties of the LEP responses are still largely unknown, due to the lack of a sampling technique that can simultaneously record neural activities at the surface of the cortex (i.e., electrocorticogram [ECoG] and scalp electroencephalogram [scalp EEG]) and inside the brain (i.e., local field potential [LFP]). To address this issue, we present here an animal protocol using freely moving rats. This protocol is composed of three main procedures: (1) animal preparation and surgical procedures, (2) a simultaneous recording of ECoG and LFP in response to nociceptive laser stimuli, and (3) data analysis and feature extraction. Specifically, with the help of a 3D-printed protective shell, both ECoG and LFP electrodes implanted on the rat&#39;s skull were securely held together. During data collection, laser pulses were delivered on the rat&#39;s forepaws through gaps in the bottom of the chamber when the animal was in spontaneous stillness. Ongoing white noise was played to avoid the activation of the auditory system by the laser-generated ultrasounds. As a consequence, only nociceptive responses were selectively recorded. Using the standard analytical procedures (e.g., band-pass filtering, epoch extraction, and baseline correction) to extract stimulus-related brain responses, we obtained results showing that LEPs with a high signal-to-noise ratio were simultaneously recorded from ECoG and LFP electrodes. This methodology makes the simultaneous recording of ECoG and LFP activities possible, which provides a bridge of electrocortical signals at the mesoscopic and macroscopic levels, thereby facilitating the investigation of nociceptive information processing in the brain.

We developed a technique that simultaneously records both electrocorticography and local field potentials in response to nociceptive laser stimuli from freely moving rats. This technique helps establish a direct relationship of electrocortical signals at the mesoscopic and macroscopic levels, which facilitates the investigation of nociceptive information processing in the brain.

Electrocortical responses, elicited by laser heat pulses that selectively activate nociceptive free nerve endings, are widely used in many animal and ...

The HoneyComb Paradigm for Research on Collective Human Behavior

Collective human behavior such as group movement frequently shows surprising patterns and regularities, such as the emergence of leadership. Recent literature has revealed that these patterns, often visible at the global level of the group, are based on self-organized, individual behaviors that follow several simple local parameters. Understanding the dynamics of human collective behavior can help to improve coordination and leadership in group and crowd scenarios, such as identifying the ideal placement and number of emergency exits in buildings.
In this article, we present the experimental paradigm HoneyComb, which can be used to systematically investigate conditions and effects of human collective behavior. This paradigm uses a computer-based multi-user platform, providing a setting that can be shaped and adapted to various types of research questions. Situational conditions (e.g., cost-benefit ratios for specific behavior, monetary incentives and resources, various degrees of uncertainty) can be set by experimenters, depending on the research question. Each participant's motions are recorded by the server as hexagonal coordinates with timestamps at an accuracy of 50 ms and with individual IDs. Thus, a metric can be defined on the playfield, and movement parameters (e.g., distances, velocity, clustering, etc.) of participants can be measured over time. Movement data can in turn be combined with non-computerized data from questionnaires garnered within the same experiment setup.
The HoneyComb paradigm is paving the way for new types of human movement experiments. We demonstrate here that these experiments can render results with sufficient internal validity to meaningfully deepen our understanding of human collective behavior.

Here, we present the computer-based, multi-agent game HoneyComb, which enables experimental investigations of collective human movement behavior via black-dot-avatars on a virtual 2D hexagonal playfield. Different experimental conditions, like variable&#160;incentives on goal fields or vision radius, can be set, and their effects on human movement behavior can be investigated.

Collective human behavior such as group movement frequently shows surprising patterns and regularities, such as the emergence of leadership. Recent ...

Multi-Modal Signals for Analyzing Pain Responses to Thermal and Electrical Stimuli

The assessment of pain relies mostly on methods that require a person to communicate. However, for people with cognitive and verbal impairments, existing methods are not sufficient as they lack reliability and validity. To approach this problem, recent research focuses on an objective pain assessment facilitated by parameters of responses derived from physiology, and video and audio signals. To develop reliable automated pain recognition systems, efforts have been made in creating multimodal databases in order to analyze pain and detect valid pain patterns. While the results are promising, they only focus on discriminating pain or pain intensities versus no pain. In order to advance this, research should also consider the quality and duration of pain as they provide additional valuable information for more advanced pain management. To complement existing databases and the analysis of pain regarding quality and length, this paper proposes a psychophysiological experiment to elicit, measure, and collect valid pain reactions. Participants are subjected to painful stimuli that differ in intensity (low, medium, and high), duration (5 s / 1 min), and modality (heat / electric pain) while audio, video (e.g., facial expressions, body gestures, facial skin temperature), and physiological signals (e.g., electrocardiogram [ECG], skin conductance level [SCL], facial electromyography [EMG], and EMG of M. trapezius) are being recorded. The study consists of a calibration phase to determine a subject&#8217;s individual pain range (from low to intolerable pain) and a stimulation phase in which pain stimuli, depending on the calibrated range, are applied. The obtained data may allow refining, improving, and evaluating automated recognition systems in terms of an objective pain assessment. For further development of such systems and to investigate pain reactions in more detail, additional pain modalities such as pressure, chemical, or cold pain should be included in future studies. Recorded data of this study will be released as the &#8220;X-ITE Pain Database&#8221;.

This article focuses on the experimental elicitation of pain through heat (thermal) and electrical stimulation while recording physiological, visual, and paralinguistic responses. It aims at collecting valid multimodal data for analyzing pain based on its intensity, quality, and duration.&#160;

The assessment of pain relies mostly on methods that require a person to communicate. However, for people with cognitive and verbal impairments, existing ...