Rat prefrontal dopamine and cognitive control: Impaired and enhanced conflict performance.

It has been proposed that the cognitive dysfunction observed in patients with schizophrenia reflects a failure in cognitive control, in particular an inability to use task-relevant information to guide behavior. Using a prefrontal-dependent task designed to reflect aspects of cue and response conflict seen in human cognitive paradigms, we examined the influence of prefrontal dopamine receptor manipulation on the contextual control of response conflict. Rats were trained on two biconditional discrimination tasks, one auditory and one visual, in two discriminably different contexts. At test, audiovisual compounds of these training stimuli were presented, in extinction, in each of the training contexts. These compounds were formed in such a way that the individual elements previously dictated different responses during training, termed incongruent trials. Studies have shown that rats use contextual information to disambiguate the conflicting information provided by incongruent compounds, responding in manner that is appropriate to the stimulus element that was trained in the test context. Direct infusion of the D1 receptor agonist SKF-38393 into the prelimbic cortex was found to modulate incongruent trial performance in a manner that was dependent upon baseline performance: animals in the low baseline group demonstrated improved incongruent performance following infusion of SKF-38393 into the prelimbic cortex. In contrast, high performers showed a reduction in accuracy during incongruent compounds. This paradigm provides a reliable framework for assessing the efficacy of preclinical agents in treating the cognitive impairments seen in frontal-related disorders such as schizophrenia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The control of instrumental action following outcome devaluation in young children aged between 1 and 4 years.

To determine the role of action-outcome learning in the control of young children's instrumental behavior, the authors trained 18- to 48-month-olds to manipulate visual icons on a touch-sensitive display to obtain different types of video clips as outcomes. Subsequently, one of the outcomes was devalued by repeated exposure, and children's propensity to perform the trained actions was tested in extinction. On test, children with a mean age greater than 2.5 years performed the action trained with the devalued outcome less than those trained with the still-valued outcome, thereby demonstrating that their actions were mediated by action-outcome learning. By contrast, the instrumental responses of younger children (mean age     

Visual experience influences 12-month-old infants' perception of goal-directed actions of others.

In the present study, we investigated whether infants' own visual experiences affected their perception of the visual status of others engaging in goal-directed actions. In Experiment 1, infants viewed video clips of successful and failed goal-directed actions performed by a blindfolded adult, with half the infants having previously experienced being blindfolded. The results showed that 12-month-old infants who were previously blindfolded preferred to look longer at the demonstrator's successful actions, whereas no such preference was observed in 8-month-old infants. In Experiment 2, infants watched the same 2 actions when the adult demonstrator was not blindfolded. The responses of 12-month-old infants were the opposite of those observed in Experiment 1: They showed a preference for the failed actions. These findings suggest that previous experience influenced the subsequent perception of others' goal-directed actions in the 12-month-old infants. We favor the interpretation that the preference for the successful actions in the 12-months-old infants provided with blindfolded experience demonstrates the influence of perceptual experience on considering the visual status of others engaging in goal-directed actions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parallel goal-directed and habitual control of human drug-seeking: Implications for dependence vulnerability.

Dual-process theories of learning and addiction propose that whereas freely elected drug/reward-seeking is goal-directed in being mediated by the expected value of the outcome, cue-elicited drug/reward-seeking is habitual in being elicited directly by antecedent stimuli, without retrieving a representation of outcome value. To substantiate this claim, the current study conducted a human devaluation-transfer procedure in which young adult smokers were first trained on a concurrent choice task to earn tobacco and chocolate points before one outcome was devalued by specific satiety or health warnings against consumption of that outcome. When choice was again tested in extinction, the selective reduction in performance of the action associated with the devalued outcome indicated that choice was controlled by an expectation of outcome value, that is, was goal-directed. Moreover, the presentation of tobacco and chocolate cues enhanced selection of the response associated with that outcome, indicating that transfer was also mediated by the retrieval of the outcome representation. Paradoxically, however, the magnitude of this transfer effect was unaffected by devaluation, indicating that the stimulus retrieved a representation of outcome identity but not current incentive value. Individual differences in tobacco dependence in the young adult sample were associated with tobacco preference in the concurrent choice task but not with the devaluation or transfer effects. These data accord with dual-process theories in suggesting that drug/reward-seeking are mediated by goal-directed and habitual controllers under freely elected and cued conditions, respectively, and that initial uptake of drug use is associated with hyper-valuation of the drug as an outcome of goal-directed drug-seeking rather than with accelerated habit formation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stimulus-outcome interactions during instrumental discrimination learning by rats and humans.

The associative structure mediating goal-directed action was investigated using congruent and incongruent conditional discriminations. The stimulus was the same as the outcome in each component of the congruent discriminations, whereas the stimulus of one component of the incongruent discriminations was the same as the outcome of the other component. Humans, but not rats, learned the congruent discrimination more rapidly than the incongruent discrimination, a difference that the authors attribute to the fact that outcome-response associations caused response conflict in the incongruent discrimination. Moreover, responding was resistant to outcome devaluation following incongruent, but not congruent, training, suggesting that both humans and rats adopted a stimulus-response strategy to resolve the incongruent discrimination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Choice and contingency in the development of behavioral autonomy during instrumental conditioning.

In two experiments hungry rats received extensive training to lever press for food outcomes before one outcome was devalued by aversion conditioning and responding tested in extinction. If the rats were trained on a concurrent schedule in which two responses yielded different outcomes, performance during the extinction test was reduced by devaluation of the associated outcome. By contrast, if a single response was trained concurrently with the noncontingent presentations of the other outcome, test performance was insensitive to devaluation of the contingent outcome. This finding demonstrates that training on a schedule that offers a choice between responses that yield different outcomes prevents the onset of behavioral autonomy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neural basis of individual differences in impulsivity: Contributions of corticolimbic circuits for behavioral arousal and control.

The objective of the current study was to analyze the neural correlates of behavioral arousal and inhibitory control as they relate to individual differences in impulsivity via well-established functional MRI amygdala reactivity and prefrontal inhibitory control paradigms in healthy adult subjects. Impulsivity correlated positively with activity of the bilateral ventral amygdala, parahippocampal gyrus, dorsal anterior cingulate gyrus (BA 32), and bilateral caudate. Conversely, impulsivity correlated negatively with activity of the dorsal amygdala and ventral prefrontal cortex (BA 47). Together, these findings suggest that dispositional impulsivity is influenced by the functional interplay of corticolimbic behavioral arousal and control circuits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some recent studies of conflict behavior and drugs.

Sodium amytal "could produce in experiments on rats, effects which appear to parallel the fear-reducing effects of this drug in human conflict situations." The "beneficial effects of the sodium amytal on relearning in a conflict situation did not generalize from the drugged to the normal state. Chlorpromazine yielded more promising results." It is "possible to increase the resistance to the stress of pain and fear by appropriate training." From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2DK12M. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of the medial prefrontal cortex in acquired distinctiveness and equivalence of cues.

In the present study, the authors examined the role of the medial prefrontal cortex in acquired equivalence and distinctiveness of cues. Rats were placed in 4 experimental contexts (A, B, C, and D) where they received presentations of 2 auditory stimuli (X and Y). In Contexts A and B, X was paired with food and Y was not, whereas in Contexts C and D, Y was paired with food and X was not. Rats that received sham lesions and those with lesions of the medial prefrontal cortex acquired this configural discrimination equally readily. Rats then received many pellets in A but not in C. After this training, sham-lesion rats exhibited more magazine activity in B than in D (an acquired distinctiveness/acquired equivalence effect), whereas those with medial prefrontal cortex lesions did not. These results indicate that the medial prefrontal cortex is involved in the process by which experience with stimuli influences the degree of generalization between them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of aging on the neural correlates of successful item and source memory encoding.

To investigate the neural basis of age-related source memory (SM) deficits, young and older adults were scanned with fMRI while encoding faces, scenes, and face-scene pairs. Successful encoding activity was identified by comparing encoding activity for subsequently remembered versus forgotten items or pairs. Age deficits in successful encoding activity in hippocampal and prefrontal regions were more pronounced for SM (pairs) as compared with item memory (faces and scenes). Age-related reductions were also found in regions specialized in processing faces (fusiform face area) and scenes (parahippocampal place area), but these reductions were similar for item and SM. Functional connectivity between the hippocampus and the rest of the brain was also affected by aging; whereas connections with posterior cortices were weaker in older adults, connections with anterior cortices, including prefrontal regions, were stronger in older adults. Taken together, the results provide a link between SM deficits in older adults and reduced recruitment of hippocampal and prefrontal regions during encoding. The functional connectivity findings are consistent with a posterior-anterior shift with aging previously reported in several cognitive domains and linked to functional compensation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cognitive and neural architecture of sequence representation.

The authors theorize that 2 neurocognitive sequence-learning systems can be distinguished in serial reaction time experiments, one dorsal (parietal and supplementary motor cortex) and the other ventral (temporal and lateral prefrontal cortex). Dorsal system learning is implicit and associates noncategorized stimuli within dimensional modules. Ventral system learning can be implicit or explicit. It also allows associating events across dimensions and therefore is the basis of cross-task integration or interference, depending on degree of cross-task correlation of signals. Accordingly, lack of correlation rather than limited capacity is responsible for dual-task effects on learning. The theory is relevant to issues of attentional effects on learning; the representational basis of complex, sequential skills; hippocampal- versus basal ganglia-based learning; procedural versus declarative memory; and implicit versus explicit memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The critical role of conflict resolution in teams: A close look at the links between conflict type, conflict management strategies, and team outcomes.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 93(2) of Journal of Applied Psychology (see record 2008-02855-019). Figure 2 on p. 184 (Theoretical Contributions section) is missing information about the numbers of teams and statements for the two groups using particularlistic strategies. For the decreasing and consistently low performance/decreasing and consistently low satisfaction group, there were 14 teams and 40 statements; for the decreasing and consistently low performance/increasing and consistently high satisfaction group, there were 11 teams and 46 statements.] This article explores the linkages between strategies for managing different types of conflict and group performance and satisfaction. Results from a qualitative study of 57 autonomous teams suggest that groups that improve or maintain top performance over time share 3 conflict resolution tendencies: (a) focusing on the content of interpersonal interactions rather than delivery style, (b) explicitly discussing reasons behind any decisions reached in accepting and distributing work assignments, and (c) assigning work to members who have the relevant task expertise rather than assigning by other common means such as volunteering, default, or convenience. The authors' results also suggest that teams that are successful over time are likely to be both proactive in anticipating the need for conflict resolution and pluralistic in developing conflict resolution strategies that apply to all group members. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality conflict, originality of response, and recall.

The general hypothesis states that variability in response to the same repeated stimulus is a function of intraindividual conflict. Applying this formulation to personality conflict, it is expected that the conflicted individual will show greater variability as a function of competing responses which appear alternately in subsequent similar situations. A measure of approach-avoidance personality conflict is described. High and low scorers on this conflict scale were exposed to a word-association task and were then required to recall their own responses. On the basis of the competing-tendency hypothesis, it was predicted that the conflicted subjects would show a higher frequency of original responses and reduced efficiency of recall. Both predictions were confirmed. Four instructional conditions preceding the word-association task failed to affect the conflict groups differentially, but personality and achievement instructions resulted in higher recall for both conflict groups. Some suggestions are offered for an improved measure of personality conflict. The results are discussed in terms of the conflict-variability hypothesis, and some implications are drawn for research on creativity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"The critical role of conflict resolution in teams: A close look at the links between conflict type, conflict management strategies, and team outcomes": Correction.

Reports an error in "The critical role of conflict resolution in teams: A close look at the links between conflict type, conflict management strategies, and team outcomes" by Kristin J. Behfar, Randall S. Peterson, Elizabeth A. Mannix and William M. K. Trochim (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2008[Jan], Vol 93[1], 170-188). Figure 2 on p. 184 (Theoretical Contributions section) is missing information about the numbers of teams and statements for the two groups using particularlistic strategies. For the decreasing and consistently low performance/decreasing and consistently low satisfaction group, there were 14 teams and 40 statements; for the decreasing and consistently low performance/increasing and consistently high satisfaction group, there were 11 teams and 46 statements. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2008-00266-012.) This article explores the linkages between strategies for managing different types of conflict and group performance and satisfaction. Results from a qualitative study of 57 autonomous teams suggest that groups that improve or maintain top performance over time share 3 conflict resolution tendencies: (a) focusing on the content of interpersonal interactions rather than delivery style, (b) explicitly discussing reasons behind any decisions reached in accepting and distributing work assignments, and (c) assigning work to members who have the relevant task expertise rather than assigning by other common means such as volunteering, default, or convenience. The authors' results also suggest that teams that are successful over time are likely to be both proactive in anticipating the need for conflict resolution and pluralistic in developing conflict resolution strategies that apply to all group members. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental family processes and interparental conflict: Patterns of microlevel influences.

Although there are frequent calls for the study of effects of children on families and mutual influence processes within families, little empirical progress has been made. We address these questions at the level of microprocesses during marital conflict, including children's influence on marital conflict and parents' influence on each other. Participants were 111 cohabiting couples with a child (55 male, 56 female) age 8–16 years. Data were drawn from parents' diary reports of interparental conflict over 15 days and were analyzed with dynamic systems modeling tools. Child emotions and behavior during conflicts were associated with interparental positivity, negativity, and resolution at the end of the same conflicts. For example, children's agentic behavior was associated with more marital conflict resolution, whereas child negativity was linked with more marital negativity. Regarding parents' influence on each other, among the findings, husbands' and wives' influence on themselves from one conflict to the next was indicated, and total number of conflicts predicted greater influence of wives' positivity on husbands' positivity. Contributions of these findings to the understanding of developmental family processes are discussed, including implications for advanced understanding of interrelations between child and adult functioning and development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcohol and cognitive control: Implications for regulation of behavior during response conflict.

Alcohol intoxication often leads to dysregulated behavior in contexts characterized by conflict between prepotent response tendencies and incompatible alternative responses. Recent research has identified 2 components of an anterior executive attention system that are essential for adaptive behavior when response conflict exists. Event-related potential (ERP) measures of evaluative and regulative cognitive control were collected to determine if impaired executive attention was responsible for observed behavior deficits when intoxicated. Intoxicated participants displayed task performance deficits on incongruent color-naming trials relative to sober controls. Alcohol did not affect P3 magnitude/latency, indicating that timing and integrity of stimulus evaluation remained intact. In contrast, alcohol did reduce frontal components of ERP that index evaluative and regulative cognitive control processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Explicit category learning in Parkinson's disease: Deficits related to impaired rule generation and selection processes.

The present study examined the source of explicit category learning deficits previously noted in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Task stimuli consisted of 4 binary-valued cues that together determined category assignment, although some cues were more important for the categorization decision. Participants verbalized the hypotheses being tested to provide several measures of the hypothesis testing. Analyses of these verbal protocols indicated that PD patients were impaired on rule generation and selection but not rule shifting. Patients had particular difficulty noting the relative importance of the cues. Specific aspects of performance were differently correlated with neuropsychological measures of working memory and hypothesis testing ability. Together, the results suggest that the cognitive processes required for explicit category learning are mediated by partially distinct neural mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in the regulation of intergroup bias: The role of conflict monitoring and neural signals for control.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 94(3) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see record 2008-01768-011). In this article, there was an error in Figure 4. The corrected figure is provided in this erratum.] Low-prejudice people vary considerably in their ability to regulate intergroup responses. The authors hypothesized that this variability arises from a neural mechanism for monitoring conflict between automatic race-biased tendencies and egalitarian intentions. In Study 1, they found that low-prejudice participants whose nonprejudiced responses are motivated by internal (but not external) factors exhibited better control on a stereotype-inhibition task than did participants motivated by a combination of internal and external factors. This difference was associated with greater conflict-monitoring activity, measured by event-related potentials, when responses required stereotype inhibition. Study 2 demonstrated that group differences were specific to response control in the domain of prejudice. Results indicate that conflict monitoring, a preconscious component of response control, accounts for variability in intergroup bias among low-prejudice participants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instrumental and Pavlovian incentive processes have dissociable effects on components of a heterogeneous instrumental chain.

Two experiments compared the effects of Pavlovian stimuli and incentive learning on the performance of a heterogeneous chain of instrumental actions. Using a Pavlovian-instrumental transfer design, the authors found that only a stimulus paired with the same outcome as that earned by performance of the chain produced positive transfer, an effect that was restricted to the action in the chain most proximal to reward delivery. In contrast, after a shift to a nondeprived state, only animals that had previously consumed the instrumental outcome when they were nondeprived decreased instrumental performance. Furthermore, this effect of the incentive learning treatment was limited to performance of the distal action. Together these data suggest that Pavlovian and instrumental incentive manipulations have dissociable effects on instrumental performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations between spouses' depressive symptoms and marital conflict: A longitudinal investigation of the role of conflict resolution styles.

This study investigated longitudinal relations between spouses' depressive symptoms and styles of conflict resolution displayed by husbands and wives in marital conflict, including angry, depressive, and constructive patterns of expression. Behavioral observations were made from a community sample of 276 couples during marital conflict resolution tasks once a year for 3 years. Couples were observed engaging in a major and minor conflict resolution task. Constructive, angry, and depressive conflict resolution styles were derived from the behavioral observation coding. Couples self-reported on depressive symptoms and marital dissatisfaction. Path analyses provided support for an extension of the marital discord model of depression (Beach, Sandeen, & O'Leary, 1990). Specifically, angry, depressive, and constructive styles of conflict each mediated the link between marital dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms. Significant cross-spouse effects were found. Implications for the treatment of depressed and/or relationally discordant couples are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)