Attention Cueing and Activity Equally Reduce False Alarm Rate in Visual-Auditory Associative Learning through Improving Memory.
In our daily life, we continually exploit already learned multisensory associations and form new ones when facing novel situations. Improving our associative learning results in higher cognitive capabilities. We experimentally and computationally studied the learning performance of healthy subjects in a visual-auditory sensory associative learning task across active learning, attention cueing learning, and passive learning modes. According to our results, the learning mode had no significant effect on learning association of congruent pairs. In addition, subjects' performance in learning congruent samples was not correlated with their vigilance score. Nevertheless, vigilance score was significantly correlated with the learning performance of the non-congruent pairs. Moreover, in the last block of the passive learning mode, subjects significantly made more mistakes in taking non-congruent pairs as associated and consciously reported lower confidence. These results indicate that attention and activity equally enhanced visual-auditory associative learning for non-congruent pairs, while false alarm rate in the passive learning mode did not decrease after the second block. We investigated the cause of higher false alarm rate in the passive learning mode by using a computational model, composed of a reinforcement learning module and a memory-decay module. The results suggest that the higher rate of memory decay is the source of making more mistakes and reporting lower confidence in non-congruent pairs in the passive learning mode.
Cognitive Robotics Lab, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.|School of Cognitive Science, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, Tehran, Iran.|Cognition and Perception, Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Mohammad-Ali
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6718-3361
MA
Nikouei Mahani
Occupational Therapy Dept., University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Hojjat Allah
HA
Haghgoo
Occupational Therapy Dept., University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Solmaz
S
Azizi
Cognitive Robotics Lab, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.|School of Cognitive Science, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Majid
M
Nili Ahmadabadi
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult