Korka Betina, Schröger Erich, Widmann Andreas
Cognitive and Biological Psychology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.
Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany.
Eur J Neurosci. 2020 Dec;52(12):4667-4683. doi: 10.1111/ejn.14899. Epub 2020 Jul 25.
We select our actions according to the desired outcomes; for instance, piano players press certain keys to generate specific musical notes. It is well-described that the omission of a predicted action-effect may elicit prediction error signals in the brain, but what happens in the case of simultaneous effector-specific (by contrast to effector-unspecific) predictions? To answer this question, we asked participants to press left and right keys to generate tones A and B; based on the action-effect association, the tones' identity was either predictable or unpredictable, while rarely, the expected input was omitted. Crucially, the data show that omissions following hand-specific associations reliably elicited a late omission N1 (oN1) component, by contrast to the hand-unspecific associations, where the late oN1 was rather weak. An additional condition where both key-presses generated a unique tone was implemented. Here, rare omissions of the expected tone generated both early and late oN1 responses, by contrast to the condition in which two simultaneous action-effect representations had to be maintained, where only late oN1 responses were elicited. Finally, omission P3 (oP3) responses were strongly elicited for all omission types without differences, indicating that a general expectation based on a tone presentation (rather than which tone), is likely indexed at this stage. The present results emphasize the top-down effects of action intention on the sensory processing of omissions, where unspecific (vs. specific) and multiple (vs. single) action-effect representations are associated with processing costs at the early sensory levels.
我们根据期望的结果来选择行动；例如，钢琴演奏者按下特定的琴键来发出特定的音符。人们已经充分描述过，预期行动效果的缺失可能会在大脑中引发预测误差信号，但在同时存在效应器特异性（与效应器非特异性相对）预测的情况下会发生什么呢？为了回答这个问题，我们要求参与者按下左右键来发出A音和B音；根据行动-效果关联，音调的身份要么是可预测的，要么是不可预测的，而预期输入很少会被省略。至关重要的是，数据表明，与手部非特异性关联相比，手部特异性关联后的遗漏可靠地引发了晚期遗漏N1（oN1）成分，在手部非特异性关联中，晚期oN1相当微弱。我们还实施了另一种条件，即两个按键都产生一个独特的音调。在这里，与必须维持两个同时存在的行动-效果表征的条件相比，预期音调的罕见遗漏会同时引发早期和晚期oN1反应，在该条件下只会引发晚期oN1反应。最后，对于所有遗漏类型，遗漏P3（oP3）反应都被强烈引发，没有差异，这表明基于音调呈现（而不是哪个音调）的一般预期可能在这个阶段被索引。目前的结果强调了行动意图对遗漏感觉处理的自上而下的影响，其中非特异性（与特异性相对）和多个（与单个相对）行动-效果表征与早期感觉水平的处理成本相关。
