This work was supported by grants to Burcu A. Urgen from The Scientific and Technological Research Council of T&#252;rkiye (Project number: 120K913) and Bilkent University. We thank our pilot participant Sena Er Elmas for bringing the idea of adding background noise between the actor changes, S&#252;leyman Ak&#305; for setting up the light circuit, and Tuvana Karaduman for the idea of using a security camera backstage and her contribution as one of the actors in the study.

A Setup for Human Vision, Cognition, and Interaction in Real-Life Scenarios

<ol>
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The authors declare that they have no relevant or material financial interests related to the research described in this article.

The overarching goal of the present study is to contribute to our understanding of how human high-level visual perception and cognition work in real-life situations. This study focused on action perception and suggested a naturalistic yet controllable experimental paradigm that enables researchers to test how individuals perceive and evaluate others&#39; actions by presenting real actors in a laboratory setting.
The significance of this proposed methodology compared to existing methodologies i...

A fundamental skill for survival and social interaction is the ability to perceive and make sense of others&#39; actions and interact with them in the surrounding environment. Previous research in the last several decades has made significant contributions to understanding the fundamental principles of how individuals perceive and understand others&#39; actions1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. Nevertheless, given the complexity of interactions and the circumstances in which they occur, there is an obvious need to further develop the body of knowledge in naturalistic settings in order to reach a more complete understanding of this complex skill in daily life settings.
In natural environments such as our daily life settings, perception and cognition exhibit embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive characteristics12. In contrast to internalist accounts of brain functions that tend to understate the roles of the body and the environment, contemporary approaches to embodied cognition focus on the dynamic coupling of the brain, body, and environment. On the other hand, most social psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience research on action perception tend to assume that utilizing well-controlled and simplified experiment designs in laboratory conditions (e.g., images or videos in computerized tasks) yields results that can be generalized to more complex scenarios such as real-world interactions1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. This assumption guarantees that robust and reliable data can be obtained under many circumstances. Nevertheless, a well-known challenge is that the validity of the models derived from carefully controlled experiments is limited when tested in a real-world context13. Consequently, further investigations13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22 have been conducted to address the ecological and external validity of stimuli and experimental designs in various fields of research.
In this study, a novel method is suggested for investigating how individuals perceive and evaluate others&#39; actions by using live actions performed by a real, physically present actor. Scenarios similar to real-life contexts are employed, while the experimenters have control over possible confounding factors. This study is a form of &#34;naturalistic laboratory research&#34;, within the framework of Matusz et al.14&#160;which can be conceived as an intermediate stage between &#34;classic laboratory research&#34;, which makes use of maximal control over the stimuli and environment, often at the expense of naturalness, and &#34;fully naturalistic real-world research&#34;, which aims to maximize naturalness at the expense of control over the stimulation and the environment14. The study aims to address the need for empirical investigations at this level in action perception research in order to bridge the gap between the findings obtained in traditional laboratory experiments with a high degree of experimental control and the findings obtained in studies conducted in entirely unconstrained, natural settings.
Controlled versus unconstrained experiments 
Experimental control is an efficient strategy for designing experiments to test a specific hypothesis, as it allows researchers to isolate target variables from likely confounding factors. It also allows for revisiting the same hypothesis with certain levels of amendments, such as using slightly or totally different stimuli in the same design or testing the same stimuli in alternative experimental setups. Systematic investigation through controlled experiments is a traditional form of methodology in research in cognitive science and relevant domains. Controlled experiments still help to establish the body of knowledge on the fundamental principles of cognitive processes in various domains of research, such as attention, memory, and perception. However, recent research has also acknowledged the limitations of traditional laboratory experiments in terms of generalizing the findings to real-world settings, and researchers have been encouraged to conduct studies in enhanced ecological settings13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21. This shift aims to address two important issues regarding the discrepancy between traditional laboratory experiments and real-world settings. First, the world outside the laboratory is less deterministic than in experiments, which limits the representative power of systematic experimental manipulations. Second, the human brain is highly adaptive, and this is often underestimated due to the practical limitations of designing and conducting experimental studies22. The concept of &#34;ecological validity&#34;23,24 has been used to address methods for resolving this issue. The term is usually used to refer to a prerequisite for the generalization of experimental findings to the real world outside the laboratory context. Ecological validity has also been interpreted as referring to validating virtually naturalistic experimental setups with unconstrained stimuli to ensure that the study design is analogous to real-life scenarios25. Due to the high degree of variance in the interpretation of this term, an understanding of the advantages and limitations of alternative methodologies and stimulus selection is required.
Levels of naturalism in stimuli and experiment design 
Previous work in experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience has used a wide range of stimuli with different levels of naturalism26. Most researchers prefer to use static images or short dynamic videos because these stimuli are easier to prepare than those that could simulate a real action or an event. Despite having advantages, these stimuli do not allow researchers to measure contingent behaviors among social agents. In other words, they are not actable and do not have social affordance27. In recent years, an alternative to these non-interactive stimuli has been developed: real-time animations of virtual avatars. These avatars allow for the investigation of the interactions between avatars and their users. However, the use of virtual avatars is subject to reduced user apprehension, especially when they do not appear particularly engaging in terms of their realistic and contingent behaviors26. Therefore, there is now more interest in using real social stimuli in experimental studies. Although their design, data recording, and analysis may require advanced equipment and complex data analysis, they are the best candidates for understanding naturalistic human behavior and cognition.
The present study proposes a methodology for using real-life social stimuli in a laboratory environment. This study aims to investigate how people perceive and evaluate others&#39; actions in a setting with enhanced ecological validity compared to traditional laboratory experiments. We have developed and described a novel setup in which participants are exposed to real actors who are physically present and share the same environment with them. In this protocol, the participants&#39; response times and mouse trajectories are measured, which requires precise timing of the stimuli presentation and strict control over the experimental conditions in this enhanced ecological setting. Therefore, the experimental paradigm stands out among the frameworks present in the literature since the naturalness of the stimuli is maximized without sacrificing control over the environment. Below, the protocol presents the steps to establish such a system and then continues with the representative results for the sample data. Finally, a discussion of the paradigm&#39;s significance, limitations, and plans for modifications is presented.
Experimental design 
Before proceeding to the protocol section, we describe the parameters used in the present study and present the details of the stimuli together with the experimental design.
Parameters in the study 
This study aims to measure how the type of actor and the class of actions they perform affect the mind perception processes of the participants. In the protocol, the mind perception process is measured in two main dimensions, namely agency and experience, as proposed by previous research28. The high and low ends of these two dimensions are also included, as recently introduced by Li et al.29.
The structure of the study was inspired by the single-category version30 of the commonly used implicit association task (IAT)31. In this task, the response times of the participants while they match an attribute concept with the target concept are used as an indication of the strength of their implicit associations for these two concepts. In the adaptation of this implicit task, the participants are presented live actions performed by real actors and required to match them to&#160;target concepts. The target concepts are the high and low ends of the agency or experience dimensions, depending on the block of the experiment.
To summarize, the independent variables are Actor Type and Action Class. Actor Type has two levels (i.e., two different actors, Actor1 and Actor2, performing in the study). Action Class has two levels: Action Class1 and Action Class2, and each class contains four actions. The participants evaluate the two actors separately in four blocks (one actor in each block), and in each block, the actors perform all of the actions in a counter-balanced order. The participants perform evaluations with respect to two pre-defined and forced dimensions: Agency and Experience. The four blocks in the experiment are (1) Actor1 in Agency Block, (2) Actor2 in Agency Block, (3) Actor1 in Experience Block, and (4) Actor2 in Experience Block. The order of the blocks is also counter-balanced among the participants so that the blocks with the same agent never follow each other.
Besides the answers of the participants, the response times and the x-y coordinates of the wireless mouse they use while they move toward one of the two response alternatives are recorded. So, the dependent variables are the response and the response time (RT) of the participants, as well as the measurements of maximum deviation (MD) and area under the curve (AUC), derived from the computer mouse-tracking. The variable response is categorical; it can be High or Low, and since the evaluations are done in one of the given blocks, the responses can also be labeled as High-Agency, Low-Agency, High-Experience, or Low-Experience. Response time is a continuous variable; its unit is seconds, and it refers to the elapsed time between the start of the presentation of an action and the occurrence of a mouse click on one of the response alternatives. The MD of a trajectory is a continuous variable, and it refers to the largest perpendicular deviation between the trajectory of the participant(s) and the idealized trajectory (straight line). The AUC of a trajectory is also a continuous variable, and it refers to the geometric area between the trajectory of the participant(s) and the idealized trajectory32.
Stimuli and design of the experiment 
A three-staged experiment is used in the present study. The measurements from the third part are used for the analyses; the first two parts serve as preparation for the final part. Below, we describe each part of the experiment together with the experimental stimuli and hypotheses.
In Experiment Part 1 (lexical training part), the participants complete a training session to understand the concepts of Agency and Experience and the capacity levels represented with the words High and Low. To select the concepts (n = 12) to be used in this training session, some of the authors of the current work conducted a normative study33. Since the present study was planned to be conducted in the native languages of the participants, the concepts were also translated into Turkish before being normalized. Concepts were selected from among those that were strongly associated with the High (n= 3) and Low (n= 3) ends of the two dimensions (six concepts for each). This part is crucial since the participants&#39; understanding of the concepts is expected to guide their evaluation processes.
In Experiment Part 2 (action identification part), participants watch the same eight actions performed by Actor1 and Actor2 one after the other and report what the action is to the experimenter. This section serves as a manipulation check; by presenting all the actions when both actors are performing them, it is possible to make sure that the participants understand the actions and are familiar with the actors before they start the implicit test, where they need to make fast evaluations. The actions selected for Action Class1 and Action Class2 are those that had the highest H scores and confidence levels (four different action exemplars in each action class) according to the results of the two normative studies (N = 219) for each actor condition conducted by some of the authors (manuscript in preparation). All actions are performed within an equal time duration of 6 s.
This is an ongoing study, and it has some other components; however, the hypotheses for the sections described above are as follows: (i) the type of actor will affect the dependent variables; Actor2 will yield longer RTs, higher MDs, and larger AUCs compared to Actor1; (ii) the type of action will affect the dependent measurements; Action Class1 will yield longer RTs, higher MDs, and larger AUCs compared to Action Class2; (iii) the dependent measurements for High and Low responses for the same actor and action class will differ across the block dimensions: Agency and Experience.

<table><tbody><tr><td>Adjustable Height Table</td><td>Custom-made</td><td>N/A</td><td>Width: 60 cm, Height: 62 cm, Depth: 40 cm</td></tr><tr><td>Ardunio UNO&amp;nbsp;</td><td>Smart Projects</td><td>A000066</td><td>Microcontroller used for switching the state of the LEDs from the script running on the operator PC</td></tr><tr><td>Black Pants</td><td>No brand</td><td>N/A</td><td>Relaxed-fit pants of actors with no apparent brand name or logo.</td></tr><tr><td>Case</td><td>Xigmatek</td><td>EN43224</td><td>XIGMATEK HELIOS RAINBOW LED USB 3.0 MidT ATX GAMING CASE</td></tr><tr><td>CPU</td><td>AMD</td><td>YD1600BBAFBOX</td><td>AMD Ryzen 5 1600 Soket AM4 3.2 GHz - 3.6 GHz 16 MB 65 W 12 nm Processor</td></tr><tr><td>Curtains</td><td>Custom-made</td><td>N/A</td><td>Width: Part 1: 110 cm width from the wall (left) side, Part 2: 123 cm width above OLED display, Part 3: 170 cm from OLED display to right side, Cabin depth: 100 cm, Inside cabin depth: 100 cm, all heights 230 cm except for Part 2 (75 cm height)</td></tr><tr><td>Experimenter Adjustable/Swivel Chair</td><td>No brand</td><td>N/A</td><td>Any brand</td></tr><tr><td>Experimenter Table</td><td>Custom</td><td>N/A</td><td>Width: 160 cm, Height: 75 cm, Depth: 80 cm</td></tr><tr><td>GPU</td><td>MSI</td><td>GT 1030 2GHD4 LP OC</td><td>MSI GEFORCE GT 1030 2GHD4 LP OC 2GB DDR4 64bit NVIDIA GPU</td></tr><tr><td>Grey-color blackout curtain</td><td>Custom-made</td><td>N/A</td><td>Width: 330 cm, Height: 230 cm, used for covering the background</td></tr><tr><td>Hard Disk</td><td>Kioxia</td><td>LTC10Z240GG8</td><td>Kioxia 240 GB Exceria Sata 3.0 SSD (555 MB Read/540 MB Write)</td></tr><tr><td>Hard Disk</td><td>Toshiba</td><td>HDWK105UZSVA</td><td>Toshiba 2,5&#039;&#039; 500 GB L200 SATA 3.0 8 MB Cache 5400 Rpm 7 mm Harddisk</td></tr><tr><td>High-Power MOSFET Module</td><td>N/A</td><td>N/A</td><td>Heating Controller MKS MOSFET Module</td></tr><tr><td>Laptop</td><td>Apple</td><td>S/N: C02P916ZG3QT</td><td>MacBook Pro 11.1 Intel Core i7 (Used as the actor PC)</td></tr><tr><td>Laptop</td><td>Asus&amp;nbsp;</td><td>UX410U</td><td>Used for monitoring the security camera in real-time.</td></tr><tr><td>LED lights</td><td>No brand</td><td>N/A</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>LED Strip Power Supply</td><td>No brand</td><td>N/A</td><td>AC to DC voltage converter used for supplying DC voltage to the lighting circuit</td></tr><tr><td>MATLAB&amp;nbsp;</td><td>The MathWorks Inc., Natick, MA, USA</td><td>Version: R2022a</td><td>Used for programming the experiment.&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt; Required Toolboxes:&lt;br/&gt; MATLAB Support Package for Arduino Hardware (version 22.1.2)&lt;br/&gt; Instrument Control Toolbox (version 4.6)&lt;br/&gt; Psychtoolbox (version 3)</td></tr><tr><td>Monitor</td><td>Philips</td><td>UHB2051005145&amp;nbsp;</td><td>Model ID: 242V8A/00, PHILIPS 23.8&quot; 242V8A 4ms 75 Hz Freesync DP-HDMI+VGA IPS Gaming Monitor&amp;nbsp;</td></tr><tr><td>Motherboard</td><td>MSI</td><td>B450M-A PRO MAX</td><td>MSI B450M-A PRO MAX Amd B450 Socket AM4 DDR4 3466(OC) M.2 Motherboard</td></tr><tr><td>Mouse Pad for participant</td><td>Monster</td><td>&amp;nbsp;78185721101502042 / 8699266781857</td><td>Pusat Gaming Mouse Pad XL</td></tr><tr><td>Night lamp</td><td>Aukes</td><td>ES620-0.5W 6500K-IP 20</td><td>Used for helping the actors see around when the lights are off in the backstage.</td></tr><tr><td>Participant Adjustable/Swivel Chair</td><td>No brand</td><td>N/A</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Participant Table</td><td>IKEA</td><td>Sandsberg 294.203.93</td><td>Width: 110 cm, Height: 75 cm, Depth: 67 cm</td></tr><tr><td>Power Extension Cable</td><td>Viko</td><td>9011760Y</td><td>250 V (6 inlets) Black</td></tr><tr><td>Power Extension Cable</td><td>Viko</td><td>9011730Y</td><td>250 V (3 inlets) Black</td></tr><tr><td>Power Extension Cable</td><td>Viko</td><td>9011330Y</td><td>250 V (3 inlets) White</td></tr><tr><td>Power Extension Cable</td><td>s-link&amp;nbsp;</td><td>Model No: SPG3-J-10</td><td>AC - 250 V 3 meter (5 inlets)</td></tr><tr><td>Power Supply</td><td>THERMALTAKE</td><td>PS-LTP-0550NHSANE-1</td><td>THERMALTAKE LITEPOWER RGB 550W APFC 12 cm FAN PSU</td></tr><tr><td>Professional Gaming Mouse</td><td>Rampage</td><td>8680096</td><td>Model No: SMX-R50&amp;nbsp;</td></tr><tr><td>RAM</td><td>GSKILL</td><td>F4-3000C16S-8GVRB</td><td>GSKILL 8GB (1x8GB) RipjawsV Red DDR4 3000 MHz CL16 1.35 V Single Ram</td></tr><tr><td>Reception bell</td><td>No brand</td><td>N/A</td><td>Used for helping the communication between the experimenter and the actors.</td></tr><tr><td>Security Camera</td><td>Brion Vega</td><td>2-20204210</td><td>Model:BV6000</td></tr><tr><td>Speakers</td><td>Logitech</td><td>P/N: 880-000-405 PID: WD528XM</td><td>Used for playing the background music.</td></tr><tr><td>Survey Software</td><td>Qualtrics&amp;nbsp;</td><td>N/A</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Switching Module</td><td>No brand</td><td>N/A</td><td>F5305S PMOS Switch Module</td></tr><tr><td>Table under the OLED display</td><td>Custom-made</td><td>N/A</td><td>Width: 123 cm, Height: 75 cm, Depth: 50 cm</td></tr><tr><td>Transparent OLED Display</td><td>Planar</td><td>PN: 998-1483-01 S/N:195210075</td><td>A 55-inch transparent display that showcases dynamic information, enabled the opaque and transparent usage during the experiment.</td></tr><tr><td>UPS</td><td>EAG</td><td>K200610100087</td><td>EAG 110</td></tr><tr><td>UPS</td><td>EAG</td><td>210312030507</td><td>EAG 103</td></tr><tr><td>USB 2.0 Cable Type A/B for Arduino UNO (Blue)</td><td>Smart Projects</td><td>M000006&amp;nbsp;</td><td>Used to connect the microcontroller to the experimenter PC.</td></tr><tr><td>USB to RS232 Converter&amp;nbsp;</td><td>s-link</td><td>8680096082559</td><td>Model: SW-U610</td></tr><tr><td>White Long-Sleeved Blouse (2)</td><td>H&amp;amp;M (cotton)</td><td>N/A</td><td>Relaxed-fit blouses with a round neckline and without ant apparent brand name or logo.</td></tr><tr><td>Wireless Keyboard</td><td>Logitech</td><td>P/N: 820-003488 S/N: 1719CE0856D8</td><td>Model: K360</td></tr><tr><td>Wireless Mouse</td><td>Logitech</td><td>S/N: 2147LZ96BGQ9</td><td>Model: M190 (Used as the response device)</td></tr></tbody></table>

a naturalistic setup for presenting real people and live actions in experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience studies

Perception of others&#39; actions is crucial for survival, interaction, and communication. Despite decades of cognitive neuroscience research dedicated to understanding the perception of actions, we are still far away from developing a neurally inspired computer vision system that approaches human action perception. A major challenge is that actions in the real world consist of temporally unfolding events in space that happen &#34;here and now&#34; and are actable. In contrast, visual perception and cognitive neuroscience research to date have largely studied action perception through 2D displays (e.g., images or videos) that lack the presence of actors in space and time, hence these displays are limited in affording actability. Despite the growing body of knowledge in the field, these challenges must be overcome for a better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of the perception of others&#39; actions in the real world. The aim of this study is to introduce a novel setup to conduct naturalistic laboratory experiments with live actors in scenarios that approximate real-world settings. The core element of the setup used in this study is a transparent organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen through which participants can watch the live actions of a physically present actor while the timing of their presentation is precisely controlled. In this work, this setup was tested in a behavioral experiment. We believe that the setup will help researchers reveal fundamental and previously inaccessible cognitive and neural mechanisms of action perception and will be a foundation for future studies investigating social perception and cognition in naturalistic settings.

Response time (RT) comparisons 
The current study is an ongoing project, so, as representative results, data from the main part of the experiment (Experiment Part 3) are presented. These data are from 40 participants, including 23 females and 17 males, with ages ranging from 18-28 years (M = 22.75, SD = 3.12).
Investigating the extent of the normality of the distribution of the dependent variables was necessary in order to choose the appropriate statisti...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios at JoVE.com

Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios 

This study presents a naturalistic experimental setup that allows researchers to present real-time action stimuli, obtain response time and mouse tracking data while participants respond after each stimulus display, and change actors between experimental conditions with a unique system including a special transparent organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen and light manipulation.

A Naturalistic Setup for Presenting Real People and Live Actions in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Studies

Perception of others&#39; actions is crucial for survival, interaction, and communication. Despite decades of cognitive neuroscience research dedicated to ...

a-naturalistic-setup-for-presenting-real-people-live-actions

Research

JoVE Journal

Neuroscience

1.8K Views.  Middle East Technical University. This study presents a naturalistic experimental setup that allows researchers to present real-time action stimuli, obtain response time and mouse tracking data while participants respond after each stimulus display, and change actors between experimental conditions with a unique system including a special transparent organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen and light manipulation.

Video: Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios 

A Fully Automated Rodent Conditioning Protocol for Sensorimotor Integration and Cognitive Control Experiments

Rodents have been traditionally used as a standard animal model in laboratory experiments involving a myriad of sensory, cognitive, and motor tasks. Higher cognitive functions that require precise control over sensorimotor responses such as decision-making and attentional modulation, however, are typically assessed in nonhuman primates. Despite the richness of primate behavior that allows multiple variants of these functions to be studied, the rodent model remains an attractive, cost-effective alternative to primate models. Furthermore, the ability to fully automate operant conditioning in rodents adds unique advantages over the labor intensive training of nonhuman primates while studying a broad range of these complex functions.
Here, we introduce a protocol for operantly conditioning rats on performing working memory tasks. During critical epochs of the task, the protocol ensures that the animal's overt movement is minimized by requiring the animal to 'fixate' until a Go cue is delivered, akin to nonhuman primate experimental design. A simple two alternative forced choice task is implemented to demonstrate the performance. We discuss the application of this paradigm to other tasks.

A fully automated protocol for rodent operant conditioning is proposed. The protocol relies on precise temporal control of behavioral events to investigate the extent to which this control influences neural activity underlying sensorimotor integration and cognitive control experiments.

Rodents have been traditionally used as a standard animal model in laboratory experiments involving a myriad of sensory, cognitive, and motor tasks. ...

Behavior

Automated Visual Cognitive Tasks for Recording Neural Activity Using a Floor Projection Maze

Neuropsychological tasks used in primates to investigate mechanisms of learning and memory are typically visually guided cognitive tasks. We have developed visual cognitive tasks for rats using the Floor Projection Maze1,2&#160;that are optimized for visual abilities of rats permitting stronger comparisons of experimental findings with other species.
In order to investigate neural correlates of learning and memory, we have integrated electrophysiological recordings into fully automated cognitive tasks on the Floor Projection Maze1,2. Behavioral software interfaced with an animal tracking system allows monitoring of the animal's behavior with precise control of image presentation and reward contingencies for better trained animals. Integration with an in vivo electrophysiological recording system enables examination of behavioral correlates of neural activity at selected epochs of a given cognitive task.
We describe protocols for a model system that combines automated visual presentation of information to rodents and intracranial reward with electrophysiological approaches. Our model system offers a sophisticated set of tools as a framework for other cognitive tasks to better isolate and identify specific mechanisms contributing to particular cognitive processes.

We describe protocols for training rats for chronic electrophysiological recordings in fully automated cognitive tasks on a Floor Projection Maze.

Neuropsychological tasks used in primates to investigate mechanisms of learning and memory are typically visually guided cognitive tasks. We have ...

fMRI Validation of fNIRS Measurements During a Naturalistic Task

We present a method to compare brain activity recorded with near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) in a dance video game task to that recorded in a reduced version of the task using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). Recently, it has been shown that fNIRS can accurately record functional brain activities equivalent to those concurrently recorded with functional magnetic resonance imaging for classic psychophysical tasks and simple finger tapping paradigms. However, an often quoted benefit of fNIRS is that the technique allows for studying neural mechanisms of complex, naturalistic behaviors that are not possible using the constrained environment of fMRI. Our goal was to extend the findings of previous studies that have shown high correlation between concurrently recorded fNIRS and fMRI signals to compare neural recordings obtained in fMRI procedures to those separately obtained in naturalistic fNIRS experiments. Specifically, we developed a modified version of the dance video game Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) to be compatible with both fMRI and fNIRS imaging procedures. In this methodology we explain the modifications to the software and hardware for compatibility with each technique as well as the scanning and calibration procedures used to obtain representative results. The results of the study show a task-related increase in oxyhemoglobin in both modalities and demonstrate that it is possible to replicate the findings of fMRI using fNIRS in a naturalistic task. This technique represents a methodology to compare fMRI imaging paradigms which utilize a reduced-world environment to fNIRS in closer approximation to naturalistic, full-body activities and behaviors. Further development of this technique may apply to neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson&#8217;s disease, late states of dementia, or those with magnetic susceptibility which are contraindicated for fMRI scanning.

We present a method to compare functional brain activity recorded during a naturalistic task using fNIRS with activity recorded during fMRI.

We present a method to compare brain activity recorded with near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) in a dance video game task to that recorded in a reduced ...

Using Fiberless, Wearable fNIRS to Monitor Brain Activity in Real-world Cognitive Tasks

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a neuroimaging technique that uses near-infrared light to monitor brain activity. Based on neurovascular coupling, fNIRS is able to measure the haemoglobin concentration changes secondary to neuronal activity. Compared to other neuroimaging techniques, fNIRS represents a good compromise in terms of spatial and temporal resolution. Moreover, it is portable, lightweight, less sensitive to motion artifacts and does not impose significant physical restraints. It is therefore appropriate to monitor a wide range of cognitive tasks (e.g., auditory, gait analysis, social interaction) and different age populations (e.g., new-borns, adults, elderly people). The recent development of fiberless fNIRS devices has opened the way to new applications in neuroscience research. This represents a unique opportunity to study functional activity during real-world tests, which can be more sensitive and accurate in assessing cognitive function and dysfunction than lab-based tests. This study explored the use of fiberless fNIRS to monitor brain activity during a real-world prospective memory task. This protocol is performed outside the lab and brain haemoglobin concentration changes are continuously measured over the prefrontal cortex while the subject walks around in order to accomplish several different tasks.

Monitoring brain activity outside the lab without physical constraints presents methodological challenges. A fiberless, wearable functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) system was used to measure brain activity during an ecological prospective memory task. It was demonstrated that this system could be used to monitor brain activity during non-lab based experiments.

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a neuroimaging technique that uses near-infrared light to monitor brain activity. Based on neurovascular ...

Dissociation of the Confounding Influences of Expectancy and Integrative Difficulty Residing in Anomalous Sentences in Event-related Potential Studies

The confounding factors of unexpectedness and semantic integration difficulty naturally residing in anomalous sentences in language studies make it difficult to determine the underlying processing mechanism of ERP components. Unlike the traditional static approach of manipulating expectancy through corpus frequency or cloze probability, this protocol proposes a dynamic method to enhance participants&#39; expectancy for rarely-met anomalous sentences by multiple repetitions while maintaining their semantic integration difficulties. To address the time cost increase resulting from multiple repetitions, this protocol proposes to repeat only the strictly simplified core structure extracted from the anomalous sentence before presenting the semantically enriched, much more informative complete anomalous sentence containing the anomalous core structure to reinitiate the semantic integration processing. The complete anomalous sentence elicited a P600 effect. It suggests that the participants did not give up processing the anomalous information after repetitions and the same semantic integration difficulty was successfully reinitiated. Importantly, the representative experimental results reveal that the greatly attenuated N400 effect caused by multiple repetitions was not recovered by the follow-up reinitiated semantic integration difficulty. It suggests that the attenuated N400 effect should be mainly attributed to the enhancement of expectancy for anomalous information by multiple repetitions. The experimental results show that this method can effectively enhance participants&#39; expectancy for anomalous sentences while retaining the semantic integration difficulty.

We present a protocol to dissociate the intertwining factors of integrative difficulty and unexpectedness in semantically anomalous sentences by applying multiple repetitions to enhance participant&#39;s expectancy for anomalous sentences. The dissociation helps to investigate the major contributor of elicited event-related potentials (ERP) effects such as N400 in language studies.

The confounding factors of unexpectedness and semantic integration difficulty naturally residing in anomalous sentences in language studies make it ...

Methods for Presenting Real-world Objects Under Controlled Laboratory Conditions

Our knowledge of human object vision is based almost exclusively on studies in which the stimuli are presented in the form of computerized two-dimensional (2-D) images. In everyday life, however, humans interact predominantly with real-world solid objects, not images. Currently, we know very little about whether images of objects trigger similar behavioral or neural processes as do real-world exemplars. Here, we present methods for bringing the real-world into the laboratory. We detail methods for presenting rich, ecologically-valid real-world stimuli under tightly-controlled viewing conditions. We describe how to match closely the visual appearance of real objects and their images, as well as novel apparatus and protocols that can be used to present real objects and computerized images on successively interleaved trials. We use a decision-making paradigm as a case example in which we compare willingness-to-pay (WTP) for real snack foods versus 2-D images of the same items. We show that WTP increases by 6.6% for food items displayed as real objects versus high-resolution 2-D colored&#160;images of the same foods -suggesting that real foods are perceived as being more valuable than their images. Although presenting real object stimuli under controlled conditions presents several practical challenges for the experimenter, this approach will fundamentally expand our understanding of the cognitive and neural processes that underlie naturalistic vision.

We describe methods for presenting real-world objects and matched images of the same objects under tightly-controlled experimental conditions. The methods are described in the context of a decision-making task, but the same real-world approach can be extended to other cognitive domains such as perception, attention, and memory.

Our knowledge of human object vision is based almost exclusively on studies in which the stimuli are presented in the form of computerized two-dimensional ...

Closed-loop Neuro-robotic Experiments to Test Computational Properties of Neuronal Networks

Information coding in the Central Nervous System (CNS) remains unexplored. There is mounting evidence that, even at a very low level, the representation of a given stimulus might be dependent on context and history. If this is actually the case, bi-directional interactions between the brain (or if need be a reduced model of it) and sensory-motor system can shed a light on how encoding and decoding of information is performed. Here an experimental system is introduced and described in which the activity of a neuronal element (i.e., a network of neurons extracted from embryonic mammalian hippocampi) is given context and used to control the movement of an artificial agent, while environmental information is fed back to the culture as a sequence of electrical stimuli. This architecture allows a quick selection of diverse encoding, decoding, and learning algorithms to test different hypotheses on the computational properties of neuronal networks.

In this paper, an experimental framework to perform closed-loop experiments is presented, in which information processing (i.e., coding and decoding) and learning of neuronal assemblies are studied during the continuous interaction with a robotic body.

Information coding in the Central Nervous System (CNS) remains unexplored. There is mounting evidence that, even at a very low level, the representation ...

Real-Life EEG and ECG Synchronization in Infant-Caregiver Interactions

Home-Based EEG Hyperscanning for Infant-Caregiver Social Interactions

Prior hyperscanning studies that record the brain activities of caregivers and children concurrently have primarily been conducted within the confines of the laboratory, thus limiting the generalizability of results to real-life settings. Here, a comprehensive protocol for capturing synchronized electroencephalography (EEG), electrocardiography (ECG), and behavioral recordings from infant-caregiver dyads during various interactive tasks at home is proposed. This protocol demonstrates how to synchronize the different data streams and report EEG data retention rates and quality checks. Additionally, critical issues and possible solutions with respect to the experimental setup, tasks, and data collection in home settings are discussed. The protocol is not limited to infant-caregiver dyads but can be applied to various dyadic constellations. Overall, we demonstrate the flexibility of EEG hyperscanning setups, which allow experiments to be conducted outside of the laboratory to capture participants' brain activities in more ecologically valid environmental settings. Yet, movement and other types of artifacts still constrain the experimental tasks that can be performed in the home setting.

Author Spotlight: Capturing Infant-Caregiver Interactions Through Synchronized Multimodal Data Collection

This protocol describes how synchronized electroencephalography, electrocardiography, and behavioral recordings were captured from infant-caregiver dyads in a home setting.

Prior hyperscanning studies that record the brain activities of caregivers and children concurrently have primarily been conducted within the confines of ...

Realism in Experimentation

Source: Laboratories of <a href="https://www.jove.com/author/Gary_Lewandowski">Gary Lewandowski</a>, Dave Strohmetz, and Natalie Ciarocco&#8212;Monmouth University

In an ideal world researchers would conduct their studies in real world settings where behaviors naturally happen. For example, if you want to see what influences individuals&#8217; voting behavior, it would be best to watch them vote. However, research in these settings is not always ethical or even practical. Further, a researcher may want more control over the setting to better pinpoint the exact variables that are influencing an outcome.&#160;
When researchers need to conduct studies in a lab, they try to optimize mundane realism, which means that they do everything they can to make the lab feel like a real-life experience. This video demonstrates a two-group design that examines how researchers use mundane realism in a lab to determine whether positive restaurant reviews are connected to diners&#8217; level of tipping.
Psychological studies often use higher sample sizes than studies in other sciences. A large number of participants helps to ensure that the population under study is better represented and the margin of error accompanied by studying human behavior is sufficiently accounted for.
In this video, we demonstrate this experiment using just two participants, one for each condition. However, as represented in the results, we used a total of 200 (100 for each condition) participants to reach the experiment&#8217;s conclusions.

Source: Laboratories of Gary Lewandowski, Dave Strohmetz, and Natalie Ciarocco&#8212;Monmouth University

In an ideal world researchers would conduct ...

Education

JoVE Science Education

Psychology

Experimental Psychology

Perspectives on Cognitive Psychology

Source: Laboratory of Jonathan Flombaum&#8212;Johns Hopkins University

As an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University, I teach Introduction to Cognitive Psychology. This large class primarily consists of freshman and sophomores majoring in related fields, like Psychology, Neuroscience, or Cognitive Science. One of the challenges I face in the classroom is teaching students to appreciate how data are obtained in the process of performing experiments. Students have difficulty in appreciating the chronology of experiments as they unfold in time.
This JoVE collection in Cognitive Psychology makes the experimental timeline absolutely clear and encourages students to understand the trajectory and not just jump to conclusions. The videos also present experiments as paradigms&#8212;to illustrate how researchers can implement tasks in different ways&#8212;depending on the questions at hand. Most of these questions translate to the real world and the limits of our cognition. For example, the video Measuring Verbal Working Memory Span demonstrates our limited memory capacity, which explains the difficulty in remembering long shopping lists.
These JoVE videos in Cognitive Psychology provide a perfect place for instructors to start if they are interested in demonstrating tasks in class. Better yet, the videos can be used to get students involved&#8212;to execute the procedures and to even be the participants. Thus, the collection perfectly introduces lab components to a Psychology class.

Source: Laboratory of Jonathan Flombaum&#8212;Johns Hopkins University

As an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins ...