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Competitive state of actions during planning predicts sequence execution accuracy

Myrto Mantziara, Tsvetoslav Ivanov, George Houghton, View ORCID ProfileKatja Kornysheva
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.08.085068
Myrto Mantziara
1School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales LL57 2AS, UK
2Bangor Imaging Unit, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales LL57 2AS, UK
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Tsvetoslav Ivanov
1School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales LL57 2AS, UK
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George Houghton
1School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales LL57 2AS, UK
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Katja Kornysheva
1School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales LL57 2AS, UK
2Bangor Imaging Unit, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales LL57 2AS, UK
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  • ORCID record for Katja Kornysheva
  • For correspondence: e.kornysheva@bangor.ac.uk
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Abstract

Humans can learn and retrieve novel skilled movement sequences from memory, yet the content and structure of sequence planning are not well understood. Previous computational and neurophysiological work suggests that actions in a sequence are planned as parallel graded activations and selected for output through competition (competitive queuing; CQ). However, the relevance of CQ during planning to sequence fluency and accuracy, as opposed to sequence timing, is unclear. To resolve this question, we assessed the competitive state of constituent actions behaviourally during sequence preparation. In three separate multi-session experiments, 55 healthy participants were trained to retrieve and produce 4-finger sequences with particular timing from long-term memory. In addition to sequence production, we evaluated reaction time (RT) and error rate increase to constituent action probes at several points during the preparation period. Our results demonstrate that longer preparation time produces a steeper CQ activation and selection gradient between adjacent sequence elements, whilst no effect was found for sequence speed or temporal structure. Further, participants with a steeper CQ gradient tended to produce correct sequences faster and with a higher temporal accuracy. In a computational model, we hypothesize that the CQ gradient during planning is driven by the width of acquired positional tuning of each sequential item, independently of timing. Our results suggest that competitive activation during sequence planning is established gradually during sequence planning and predicts sequence fluency and accuracy, rather than the speed or temporal structure of the motor sequence.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted May 10, 2020.
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Competitive state of actions during planning predicts sequence execution accuracy
Myrto Mantziara, Tsvetoslav Ivanov, George Houghton, Katja Kornysheva
bioRxiv 2020.05.08.085068; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.08.085068
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Competitive state of actions during planning predicts sequence execution accuracy
Myrto Mantziara, Tsvetoslav Ivanov, George Houghton, Katja Kornysheva
bioRxiv 2020.05.08.085068; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.08.085068

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