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Webb TW, Miyoshi K, So TY, Rajananda S, Lau H. Natural statistics support a rational account of confidence biases. Nat Commun 2023; 14:3992. [PMID: 37414780 PMCID: PMC10326055 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39737-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/06/2022] [Accepted: 06/09/2023] [Indexed: 07/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Previous work has sought to understand decision confidence as a prediction of the probability that a decision will be correct, leading to debate over whether these predictions are optimal, and whether they rely on the same decision variable as decisions themselves. This work has generally relied on idealized, low-dimensional models, necessitating strong assumptions about the representations over which confidence is computed. To address this, we used deep neural networks to develop a model of decision confidence that operates directly over high-dimensional, naturalistic stimuli. The model accounts for a number of puzzling dissociations between decisions and confidence, reveals a rational explanation of these dissociations in terms of optimization for the statistics of sensory inputs, and makes the surprising prediction that, despite these dissociations, decisions and confidence depend on a common decision variable.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Tsz Yan So
- The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
| | | | - Hakwan Lau
- Laboratory for Consciousness, RIKEN Center for Brain Science, Saitama, Japan.
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Toubiana R, Macdonald M, Rajananda S, Lokvenec T, Kingsley TC, Romero-Brufau S. Blockchain for Electronic Vaccine Certificates: More Cons Than Pros? Front Big Data 2022; 5:833196. [PMID: 35875593 PMCID: PMC9304987 DOI: 10.3389/fdata.2022.833196] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2021] [Accepted: 05/31/2022] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Electronic vaccine certificates (EVC) for COVID-19 vaccination are likely to become widespread. Blockchain (BC) is an electronic immutable distributed ledger and is one of the more common proposed EVC platform options. However, the principles of blockchain are not widely understood by public health and medical professionals. We attempt to describe, in an accessible style, how BC works and the potential benefits and drawbacks in its use for EVCs. Our assessment is BC technology is not well suited to be used for EVCs. Overall, blockchain technology is based on two key principles: the use of cryptography, and a distributed immutable ledger in the format of blockchains. While the use of cryptography can provide ease of sharing vaccination records while maintaining privacy, EVCs require some amount of contribution from a centralized authority to confirm vaccine status; this is partly because these authorities are responsible for the distribution and often the administration of the vaccine. Having the data distributed makes the role of a centralized authority less effective. We concluded there are alternative ways to use cryptography outside of a BC that allow a centralized authority to better participate, which seems necessary for an EVC platform to be of practical use.
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Affiliation(s)
- Raphaëlle Toubiana
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, United States
| | | | - Sivananda Rajananda
- Institute for Applied Computational Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States
| | - Tale Lokvenec
- Institute for Applied Computational Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States
| | - Thomas C. Kingsley
- Department of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, United States
- Department of Biomedical Informatics, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, United States
| | - Santiago Romero-Brufau
- Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, United States
- Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, United States
- *Correspondence: Santiago Romero-Brufau
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Liu KY, Teitler JO, Rajananda S, Chegwin V, Bearman PS, Hegyi T, Reichman NE. Elective Deliveries and the Risk of Autism. Am J Prev Med 2022; 63:68-76. [PMID: 35367106 PMCID: PMC9232972 DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2022.01.024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2021] [Revised: 01/04/2022] [Accepted: 01/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Cesarean section and induced deliveries have increased substantially in the U.S., coinciding with increases in autism spectrum disorder. Studies have documented associations between cesarean section deliveries and autism spectrum disorder but have not comprehensively accounted for medical risks. This study evaluates the extent to which cesarean section and induced deliveries are associated with autism spectrum disorder in low-risk births. METHODS In this retrospective cohort study, California's birth records (1992-2012) were linked to hospital discharge records to identify low-risk births using a stringent algorithm based on Joint Commission guidelines. Autism spectrum disorder status was based on California Department of Developmental Service data. Logistic regression models were used to estimate associations between autism spectrum disorder and induced vaginal deliveries, cesarean section deliveries not following induction, and cesarean section deliveries following induction, with noninduced vaginal deliveries as the reference category. RESULTS A total of 1,488,425 low-risk births took place in California from 1992 to 2012. The adjusted odds of autism spectrum disorder were 7% higher for induced vaginal deliveries (AOR=1.07, 95% CI=1.01, 1.14), 26% higher for cesarean section deliveries not following induction (AOR=1.26, 95% CI=1.19, 1.33), and 31% higher for cesarean section deliveries following induction (AOR=1.31, 95% CI=1.18, 1.45) than for noninduced vaginal deliveries. Lower gestational age and neonatal morbidities did not appear to be important underlying pathways. The associations were insensitive to alternative model specifications and across subpopulations. These results suggest that, in low-risk pregnancies, up to 10% of autism spectrum disorder cases are potentially preventable by avoiding cesarean section deliveries. CONCLUSIONS After accounting for medical risks, elective deliveries-particularly cesarean section deliveries-were associated with a substantially increased risk of autism spectrum disorder.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ka-Yuet Liu
- Department of Sociology, College of Social Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California; California Center for Population Research, College of Social Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California; RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS), Wako, Japan.
| | | | - Sivananda Rajananda
- California Center for Population Research, College of Social Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
| | | | - Peter S Bearman
- Department of Sociology, Columbia University in the City of New York, New York, New York
| | - Thomas Hegyi
- Department of Pediatrics, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
| | - Nancy E Reichman
- Department of Pediatrics, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey; Child Health Institute of New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
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Allen JW, Trofimova A, Ahluwalia V, Smith JL, Abidi SA, Peters MAK, Rajananda S, Hurtado JE, Gore RK. Altered Processing of Complex Visual Stimuli in Patients with Postconcussive Visual Motion Sensitivity. AJNR Am J Neuroradiol 2021; 42:930-937. [PMID: 33574098 DOI: 10.3174/ajnr.a7007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/03/2020] [Accepted: 11/16/2020] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Vestibular symptoms are common after concussion. Vestibular Ocular Motor Screening identifies vestibular impairment, including postconcussive visual motion sensitivity, though the underlying functional brain alterations are not defined. We hypothesized that alterations in multisensory processing are responsible for postconcussive visual motion sensitivity, are detectable on fMRI, and correlate with symptom severity. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twelve patients with subacute postconcussive visual motion sensitivity and 10 healthy control subjects underwent vestibular testing and a novel fMRI visual-vestibular paradigm including 30-second "neutral" or "provocative" videos. The presence of symptoms/intensity was rated immediately after each video. fMRI group-level analysis was performed for a "provocative-neutral" condition. Z-statistic images were nonparametrically thresholded using clusters determined by Z > 2.3 and a corrected cluster significance threshold of P = .05. Symptoms assessed on Vestibular Ocular Motor Screening were correlated with fMRI mean parameter estimates using Pearson correlation coefficients. RESULTS Subjects with postconcussive visual motion sensitivity had significantly more Vestibular Ocular Motor Screening abnormalities and increased symptoms while viewing provocative videos. While robust mean activation in the primary and secondary visual areas, the parietal lobe, parietoinsular vestibular cortex, and cingulate gyrus was seen in both groups, selective increased activation was seen in subjects with postconcussive visual motion sensitivity in the primary vestibular/adjacent cortex and inferior frontal gyrus, which are putative multisensory visual-vestibular processing centers. Moderate-to-strong correlations were found between Vestibular Ocular Motor Screening scores and fMRI activation in the left frontal eye field, left middle temporal visual area, and right posterior hippocampus. CONCLUSIONS Increased fMRI brain activation in visual-vestibular multisensory processing regions is selectively seen in patients with postconcussive visual motion sensitivity and is correlated with Vestibular Ocular Motor Screening symptom severity, suggesting that increased visual input weighting into the vestibular network may underlie postconcussive visual motion sensitivity.
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Affiliation(s)
- J W Allen
- From the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences (J.W.A., A.T., J.L.S.), Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
- Department of Neurology (J.W.A.), Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
- Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (J.W.A., R.K.G.), Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - A Trofimova
- From the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences (J.W.A., A.T., J.L.S.), Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - V Ahluwalia
- Georgia State University/Georgia Tech Center for Advanced Brain Imaging (V.A.), Atlanta, Georgia
| | - J L Smith
- From the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences (J.W.A., A.T., J.L.S.), Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - S A Abidi
- School of Medicine (S.A.A.), Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
| | - M A K Peters
- Department of Bioengineering (M.A.K.P., S.R.), University of California, Riverside, Riverside, California
| | - S Rajananda
- Department of Bioengineering (M.A.K.P., S.R.), University of California, Riverside, Riverside, California
| | | | - R K Gore
- Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (J.W.A., R.K.G.), Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
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Abstract
Self-agency, the sense that one is the author or owner of one’s behaviors, is impaired in multiple psychological and neurological disorders, including functional movement disorders, Parkinson’s Disease, alien hand syndrome, schizophrenia, and dystonia. Existing assessments of self-agency, many of which focus on agency of movement, can be prohibitively time-consuming and often yield ambiguous results. Here, we introduce a short online motion tracking task that quantifies movement agency through both first-order perceptual and second-order metacognitive judgments. The task assesses the degree to which a participant can distinguish between a motion stimulus whose trajectory is influenced by the participant’s cursor movements and a motion stimulus whose trajectory is random. We demonstrate the task’s reliability in healthy participants and discuss how its efficiency, reliability, and ease of online implementation make it a promising new tool for both diagnosing and understanding disorders of agency.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shiyun Wang
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
| | - Sivananda Rajananda
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
| | - Hakwan Lau
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
- Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
- Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong
| | - J. D. Knotts
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
- * E-mail:
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Rajananda S, Zhu J, Peters MAK. Normal observers show no evidence for blindsight in facial emotion perception. Neurosci Conscious 2020; 2020:niaa023. [PMID: 33343928 PMCID: PMC7734439 DOI: 10.1093/nc/niaa023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2020] [Revised: 08/05/2020] [Accepted: 09/07/2020] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Some researchers have argued that normal human observers can exhibit "blindsight-like" behavior: the ability to discriminate or identify a stimulus without being aware of it. However, we recently used a bias-free task to show that what looks like blindsight may in fact be an artifact of typical experimental paradigms' susceptibility to response bias. While those findings challenge previous reports of blindsight in normal observers, they do not rule out the possibility that different stimuli or techniques could still reveal perception without awareness. One intriguing candidate is emotion processing, since processing of emotional stimuli (e.g. fearful/happy faces) has been reported to potentially bypass conscious visual circuits. Here we used the bias-free blindsight paradigm to investigate whether emotion processing might reveal "featural blindsight," i.e. ability to identify a face's emotion without introspective access to the task-relevant features that led to the discrimination decision. However, we saw no evidence for emotion processing "featural blindsight": as before, whenever participants could identify a face's emotion they displayed introspective access to the task-relevant features, matching predictions of a Bayesian ideal observer. These results add to the growing body of evidence that perceptual discrimination ability without introspective access may not be possible for neurologically intact observers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sivananda Rajananda
- Department of Bioengineering, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, USA
| | - Jeanette Zhu
- Department of Psychology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
| | - Megan A K Peters
- Department of Bioengineering, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, USA
- Department of Cognitive Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
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Rajananda S, A.K. Peters M, Lau H, Odegaard B. Visual psychophysics on the web: open-access tools, experiments, and results using online platforms. J Vis 2018. [DOI: 10.1167/18.10.299] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Sivananda Rajananda
- University of California-Riverside, Department of BioengineeringUniversity of California-Los Angeles, Department of Psychology
| | | | - Hakwan Lau
- University of California-Los Angeles, Department of PsychologyUniversity of California-Los Angeles, Brain Research Institute
| | - Brian Odegaard
- University of California-Los Angeles, Department of Psychology
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