You are not alone: ​​monkeys are choked by stress

The cursor game designed by the team is challenging for monkeys, but still easy to analyze. The motion capture camera tracks the monkey’s arm movements and controls the points on the screen. The game itself is the same every time. The researchers believe that any difference in speed, position, and accuracy can only be attributed to one variable they tested: reward.

Monkeys learned to predict specific rewards through visual cues on the computer screen-different colored targets correspond to each reward. Earle and others performed well during training. They failed and got nothing, or took a sip for success. When they think they will get twice or three times the reward, their performance will be better. If this trend continues, the rare jackpot—a beverage that is 10 times larger than the average reward—should inspire better performance. But the jackpot is just the opposite. When huge prizes are available for competition, the monkeys lose much more often. Earle suffocated 11 of his 11 first prize opportunities.

To find out why, Adam Smoulder, a graduate student of the team, carefully checked the monkey’s arm movements in thousands of experiments. Their reaction time and maximum speed did not show a clear trend. “Actually, the only consistency we see is warn,” Chase said.

Imagine that the monkey’s arm gesture is a combination of two stages-a fast initial “ballistic reach” movement sends the cursor closer to the target, followed by a slower and more precise “home” step to land on the target. Earle, Ford and Nelson repeatedly failed in the first prize trial. They don’t start as usual, reach and cover a lot of ground with fast trajectories, and their arrival will stop. The homing step has been delayed until the time runs out.

“The monkey suffocated because of being too cautious,” Batista said.In humans, psychologists associate suffocation with payment and also Pay close attention to your actions. This behavior is called explicit monitoring. Think about your actions will slow them down. He thought this was what was happening; the monkeys were cheering up and did not reach their goal. “If this is not metacognition,” he said, “I don’t know what it is.”

One hypothesis about why big rewards can cause suffocation is that precise actions depend on the “neural sweet spot” of the reward. The expectation of greater rewards may cause neurons to release more dopamine. At the right level, dopamine helps keep movement agile. But if motivation jumps, the flood of neurotransmitters may overwhelm the brain’s communication network. “Too little rewards, our performance is not very good; too many rewards, your performance will not be very good,” Chase said.

This new study does not determine the exact neurological cause of suffocation, but it lays the foundation for neuroscience for scientists to study the high-risk manifestations of laboratory animals. In future experiments, having an animal model will make it easier to use electrodes to eavesdrop on the brain’s chatter.

“Did they show that this is the only way for humans or animals to suffocate? No-but it is one Way,” Bellok said. She said that the picture of the underlying system is important because multiple areas may be involved depending on the situation. Assuming these details are transformed into humans, it can explain how different brain regions cause different types of suffocation. Failed exercise The task is like losing a ball; a failed cognitive task is like forgetting your answer in an interview. The brain areas involved in each situation may overlap, but they may also be independent and worth exploring.

Robbergray, a sports psychologist at Arizona State University, who studies how stress affects human performance, says that monkey data looks a lot of It’s like clear monitoring of suffocating athletes. He said: “When you try to consciously control things from the upper level, you will expect this kind of non-fluid movement.” This is analytical paralysis: “You are micro-managing your body.”