conscious vs spontaneous operant conditioning in neurofeedback?
khofstadter
Colchester, U.K.
Hello!
//posted this question on two Facebook groups and on https://neurobb.com/, but are still looking for some insights, so here again:
An issue that often came up while developing an audio neurogame was to decide how much users should be told about the mapping between classified signals and control parameters i.e. how conscious or spontaneous should the operant condition be.
Should users know, be conscious about every aspect of the reward system e.g. what is a positive or negative reward or should conditioning happen spontaneously, without users being aware of the mapping at all?
Perhaps how much users should know about the system might depend on the goals e.g. if users are required to focus, perhaps knowing exactly what is happening in the system is a good idea, but, if they are required to relax, let go, perhaps they should not know anything about the mapping.
I imagine there have been discussions about this - could you help, point me to some literature, perhaps papers?
Would it perhaps be a good idea to run a quick survey on this?
Thanks! k
Comments
Kris, hi.
Actually 'negative' feedback is not used very often. One example I'm familiar with, is that in some protocols, excessive activity in the 20 to 30 Hz band is signaled with a gentle audio alert. This is because that band is associated with 'hyper-vigilance' or excess scalp tension. But this is only done in some protocols, as it can have a jarring effect. It would be instead easy to include 20 to 30 Hz as an 'inhibit', in other words reducing the positive rewards that are happening when the undesired band is present.
Similarly in protocols like alpha-theta crossover training, there may be an alert set for excessive delta activity, because the goal is NOT to fall asleep during training. But instead stay at the alpha-theta crossover boundary.
Generally the client is NOT informed in detail about reward / inhibit strategies, as this can just increase performance anxiety and trying to 'please' the neurofeedback practitioner / trainer. The client should be informed about what the reward feedback is, but encouraged just to relax and let the brain "train itself". Most neurofeedback books cover this aspect.
https://brain-trainer.com/brain-exercise-feedback/
In neuromeditation protocols the setup would necessarily be somewhat different, as the goal is simultaneous relaxation, meditation practice, and whatever internal processes are being encouraged to achieve that style of meditation.
William
Some brain training systems, such as NeurOptimal or Cygnet, are considered 'non-volitional', see this post,
https://openbci.com/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/13992/#Comment_13992
Many thanks William,
I can think of two setups:
In setup 2, the 'user' is informed about all aspects of the protocol (as she/he developed it), but in setup 1, it's the trainer who decides how much information the trainee receives on the mapping between classified EEG and control parameters. I guess to be able to reduce performance anxiety, one must be able to bypass the 'thinking mind' - especially in setup 2. Perhaps using some some random, generative functions in the mapping process might help with letting go the will that wants to know about everything.
As far as I remember, some NF trainers don't inform their trainees about how the protocols work at all. Is this correct?
In regards to NF for meditation e.g. neuromeditation, I thought that not knowing about the mapping process at all might help passive type of meditations e.g. mindfulness and knowing about the mapping process might help active type of meditations e.g. focus. How do you feel about this?
Many thanks! k
Well, regardless of the 'setup', the trainee should always know / or be informed of what form the feedback takes: audio, visual, whatever. So their 'subconscious' processes (that are actually doing the learning) are aware of that. In the case of Neuroptimal protocols (and some other protocols), the feedback is an audio track, that contains slight clicks or interruptions at the times at which the parameters are met. Val Brown states that these correspond to moments in the central nervous system, when "state changes" occur. If the subconscious becomes aware of when it is about to "change state", then it can choose more wisely if it about to fall into an old, dysfunctional "tape loop" thought pattern or belief system.
In setup number 2, the main suggestion is just to relax and let the brain train itself. Let go of 'trying' too hard or efforting. Many types of neurofeedback just use a video player program to show (say a nature video), and control the brightness / dimming of the content by the positive reward. Normal video brightness means threshold is being met. Dimming happens when threshold is NOT being met. And amount of dimming can be variable.
Hmm, you might inquire in more detail how Jeff Tarrant does his neuromeditation protocols. I think both passive and active type meditations have internal goals for attention. So attention is primarily on this, and not on details about protocol design.
Regards, William
Sounds like this could be done with music also, since I would expect the average person to prefer some music to complete silence.
Richard, hi. Yes, I have protocols where I modulate the volume of a creek (recorded in nature, not fake), with the amplitude of the reward, minus the inhibit. It's a continuous loop (over minutes), and source sound is at constant volume. Listening to most kinds of music being amplitude modulated like this, would be stressful I think. As in many situations the reward amplitude is changing frequently, multiple times per second. But thresholding can also be used, to slow that down a bit.
The brightness modulation of the nature video mentioned above, is accompanied by the video sound track at normal volume.
Other common rewards used can include a 'video-game' type environment, where the ship or car motion is tied to the reward. And these games typically have sound effects.
http://zukor.com/interactive/games.html
Obviously no First Person Shooter games in the above list! ;-)
William
Thanks!
I will check the work by Val Brown and email Jeff.
Regarding the music, do you see any use of audio driving e.g. with binaural beats or monotone music in NF?
Thanks, k
Interesting question! I know that for my own sake I am always concerned with influencing the trainee and allowing the power of suggestion to muddle the waters with placebo creep when I over explain what they are working toward. I went hunting for the paper which I wanted to reference to help answer your question, but alas I will just have to leave bread crumbs and hope that you find what I was looking for before abandoning ship.
I think Premack talked about the importance of having clearly identified conditions for the reinforcer to be administered following the desired behavior. The desired behavior in training would be meeting certain thresholds that would be represented to them in a clear way for the trainee to know when they meeting the criteria for reward. Feedback is also being given in the absence of a reward, so understanding what their brain is doing (or not doing) then is also valuable.
The issue that I struggle with is my drive to connect the states we train to in session to the trainee's goals in life. This is where the education side of training creates room for the placebo effect - especially based on how they view technology and their conception of neuroplasticity.
As for the comments about passive neurofeedback (neuroptimal/neurogen/lens...etc?) those are categorically different as the changes being made are through the introduction of a low energy electric current & and are not self-generated. Baars seemed to believe that conscious awareness was essential to the feedback component of neurofeedback in 'Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness - Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience' - section 6.5.2, but the ISNR will be updating us shortly with a new definition of neuroregulation and all things that lie underneath. Passive neurofeedback seems more similar to neuroentrainment than to neurofeedback IMO, but the possibilities of the technology and the future of biohacking is clearly in the area of talking directly to neurons, and not to the self that supervenes on its activity.
Using binaural auditory feedback might be helpful in having the effects last. It seems that having trainees listen to binaural beats before and during training might help to increase the effects according to some recent work by Miguel Garcia-Argibay et al. Interesting stuff about neural entrainment and long-term memory is being discovered, and incorporating them into the feedback could not only increase the reinforcer's value, it might also operate differently to increase learning and long-term memory, reduce anxiety before training, and help clients who struggle with issues around pain perception. Further, pairing music with training sessions allows for classical conditioning to increase its effects, providing clients with tools that they can use to induce states that have been trained toward while in the real world.
Looking forward to seeing what you create! update when you can!
Tyler, great references.
Your comment about micro current injection is correct with LENS and NeuroGen / HPN. These developed out of Len Ochs' inventions and one of Len's proteges, Corey Snook, created the follow on, NeuroGen / HPN / Iasis. Corey apparently franchises it out under different names for some reason. Possibly to avoid legal entanglement with LENS.
But there are no microcurrents being injected with Neuroptimal or the ILF / ISF protocols (Othmer's Cygnet / Mark Smith's ISF). I would still place all of the above (including micro current) into the "non-volitional" neurofeedback category. Since there are ZERO 'rewards' / 'inhibits' / 'thresholds'. The protocols are simply informing the brain of it's real-time state changes, and the brain (observing itself more closely now), self corrects, to open up new potential growth avenues.
Regards, William
from neuroptimal:
"NeurOptimal sensors read your brainwaves nothing is added to your brain"
haha! Good to know! Thank you for the correction William!!
-t
Val Brown of Zengar / Neuroptimal has explained the principle of his protocol in several past presentations. It is detecting a type of 'turbulence' in the non-linear dynamics. According to Brown this is correlated to moments in which the conscious attention is "changing state". At these moments a slight click / interruption is inserted in the audio stream.
In the case of the ILF / ISF protocols, the software is tracking the movement of the DC offset voltage that very very slowly changes over time. Smith has authored several ISNR papers. The audio / visual feedback simply reflects the movement of this offset, with no intention to force it one way or another.
Well, here goes another dive! I'm interested! It sounds like response interruption strategies for behavior modification used in behavioral analysis, but applied directly to neuronal firing.
Thanks William for the new itch that needs to be scratched
-t
"What's happening below 0.5 Hz?" Issue theme of Neuroconnections, Fall 2013.
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/cba323_fdd03c418d2348f59879f475b82439ee.pdf
https://www.google.com/search?q=val+brown+interview+neuroptimal