Subjects reported the note configurations from left to right. The top line mapped onto the leftmost key using the leftmost finger and the bottom line was mapped onto the rightmost key using the rightmost finger. Each 12-element sequence contained 3 notes per line. The notes were randomly ordered without repetition and were free of regularities such as runs (123) and trills (121) with the exception of
one frequently trained sequence (see below) that contained a trill. www.selleckchem.com/products/MLN8237.html The number and order of sequence trials were identical for all subjects, with the exception of two who each missed one run of training due to technical difficulties. A trial began with a fixation signal, which was displayed for 2 s. The complete sequence was presented immediately afterward, and subjects responded as quickly as
possible. They had 8 s to type each sequence correctly. The sequence was present for the entire duration that subjects typed. If a sequence was reported correctly, selleck compound the notes were replaced with a fixation signal until the trial duration was reached. If a participant responded incorrectly, the verbal cue “INCORRECT” appeared and the participant waited for the next trial. Trials not finished within the time limit were counted as incorrect. Subjects trained on 16 different sequences at three different levels of training exposure. Three sequences were trained frequently; with 189 trials for each sequence, and uniformly distributed across the training sessions. These “frequent sequences” are the focus of the present manuscript. The following frequent sequences were presented: s1, 324124134132; s2, 342142134312; and s3, 231431241342. These numbers
indicate the placement of the musical note on the staff: notes on the top line are represented by a 1 while Carboplatin notes on the bottom line are represented by a 4. In addition, there was a second set of three sequences, each presented for 30 trials, and a third set of ten sequences, each presented for between four and eight trials, during training. For the remainder of this paper, we report the results for the three frequent sequences. Frequent sequences were practiced in blocks of 10 trials, with 9 out of 10 being the same frequent sequence, and the other a rare sequence. Trials were separated by an interstimulus interval between 0 s and 20 s, not including time remaining from the previous trial. Following the completion of each block, and in order to motivate subjects, feedback was presented that detailed the number of correct trials and the mean time needed to complete a sequence for the block. Training epochs contained 40 trials (i.e., four blocks) and lasted 345 scans. Each training session contained six scan epochs and lasted a total of 2,070 scans. Stimulus presentation was controlled with a laptop computer running MATLAB 7.1 (Mathworks, Natick, MA) in conjunction with Cogent 2000.