Concurrent Cognitive Tasks and Early Extinction Dynamics in Eyeblink Conditioning: An Exploratory Study
Daniel Folch-Sanchez, Chrysanthi Blithikioti, Laura Nuño, Salma Amechat, Pablo Barrio, Maria Pellicer-Roca, Joan I. Mestre-Pintó, Mercè Balcells, Laia MiquelIntroduction
Concurrent cognitive tasks can influence memory processing by interfering with ongoing cognitive operations. Although such effects have been widely studied using subjective measures, their impact on objective indices of extinction learning remains unclear.
Methods
Eighty-four healthy participants were randomly assigned to perform eye-movements (EMs), the Trail Making Test Part B (TMT-B), or no-task control condition during the initial extinction trials of an eyeblink conditioning (EBC) task. Conditioned responses (CRs), CR onset latency and amplitude, and unconditioned responses (URs) were examined across acquisition and extinction.
Results
In the first extinction block, the TMT-B group showed higher CR probability and shorter CR onset latency than the EM group. Neither CR probability nor CR onset latency differed significantly between the TMT-B and control groups or between the EM and control groups.
Discussion
Under the present experimental conditions, brief EMs were not associated with detectable changes relative to control, whereas TMT-B performance was associated with a short-lived alteration in early response dynamics. The results indicate a transient divergence in early extinction-related responding across task conditions, but the differences were confined to the first extinction block and were not consistent across outcome measures or comparisons with the control condition.