Feature-selective Attention in Frontoparietal Cortex: Multivoxel Codes Adjust to Prioritize Task-relevant Information.

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Jackson, Jade; Rich, Anina N; Williams, Mark A; Woolgar, Alexandra

2017-02-01

Human cognition is characterized by astounding flexibility, enabling us to select appropriate information according to the objectives of our current task. A circuit of frontal and parietal brain regions, often referred to as the frontoparietal attention network or multiple-demand (MD) regions, are believed to play a fundamental role in this flexibility. There is evidence that these regions dynamically adjust their responses to selectively process information that is currently relevant for behavior, as proposed by the "adaptive coding hypothesis" [Duncan, J. An adaptive coding model of neural function in prefrontal cortex. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2, 820-829, 2001]. Could this provide a neural mechanism for feature-selective attention, the process by which we preferentially process one feature of a stimulus over another? We used multivariate pattern analysis of fMRI data during a perceptually challenging categorization task to investigate whether the representation of visual object features in the MD regions flexibly adjusts according to task relevance. Participants were trained to categorize visually similar novel objects along two orthogonal stimulus dimensions (length/orientation) and performed short alternating blocks in which only one of these dimensions was relevant. We found that multivoxel patterns of activation in the MD regions encoded the task-relevant distinctions more strongly than the task-irrelevant distinctions: The MD regions discriminated between stimuli of different lengths when length was relevant and between the same objects according to orientation when orientation was relevant. The data suggest a flexible neural system that adjusts its representation of visual objects to preferentially encode stimulus features that are currently relevant for behavior, providing a neural mechanism for feature-selective attention.

Use of Multichannel Near Infrared Spectroscopy to Study Relationships Between Brain Regions and Neurocognitive Tasks of Selective/Divided Attention and 2-Back Working Memory.

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Tomita, Nozomi; Imai, Shoji; Kanayama, Yusuke; Kawashima, Issaku; Kumano, Hiroaki

2017-06-01

While dichotic listening (DL) was originally intended to measure bottom-up selective attention, it has also become a tool for measuring top-down selective attention. This study investigated the brain regions related to top-down selective and divided attention DL tasks and a 2-back task using alphanumeric and Japanese numeric sounds. Thirty-six healthy participants underwent near-infrared spectroscopy scanning while performing a top-down selective attentional DL task, a top-down divided attentional DL task, and a 2-back task. Pearson's correlations were calculated to show relationships between oxy-Hb concentration in each brain region and the score of each cognitive task. Different brain regions were activated during the DL and 2-back tasks. Brain regions activated in the top-down selective attention DL task were the left inferior prefrontal gyrus and left pars opercularis. The left temporopolar area was activated in the top-down divided attention DL task, and the left frontopolar area and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex were activated in the 2-back task. As further evidence for the finding that each task measured different cognitive and brain area functions, neither the percentages of correct answers for the three tasks nor the response times for the selective attentional task and the divided attentional task were correlated to one another. Thus, the DL and 2-back tasks used in this study can assess multiple areas of cognitive, brain-related dysfunction to explore their relationship to different psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Demographic Variables and Selective, Sustained Attention and Planning through Cognitive Tasks among Healthy Adults

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Afsaneh Zarghi

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Cognitive tasks are considered to be applicable and appropriate in assessing cognitive domains. The purpose of our study is to determine the relationship existence between variables of age, sex and education with selective, sustained attention and planning abilities by means of computerized cognitive tasks among healthy adults. Methods: A cross-sectional study was implemented during 6 months from June to November, 2010 on 84 healthy adults (42 male and 42 female. The whole participants performed computerized CPT, STROOP and TOL tests after being content and trained. Results: The obtained data indicate that there is a significant correlation coefficient between age, sex and education variables (p<0.05. Discussion: The above-mentioned tests can be used to assess selective, sustained attention and planning.

Deficits of spatial and task-related attentional selection in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

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Redel, P; Bublak, P; Sorg, C; Kurz, A; Förstl, H; Müller, H J; Schneider, W X; Perneczky, R; Finke, K

2012-01-01

Visual selective attention was assessed with a partial-report task in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD), amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and healthy elderly controls. Based on Bundesen's "theory of visual attention" (TVA), two parameters were derived: top-down control of attentional selection, representing task-related attentional weighting for prioritizing relevant visual objects, and spatial distribution of attentional weights across the left and the right hemifield. Compared with controls, MCI patients showed significantly reduced top-down controlled selection, which was further deteriorated in AD subjects. Moreover, attentional weighting was significantly unbalanced across hemifields in MCI and tended to be more lateralized in AD. Across MCI and AD patients, carriers of the apolipoprotein E ε4 allele (ApoE4) displayed a leftward spatial bias, which was the more pronounced the younger the ApoE4-positive patients and the earlier disease onset. These results indicate that impaired top-down control may be linked to early dysfunction of fronto-parietal networks. An early temporo-parietal interhemispheric asymmetry might cause a pathological spatial bias which is associated with ApoE4 genotype and may therefore function as early cognitive marker of upcoming AD. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Decoding task-based attentional modulation during face categorization.

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Chiu, Yu-Chin; Esterman, Michael; Han, Yuefeng; Rosen, Heather; Yantis, Steven

2011-05-01

Attention is a neurocognitive mechanism that selects task-relevant sensory or mnemonic information to achieve current behavioral goals. Attentional modulation of cortical activity has been observed when attention is directed to specific locations, features, or objects. However, little is known about how high-level categorization task set modulates perceptual representations. In the current study, observers categorized faces by gender (male vs. female) or race (Asian vs. White). Each face was perceptually ambiguous in both dimensions, such that categorization of one dimension demanded selective attention to task-relevant information within the face. We used multivoxel pattern classification to show that task-specific modulations evoke reliably distinct spatial patterns of activity within three face-selective cortical regions (right fusiform face area and bilateral occipital face areas). This result suggests that patterns of activity in these regions reflect not only stimulus-specific (i.e., faces vs. houses) responses but also task-specific (i.e., race vs. gender) attentional modulation. Furthermore, exploratory whole-brain multivoxel pattern classification (using a searchlight procedure) revealed a network of dorsal fronto-parietal regions (left middle frontal gyrus and left inferior and superior parietal lobule) that also exhibit distinct patterns for the two task sets, suggesting that these regions may represent abstract goals during high-level categorization tasks.

Interactions between working memory and selective attention

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

无

2007-01-01

Event-related potential (ERP) was used to examine the interactions between working memory and selective attention. We combined two unrelated tasks, one requiring working memory and the other selective attention, which were performed by some undergraduates. The ERP results revealed that both congruent and incongruent stimuli in the selective attention task evoked an N400 component, reaching the peak point at around 500 ms. The N400 evoked by incongruent stimuli was more negative than that of congruent, which indicated the difference of semantic N400. Furthermore, working memory load had a significant influence on the N400 evoked by selective attention task in parietal region. And working memory load showed difference in the ERPs of working memory retrieval in central and parietal regions. The ERPs of probe under high working memory load were more positive from 350 to 550 ms post-stimulus; however, stimulus type of selective attention had no influence on working memory retrieval. The present study shows that working memory does not play a major role in the selective attention, especially in ignoring distracter, but it influences the performance of the selective attention as the background. The congruency of target and distracter in the selective attention task does not influence the working memory retrieval.

Selective Impairment of Auditory Selective Attention under Concurrent Cognitive Load

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Dittrich, Kerstin; Stahl, Christoph

2012-01-01

Load theory predicts that concurrent cognitive load impairs selective attention. For visual stimuli, it has been shown that this impairment can be selective: Distraction was specifically increased when the stimulus material used in the cognitive load task matches that of the selective attention task. Here, we report four experiments that…

Neural Determinants of Task Performance during Feature-Based Attention in Human Cortex

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Gong, Mengyuan

2018-01-01

Abstract Studies of feature-based attention have associated activity in a dorsal frontoparietal network with putative attentional priority signals. Yet, how this neural activity mediates attentional selection and whether it guides behavior are fundamental questions that require investigation. We reasoned that endogenous fluctuations in the quality of attentional priority should influence task performance. Human subjects detected a speed increment while viewing clockwise (CW) or counterclockwise (CCW) motion (baseline task) or while attending to either direction amid distracters (attention task). In an fMRI experiment, direction-specific neural pattern similarity between the baseline task and the attention task revealed a higher level of similarity for correct than incorrect trials in frontoparietal regions. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we disrupted posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and found a selective deficit in the attention task, but not in the baseline task, demonstrating the necessity of this cortical area during feature-based attention. These results reveal that frontoparietal areas maintain attentional priority that facilitates successful behavioral selection. PMID:29497703

Demographic Variables and Selective, Sustained Attention and Planning through Cognitive Tasks among Healthy Adults

OpenAIRE

Afsaneh Zarghi; Zali; A; Tehranidost; M; Mohammad Reza Zarindast; Ashrafi; F; Doroodgar; Khodadadi

2011-01-01

Introduction: Cognitive tasks are considered to be applicable and appropriate in assessing cognitive domains. The purpose of our study is to determine the relationship existence between variables of age, sex and education with selective, sustained attention and planning abilities by means of computerized cognitive tasks among healthy adults. Methods: A cross-sectional study was implemented during 6 months from June to November, 2010 on 84 healthy adults (42 male and 42 female). The whole part...

Components of working memory and visual selective attention.

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Burnham, Bryan R; Sabia, Matthew; Langan, Catherine

2014-02-01

Load theory (Lavie, N., Hirst, A., De Fockert, J. W., & Viding, E. [2004]. Load theory of selective attention and cognitive control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 339-354.) proposes that control of attention depends on the amount and type of load that is imposed by current processing. Specifically, perceptual load should lead to efficient distractor rejection, whereas working memory load (dual-task coordination) should hinder distractor rejection. Studies support load theory's prediction that working memory load will lead to larger distractor effects; however, these studies used secondary tasks that required only verbal working memory and the central executive. The present study examined which other working memory components (visual, spatial, and phonological) influence visual selective attention. Subjects completed an attentional capture task alone (single-task) or while engaged in a working memory task (dual-task). Results showed that along with the central executive, visual and spatial working memory influenced selective attention, but phonological working memory did not. Specifically, attentional capture was larger when visual or spatial working memory was loaded, but phonological working memory load did not affect attentional capture. The results are consistent with load theory and suggest specific components of working memory influence visual selective attention. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Domain-Specific Control of Selective Attention

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Lin, Szu-Hung; Yeh, Yei-Yu

2014-01-01

Previous research has shown that loading information on working memory affects selective attention. However, whether the load effect on selective attention is domain-general or domain-specific remains unresolved. The domain-general effect refers to the findings that load in one content (e.g. phonological) domain in working memory influences processing in another content (e.g., visuospatial) domain. Attentional control supervises selection regardless of information domain. The domain-specific effect refers to the constraint of influence only when maintenance and processing operate in the same domain. Selective attention operates in a specific content domain. This study is designed to resolve this controversy. Across three experiments, we manipulated the type of representation maintained in working memory and the type of representation upon which the participants must exert control to resolve conflict and select a target into the focus of attention. In Experiments 1a and 1b, participants maintained digits and nonverbalized objects, respectively, in working memory while selecting a target in a letter array. In Experiment 2, we presented auditory digits with a letter flanker task to exclude the involvement of resource competition within the same input modality. In Experiments 3a and 3b, we replaced the letter flanker task with an object flanker task while manipulating the memory load on object and digit representation, respectively. The results consistently showed that memory load modulated distractibility only when the stimuli of the two tasks were represented in the same domain. The magnitude of distractor interference was larger under high load than under low load, reflecting a lower efficacy of information prioritization. When the stimuli of the two tasks were represented in different domains, memory load did not modulate distractibility. Control of processing priority in selective attention demands domain-specific resources. PMID:24866977

Sex differences in the Simon task help to interpret sex differences in selective attention.

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Stoet, Gijsbert

2017-05-01

In the last decade, a number of studies have reported sex differences in selective attention, but a unified explanation for these effects is still missing. This study aims to better understand these differences and put them in an evolutionary psychological context. 418 adult participants performed a computer-based Simon task, in which they responded to the direction of a left or right pointing arrow appearing left or right from a fixation point. Women were more strongly influenced by task-irrelevant spatial information than men (i.e., the Simon effect was larger in women, Cohen's d = 0.39). Further, the analysis of sex differences in behavioral adjustment to errors revealed that women slow down more than men following mistakes (d = 0.53). Based on the combined results of previous studies and the current data, it is proposed that sex differences in selective attention are caused by underlying sex differences in core abilities, such as spatial or verbal cognition.

Sustained selective attention predicts flexible switching in preschoolers.

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Benitez, Viridiana L; Vales, Catarina; Hanania, Rima; Smith, Linda B

2017-04-01

Stability and flexibility are fundamental to an intelligent cognitive system. Here, we examined the relationship between stability in selective attention and explicit control of flexible attention. Preschoolers were tested on the Dimension Preference (DP) task, which measures the stability of selective attention to an implicitly primed dimension, and the Dimension Change Card Sort (DCCS) task, which measures flexible attention switching between dimensions. Children who successfully switched on the DCCS task were more likely than those who perseverated to sustain attention to the primed dimension on the DP task across trials. We propose that perseverators have less stable attention and distribute their attention between dimensions, whereas switchers can successfully stabilize attention to individual dimensions and, thus, show more enduring priming effects. Flexible attention may emerge, in part, from implicit processes that stabilize attention even in tasks not requiring switching. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Contributions of Sensory Coding and Attentional Control to Individual Differences in Performance in Spatial Auditory Selective Attention Tasks.

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Dai, Lengshi; Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara G

2016-01-01

Listeners with normal hearing thresholds (NHTs) differ in their ability to steer attention to whatever sound source is important. This ability depends on top-down executive control, which modulates the sensory representation of sound in the cortex. Yet, this sensory representation also depends on the coding fidelity of the peripheral auditory system. Both of these factors may thus contribute to the individual differences in performance. We designed a selective auditory attention paradigm in which we could simultaneously measure envelope following responses (EFRs, reflecting peripheral coding), onset event-related potentials (ERPs) from the scalp (reflecting cortical responses to sound) and behavioral scores. We performed two experiments that varied stimulus conditions to alter the degree to which performance might be limited due to fine stimulus details vs. due to control of attentional focus. Consistent with past work, in both experiments we find that attention strongly modulates cortical ERPs. Importantly, in Experiment I, where coding fidelity limits the task, individual behavioral performance correlates with subcortical coding strength (derived by computing how the EFR is degraded for fully masked tones compared to partially masked tones); however, in this experiment, the effects of attention on cortical ERPs were unrelated to individual subject performance. In contrast, in Experiment II, where sensory cues for segregation are robust (and thus less of a limiting factor on task performance), inter-subject behavioral differences correlate with subcortical coding strength. In addition, after factoring out the influence of subcortical coding strength, behavioral differences are also correlated with the strength of attentional modulation of ERPs. These results support the hypothesis that behavioral abilities amongst listeners with NHTs can arise due to both subcortical coding differences and differences in attentional control, depending on stimulus characteristics

Contributions of sensory coding and attentional control to individual differences in performance in spatial auditory selective attention tasks

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Lengshi Dai

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Listeners with normal hearing thresholds differ in their ability to steer attention to whatever sound source is important. This ability depends on top-down executive control, which modulates the sensory representation of sound in cortex. Yet, this sensory representation also depends on the coding fidelity of the peripheral auditory system. Both of these factors may thus contribute to the individual differences in performance. We designed a selective auditory attention paradigm in which we could simultaneously measure envelope following responses (EFRs, reflecting peripheral coding, onset event-related potentials from the scalp (ERPs, reflecting cortical responses to sound, and behavioral scores. We performed two experiments that varied stimulus conditions to alter the degree to which performance might be limited due to fine stimulus details vs. due to control of attentional focus. Consistent with past work, in both experiments we find that attention strongly modulates cortical ERPs. Importantly, in Experiment I, where coding fidelity limits the task, individual behavioral performance correlates with subcortical coding strength (derived by computing how the EFR is degraded for fully masked tones compared to partially masked tones; however, in this experiment, the effects of attention on cortical ERPs were unrelated to individual subject performance. In contrast, in Experiment II, where sensory cues for segregation are robust (and thus less of a limiting factor on task performance, inter-subject behavioral differences correlate with subcortical coding strength. In addition, after factoring out the influence of subcortical coding strength, behavioral differences are also correlated with the strength of attentional modulation of ERPs. These results support the hypothesis that behavioral abilities amongst listeners with normal hearing thresholds can arise due to both subcortical coding differences and differences in attentional control, depending on

The comparison of Selective Attention Deficit in Dual Task Performance in Elderly Alzheimer Patients and Healthy Elderly Individuals

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A. m. Azadian

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to compare selective attention deficit in elderly Alzheimer patients and healthy elderly individuals using the dual task. Therefore, 23 subjects (11 females and 12 males age 62 to 81 years; 13 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD and 10 healthy elderly subjects (EHI with normal cognitive function participated in this study. people with Alzheimer's disease. healthy people was selected through some neurologist identified Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ. After obtaining the average number of correct counting of months of the year in both simple and difficult cognitive task the overall error (E or Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE, and variable error (VE were calculated for the tracking task. Then each person performed 10 tasks simultaneously (under Dual-task in both simple and difficult mode. Analysis of variance in cognitive tasks showed that there was a significant interaction between task difficulty and risk of AD (p0.05. In other words, at dual conditions of tracking task, accuracy and consistency of both groups was equally reduced, which was most prominent in difficult conditions. This decrease indicates increased interference at response level due to defects in the mechanisms of selective attention in dual cognitive and tracking tasks and both groups.

Attention improves encoding of task-relevant features in the human visual cortex

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Jehee, Janneke F.M.; Brady, Devin K.; Tong, Frank

2011-01-01

When spatial attention is directed towards a particular stimulus, increased activity is commonly observed in corresponding locations of the visual cortex. Does this attentional increase in activity indicate improved processing of all features contained within the attended stimulus, or might spatial attention selectively enhance the features relevant to the observer’s task? We used fMRI decoding methods to measure the strength of orientation-selective activity patterns in the human visual cortex while subjects performed either an orientation or contrast discrimination task, involving one of two laterally presented gratings. Greater overall BOLD activation with spatial attention was observed in areas V1-V4 for both tasks. However, multivariate pattern analysis revealed that orientation-selective responses were enhanced by attention only when orientation was the task-relevant feature, and not when the grating’s contrast had to be attended. In a second experiment, observers discriminated the orientation or color of a specific lateral grating. Here, orientation-selective responses were enhanced in both tasks but color-selective responses were enhanced only when color was task-relevant. In both experiments, task-specific enhancement of feature-selective activity was not confined to the attended stimulus location, but instead spread to other locations in the visual field, suggesting the concurrent involvement of a global feature-based attentional mechanism. These results suggest that attention can be remarkably selective in its ability to enhance particular task-relevant features, and further reveal that increases in overall BOLD amplitude are not necessarily accompanied by improved processing of stimulus information. PMID:21632942

The director task: A test of Theory-of-Mind use or selective attention?

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Rubio-Fernández, Paula

2017-08-01

Over two decades, the director task has increasingly been employed as a test of the use of Theory of Mind in communication, first in psycholinguistics and more recently in social cognition research. A new version of this task was designed to test two independent hypotheses. First, optimal performance in the director task, as established by the standard metrics of interference, is possible by using selective attention alone, and not necessarily Theory of Mind. Second, pragmatic measures of Theory-of-Mind use can reveal that people actively represent the director's mental states, contrary to recent claims that they only use domain-general cognitive processes to perform this task. The results of this study support both hypotheses and provide a new interactive paradigm to reliably test Theory-of-Mind use in referential communication.

Children's attention to task-relevant information accounts for relations between language and spatial cognition.

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Miller, Hilary E; Simmering, Vanessa R

2018-08-01

Children's spatial language reliably predicts their spatial skills, but the nature of this relation is a source of debate. This investigation examined whether the mechanisms accounting for such relations are specific to language use or reflect a domain-general mechanism of selective attention. Experiment 1 examined whether 4-year-olds' spatial skills were predicted by their selective attention or their adaptive language use. Children completed (a) an attention task assessing attention to task-relevant color, size, and location cues; (b) a description task assessing adaptive language use to describe scenes varying in color, size, and location; and (c) three spatial tasks. There was correspondence between the cue types that children attended to and produced across description and attention tasks. Adaptive language use was predicted by both children's attention and task-related language production, suggesting that selective attention underlies skills in using language adaptively. After controlling for age, gender, receptive vocabulary, and adaptive language use, spatial skills were predicted by children's selective attention. The attention score predicted variance in spatial performance previously accounted for by adaptive language use. Experiment 2 followed up on the attention task (Experiment 2a) and description task (Experiment 2b) from Experiment 1 to assess whether performance in the tasks related to selective attention or task-specific demands. Performance in Experiments 2a and 2b paralleled that in Experiment 1, suggesting that the effects in Experiment 1 reflected children's selective attention skills. These findings show that selective attention is a central factor supporting spatial skill development that could account for many effects previously attributed to children's language use. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sex differences in the Simon task help to interpret sex differences in selective attention

OpenAIRE

Stoet, Gijsbert

2016-01-01

In the last decade, a number of studies have reported sex differences in selective attention, but a unified explanation for these effects is still missing. This study aims to better understand these differences and put them in an evolutionary psychological context. 418 adult participants performed a computer-based Simon task, in which they responded to the direction of a left or right pointing arrow appearing left or right from a fixation point. Women were more strongly influenced by task-irr...

Brain activity associated with selective attention, divided attention and distraction.

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Salo, Emma; Salmela, Viljami; Salmi, Juha; Numminen, Jussi; Alho, Kimmo

2017-06-01

Top-down controlled selective or divided attention to sounds and visual objects, as well as bottom-up triggered attention to auditory and visual distractors, has been widely investigated. However, no study has systematically compared brain activations related to all these types of attention. To this end, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity in participants performing a tone pitch or a foveal grating orientation discrimination task, or both, distracted by novel sounds not sharing frequencies with the tones or by extrafoveal visual textures. To force focusing of attention to tones or gratings, or both, task difficulty was kept constantly high with an adaptive staircase method. A whole brain analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed fronto-parietal attention networks for both selective auditory and visual attention. A subsequent conjunction analysis indicated partial overlaps of these networks. However, like some previous studies, the present results also suggest segregation of prefrontal areas involved in the control of auditory and visual attention. The ANOVA also suggested, and another conjunction analysis confirmed, an additional activity enhancement in the left middle frontal gyrus related to divided attention supporting the role of this area in top-down integration of dual task performance. Distractors expectedly disrupted task performance. However, contrary to our expectations, activations specifically related to the distractors were found only in the auditory and visual cortices. This suggests gating of the distractors from further processing perhaps due to strictly focused attention in the current demanding discrimination tasks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Selective Attention and Attention Switching: Towards a Unified Developmental Approach

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Hanania, Rima; Smith, Linda B.

2010-01-01

We review and relate two literatures on the development of attention in children: one concerning flexible attention switching and the other concerning selective attention. The first is a growing literature on preschool children's performances in an attention-switching task indicating that children become more flexible in their attentional control…

Selective visual attention and motivation: the consequences of value learning in an attentional blink task.

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Raymond, Jane E; O'Brien, Jennifer L

2009-08-01

Learning to associate the probability and value of behavioral outcomes with specific stimuli (value learning) is essential for rational decision making. However, in demanding cognitive conditions, access to learned values might be constrained by limited attentional capacity. We measured recognition of briefly presented faces seen previously in a value-learning task involving monetary wins and losses; the recognition task was performed both with and without constraints on available attention. Regardless of available attention, recognition was substantially enhanced for motivationally salient stimuli (i.e., stimuli highly predictive of outcomes), compared with equally familiar stimuli that had weak or no motivational salience, and this effect was found regardless of valence (win or loss). However, when attention was constrained (because stimuli were presented during an attentional blink, AB), valence determined recognition; win-associated faces showed no AB, but all other faces showed large ABs. Motivational salience acts independently of attention to modulate simple perceptual decisions, but when attention is limited, visual processing is biased in favor of reward-associated stimuli.

A few of my favorite things: circumscribed interests in autism are not accompanied by increased attentional salience on a personalized selective attention task.

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Parsons, Owen E; Bayliss, Andrew P; Remington, Anna

2017-01-01

Autistic individuals commonly show circumscribed or "special" interests: areas of obsessive interest in a specific category. The present study investigated what impact these interests have on attention, an aspect of autistic cognition often reported as altered. In neurotypical individuals, interest and expertise have been shown to result in an automatic attentional priority for related items. Here, we examine whether this change in salience is also seen in autism. Adolescents and young adults with and without autism performed a personalized selective attention task assessing the level of attentional priority afforded to images related to the participant's specific interests. In addition, participants performed a similar task with generic images in order to isolate any effects of interest and expertise. Crucially, all autistic and non-autistic individuals recruited for this study held a strong passion or interest. As such, any differences in attention could not be solely attributed to differing prevalence of interests in the two groups. In both tasks, participants were asked to perform a central target-detection task while ignoring irrelevant distractors (related or unrelated to their interests). The level of distractor interference under various task conditions was taken as an indication of attentional priority. Neurotypical individuals showed the predicted attentional priority for the circumscribed interest images but not generic items, reflecting the impact of their interest and expertise. Contrary to predictions, autistic individuals did not show this priority: processing the interest-related stimuli only when task demands were low. Attention to images unrelated to circumscribed interests was equivalent in the two groups. These results suggest that despite autistic individuals holding an intense interest in a particular class of stimuli, there may be a reduced impact of this prior experience and expertise on attentional processing. The implications of this

Task switching in video game players: Benefits of selective attention but not resistance to proactive interference.

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Karle, James W; Watter, Scott; Shedden, Judith M

2010-05-01

Research into the perceptual and cognitive effects of playing video games is an area of increasing interest for many investigators. Over the past decade, expert video game players (VGPs) have been shown to display superior performance compared to non-video game players (nVGPs) on a range of visuospatial and attentional tasks. A benefit of video game expertise has recently been shown for task switching, suggesting that VGPs also have superior cognitive control abilities compared to nVGPs. In two experiments, we examined which aspects of task switching performance this VGP benefit may be localized to. With minimal trial-to-trial interference from minimally overlapping task set rules, VGPs demonstrated a task switching benefit compared to nVGPs. However, this benefit disappeared when proactive interference between tasks was increased, with substantial stimulus and response overlap in task set rules. We suggest that VGPs have no generalized benefit in task switching-related cognitive control processes compared to nVGPs, with switch cost reductions due instead to a specific benefit in controlling selective attention. Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Divided versus selective attention: evidence for common processing mechanisms.

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Hahn, Britta; Wolkenberg, Frank A; Ross, Thomas J; Myers, Carol S; Heishman, Stephen J; Stein, Dan J; Kurup, Pradeep K; Stein, Elliot A

2008-06-18

The current study revisited the question of whether there are brain mechanisms specific to divided attention that differ from those used in selective attention. Increased neuronal activity required to simultaneously process two stimulus dimensions as compared with each separate dimension has often been observed, but rarely has activity induced by a divided attention condition exceeded the sum of activity induced by the component tasks. Healthy participants performed a selective-divided attention paradigm while undergoing functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). The task required participants to make a same-different judgment about either one of two simultaneously presented stimulus dimensions, or about both dimensions. Performance accuracy was equated between tasks by dynamically adjusting the stimulus display time. Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) signal differences between tasks were identified by whole-brain voxel-wise comparisons and by region-specific analyses of all areas modulated by the divided attention task (DIV). No region displayed greater activation or deactivation by DIV than the sum of signal change by the two selective attention tasks. Instead, regional activity followed the tasks' processing demands as reflected by reaction time. Only a left cerebellar region displayed a correlation between participants' BOLD signal intensity and reaction time that was selective for DIV. The correlation was positive, reflecting slower responding with greater activation. Overall, the findings do not support the existence of functional brain activity specific to DIV. Increased activity appears to reflect additional processing demands by introducing a secondary task, but those demands do not appear to qualitatively differ from processes of selective attention.

Sustained attention, selective attention and cognitive control in deaf and hearing children

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Dye, Matthew W. G.; Hauser, Peter C.

2014-01-01

Deaf children have been characterized as being impulsive, distractible, and unable to sustain attention. However, past research has tested deaf children born to hearing parents who are likely to have experienced language delays. The purpose of this study was to determine whether an absence of auditory input modulates attentional problems in deaf children with no delayed exposure to language. Two versions of a continuous performance test were administered to 37 deaf children born to Deaf parents and 60 hearing children, all aged 6–13 years. A vigilance task was used to measure sustained attention over the course of several minutes, and a distractibility test provided a measure of the ability to ignore task irrelevant information – selective attention. Both tasks provided assessments of cognitive control through analysis of commission errors. The deaf and hearing children did not differ on measures of sustained attention. However, younger deaf children were more distracted by task-irrelevant information in their peripheral visual field, and deaf children produced a higher number of commission errors in the selective attention task. It is argued that this is not likely to be an effect of audition on cognitive processing, but may rather reflect difficulty in endogenous control of reallocated visual attention resources stemming from early profound deafness. PMID:24355653

The attention habit: how reward learning shapes attentional selection.

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Anderson, Brian A

2016-04-01

There is growing consensus that reward plays an important role in the control of attention. Until recently, reward was thought to influence attention indirectly by modulating task-specific motivation and its effects on voluntary control over selection. Such an account was consistent with the goal-directed (endogenous) versus stimulus-driven (exogenous) framework that had long dominated the field of attention research. Now, a different perspective is emerging. Demonstrations that previously reward-associated stimuli can automatically capture attention even when physically inconspicuous and task-irrelevant challenge previously held assumptions about attentional control. The idea that attentional selection can be value driven, reflecting a distinct and previously unrecognized control mechanism, has gained traction. Since these early demonstrations, the influence of reward learning on attention has rapidly become an area of intense investigation, sparking many new insights. The result is an emerging picture of how the reward system of the brain automatically biases information processing. Here, I review the progress that has been made in this area, synthesizing a wealth of recent evidence to provide an integrated, up-to-date account of value-driven attention and some of its broader implications. © 2015 New York Academy of Sciences.

Feature-based attentional modulation increases with stimulus separation in divided-attention tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Sally, Sharon L; Vidnyánsky, Zoltán; Papathomas, Thomas V

2009-01-01

Attention modifies our visual experience by selecting certain aspects of a scene for further processing. It is therefore important to understand factors that govern the deployment of selective attention over the visual field. Both location and feature-specific mechanisms of attention have been identified and their modulatory effects can interact at a neural level (Treue and Martinez-Trujillo, 1999). The effects of spatial parameters on feature-based attentional modulation were examined for the feature dimensions of orientation, motion and color using three divided-attention tasks. Subjects performed concurrent discriminations of two briefly presented targets (Gabor patches) to the left and right of a central fixation point at eccentricities of +/-2.5 degrees , 5 degrees , 10 degrees and 15 degrees in the horizontal plane. Gabors were size-scaled to maintain consistent single-task performance across eccentricities. For all feature dimensions, the data show a linear increase in the attentional effects with target separation. In a control experiment, Gabors were presented on an isoeccentric viewing arc at 10 degrees and 15 degrees at the closest spatial separation (+/-2.5 degrees ) of the main experiment. Under these conditions, the effects of feature-based attentional effects were largely eliminated. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that feature-based attention prioritizes the processing of attended features. Feature-based attentional mechanisms may have helped direct the attentional focus to the appropriate target locations at greater separations, whereas similar assistance may not have been necessary at closer target spacings. The results of the present study specify conditions under which dual-task performance benefits from sharing similar target features and may therefore help elucidate the processes by which feature-based attention operates.

Interference and Inhibition in Tasks of Selective Attention by Persons with and without Mental Retardation

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Merrill, Edward C.

2006-01-01

Persons with mental retardation often exhibit greater interference in visual selective attention tasks than do persons matched with them on CA. My goal here was to evaluate whether differences in distractor interference between persons with and without mental retardation may be related to differences in negative priming. Fifteen participants with…

Feature-selective attention in healthy old age: a selective decline in selective attention?

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Quigley, Cliodhna; Müller, Matthias M

2014-02-12

Deficient selection against irrelevant information has been proposed to underlie age-related cognitive decline. We recently reported evidence for maintained early sensory selection when older and younger adults used spatial selective attention to perform a challenging task. Here we explored age-related differences when spatial selection is not possible and feature-selective attention must be deployed. We additionally compared the integrity of feedforward processing by exploiting the well established phenomenon of suppression of visual cortical responses attributable to interstimulus competition. Electroencephalogram was measured while older and younger human adults responded to brief occurrences of coherent motion in an attended stimulus composed of randomly moving, orientation-defined, flickering bars. Attention was directed to horizontal or vertical bars by a pretrial cue, after which two orthogonally oriented, overlapping stimuli or a single stimulus were presented. Horizontal and vertical bars flickered at different frequencies and thereby elicited separable steady-state visual-evoked potentials, which were used to examine the effect of feature-based selection and the competitive influence of a second stimulus on ongoing visual processing. Age differences were found in feature-selective attentional modulation of visual responses: older adults did not show consistent modulation of magnitude or phase. In contrast, the suppressive effect of a second stimulus was robust and comparable in magnitude across age groups, suggesting that bottom-up processing of the current stimuli is essentially unchanged in healthy old age. Thus, it seems that visual processing per se is unchanged, but top-down attentional control is compromised in older adults when space cannot be used to guide selection.

Sustained attention, selective attention and cognitive control in deaf and hearing children.

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Dye, Matthew W G; Hauser, Peter C

2014-03-01

Deaf children have been characterized as being impulsive, distractible, and unable to sustain attention. However, past research has tested deaf children born to hearing parents who are likely to have experienced language delays. The purpose of this study was to determine whether an absence of auditory input modulates attentional problems in deaf children with no delayed exposure to language. Two versions of a continuous performance test were administered to 37 deaf children born to Deaf parents and 60 hearing children, all aged 6-13 years. A vigilance task was used to measure sustained attention over the course of several minutes, and a distractibility test provided a measure of the ability to ignore task irrelevant information - selective attention. Both tasks provided assessments of cognitive control through analysis of commission errors. The deaf and hearing children did not differ on measures of sustained attention. However, younger deaf children were more distracted by task-irrelevant information in their peripheral visual field, and deaf children produced a higher number of commission errors in the selective attention task. It is argued that this is not likely to be an effect of audition on cognitive processing, but may rather reflect difficulty in endogenous control of reallocated visual attention resources stemming from early profound deafness. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Response terminated displays unload selective attention.

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Roper, Zachary J J; Vecera, Shaun P

2013-01-01

Perceptual load theory successfully replaced the early vs. late selection debate by appealing to adaptive control over the efficiency of selective attention. Early selection is observed unless perceptual load (p-Load) is sufficiently low to grant attentional "spill-over" to task-irrelevant stimuli. Many studies exploring load theory have used limited display durations that perhaps impose artificial limits on encoding processes. We extended the exposure duration in a classic p-Load task to alleviate temporal encoding demands that may otherwise tax mnemonic consolidation processes. If the load effect arises from perceptual demands alone, then freeing-up available mnemonic resources by extending the exposure duration should have little effect. The results of Experiment 1 falsify this prediction. We observed a reliable flanker effect under high p-Load, response-terminated displays. Next, we orthogonally manipulated exposure duration and task-relevance. Counter-intuitively, we found that the likelihood of observing the flanker effect under high p-Load resides with the duration of the task-relevant array, not the flanker itself. We propose that stimulus and encoding demands interact to produce the load effect. Our account clarifies how task parameters differentially impinge upon cognitive processes to produce attentional "spill-over" by appealing to visual short-term memory as an additional processing bottleneck when stimuli are briefly presented.

The relationship between bilingualism and selective attention in young adults: Evidence from an ambiguous figures task.

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Chung-Fat-Yim, Ashley; Sorge, Geoff B; Bialystok, Ellen

2017-03-01

Previous research has shown that bilinguals outperform monolinguals on a variety of tasks that have been described as involving executive functioning, but the precise mechanism for those effects or a clear definition for "executive function" is unknown. This uncertainty has led to a number of studies for which no performance difference between monolingual and bilingual adults has been detected. One approach to clarifying these issues comes from research with children showing that bilinguals were more able than their monolingual peers to perceive both interpretations of an ambiguous figure, an ability that is more tied to a conception of selective attention than to specific components of executive function. The present study extends this notion to adults by assessing their ability to see the alternative image in an ambiguous figure. Bilinguals performed this task more efficiently than monolinguals by requiring fewer cues to identify the second image. This finding has implications for the role of selective attention in performance differences between monolinguals and bilinguals.

Visual short-term memory load strengthens selective attention.

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Roper, Zachary J J; Vecera, Shaun P

2014-04-01

Perceptual load theory accounts for many attentional phenomena; however, its mechanism remains elusive because it invokes underspecified attentional resources. Recent dual-task evidence has revealed that a concurrent visual short-term memory (VSTM) load slows visual search and reduces contrast sensitivity, but it is unknown whether a VSTM load also constricts attention in a canonical perceptual load task. If attentional selection draws upon VSTM resources, then distraction effects-which measure attentional "spill-over"-will be reduced as competition for resources increases. Observers performed a low perceptual load flanker task during the delay period of a VSTM change detection task. We observed a reduction of the flanker effect in the perceptual load task as a function of increasing concurrent VSTM load. These findings were not due to perceptual-level interactions between the physical displays of the two tasks. Our findings suggest that perceptual representations of distractor stimuli compete with the maintenance of visual representations held in memory. We conclude that access to VSTM determines the degree of attentional selectivity; when VSTM is not completely taxed, it is more likely for task-irrelevant items to be consolidated and, consequently, affect responses. The "resources" hypothesized by load theory are at least partly mnemonic in nature, due to the strong correspondence they share with VSTM capacity.

The effects of advertisement location and familiarity on selective attention.

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Jessen, Tanja Lund; Rodway, Paul

2010-06-01

This study comprised two experiments to examine the distracting effects of advertisement familiarity, location, and onset on the performance of a selective attention task. In Exp. 1, familiar advertisements presented in peripheral vision disrupted selective attention when the attention task was more demanding, suggesting that the distracting effect of advertisements is a product of task demands and advertisement familiarity and location. In Exp. 2, the onset of the advertisement shortly before, or after, the attention task captured attention and disrupted attentional performance. The onset of the advertisement before the attention task reduced target response time without an increase in errors and therefore facilitated performance. Despite being instructed to ignore the advertisements, the participants were able to recall a substantial proportion of the familiar advertisements. Implications for the presentation of advertisements during human-computer interaction were discussed.

Neuronal effects of nicotine during auditory selective attention.

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Smucny, Jason; Olincy, Ann; Eichman, Lindsay S; Tregellas, Jason R

2015-06-01

Although the attention-enhancing effects of nicotine have been behaviorally and neurophysiologically well-documented, its localized functional effects during selective attention are poorly understood. In this study, we examined the neuronal effects of nicotine during auditory selective attention in healthy human nonsmokers. We hypothesized to observe significant effects of nicotine in attention-associated brain areas, driven by nicotine-induced increases in activity as a function of increasing task demands. A single-blind, prospective, randomized crossover design was used to examine neuronal response associated with a go/no-go task after 7 mg nicotine or placebo patch administration in 20 individuals who underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging at 3T. The task design included two levels of difficulty (ordered vs. random stimuli) and two levels of auditory distraction (silence vs. noise). Significant treatment × difficulty × distraction interaction effects on neuronal response were observed in the hippocampus, ventral parietal cortex, and anterior cingulate. In contrast to our hypothesis, U and inverted U-shaped dependencies were observed between the effects of nicotine on response and task demands, depending on the brain area. These results suggest that nicotine may differentially affect neuronal response depending on task conditions. These results have important theoretical implications for understanding how cholinergic tone may influence the neurobiology of selective attention.

Selective Attention and Attention Switching: Toward a Unified Developmental Approach

OpenAIRE

Hanania, Rima; Smith, Linda B.

2010-01-01

We review and relate two literatures on the development of attention in children: one concerning flexible attention switching and the other concerning selective attention. The first is a growing literature on preschool children’s performances in an attention switching task indicating that children become more flexible in their attentional control during the preschool years. The second literature encompasses a large and robust set of phenomena for the same developmental period that indicate a ...

Response terminated displays unload selective attention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zachary Joseph Jackson Roper

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Perceptual load theory successfully replaced the early versus late selection debate by appealing to adaptive control over the efficiency of selective attention. Early selection is observed unless perceptual load (p-Load is sufficiently low to grant attentional ‘spill-over‘ to task-irrelevant stimuli. Many studies exploring load theory have used limited display durations that perhaps impose artificial limits on encoding processes. We extended the exposure duration in a classic p-Load task to alleviate temporal encoding demands that may otherwise tax mnemonic consolidation processes. If the load effect arises from perceptual demands alone, then freeing-up available mnemonic resources by extending the exposure duration should have little effect. The results of Experiment 1 falsify this prediction. We observed a reliable flanker effect under high p-Load, response-terminated displays. Next, we orthogonally manipulated exposure duration and task-relevance. Counter-intuitively, we found that the likelihood of observing the flanker effect under high p-Load resides with the duration of the task-relevant array, not the flanker itself. We propose that stimulus and encoding demands interact to produce the load effect. Our account clarifies how task parameters differentially impinge upon cognitive processes to produce attentional ‘spill-over’ by appealing to visual short-term memory as an additional processing bottleneck when stimuli are briefly presented.

Spatial Scaling of the Profile of Selective Attention in the Visual Field.

Science.gov (United States)

Gannon, Matthew A; Knapp, Ashley A; Adams, Thomas G; Long, Stephanie M; Parks, Nathan A

2016-01-01

Neural mechanisms of selective attention must be capable of adapting to variation in the absolute size of an attended stimulus in the ever-changing visual environment. To date, little is known regarding how attentional selection interacts with fluctuations in the spatial expanse of an attended object. Here, we use event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the scaling of attentional enhancement and suppression across the visual field. We measured ERPs while participants performed a task at fixation that varied in its attentional demands (attentional load) and visual angle (1.0° or 2.5°). Observers were presented with a stream of task-relevant stimuli while foveal, parafoveal, and peripheral visual locations were probed by irrelevant distractor stimuli. We found two important effects in the N1 component of visual ERPs. First, N1 modulations to task-relevant stimuli indexed attentional selection of stimuli during the load task and further correlated with task performance. Second, with increased task size, attentional modulation of the N1 to distractor stimuli showed a differential pattern that was consistent with a scaling of attentional selection. Together, these results demonstrate that the size of an attended stimulus scales the profile of attentional selection across the visual field and provides insights into the attentional mechanisms associated with such spatial scaling.

Endogenously and exogenously driven selective sustained attention: Contributions to learning in kindergarten children.

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Erickson, Lucy C; Thiessen, Erik D; Godwin, Karrie E; Dickerson, John P; Fisher, Anna V

2015-10-01

Selective sustained attention is vital for higher order cognition. Although endogenous and exogenous factors influence selective sustained attention, assessment of the degree to which these factors influence performance and learning is often challenging. We report findings from the Track-It task, a paradigm that aims to assess the contribution of endogenous and exogenous factors to selective sustained attention within the same task. Behavioral accuracy and eye-tracking data on the Track-It task were correlated with performance on an explicit learning task. Behavioral accuracy and fixations to distractors during the Track-It task did not predict learning when exogenous factors supported selective sustained attention. In contrast, when endogenous factors supported selective sustained attention, fixations to distractors were negatively correlated with learning. Similarly, when endogenous factors supported selective sustained attention, higher behavioral accuracy was correlated with greater learning. These findings suggest that endogenously and exogenously driven selective sustained attention, as measured through different conditions of the Track-It task, may support different kinds of learning. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Performance effects of nicotine during selective attention, divided attention, and simple stimulus detection: an fMRI study.

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Hahn, Britta; Ross, Thomas J; Wolkenberg, Frank A; Shakleya, Diaa M; Huestis, Marilyn A; Stein, Elliot A

2009-09-01

Attention-enhancing effects of nicotine appear to depend on the nature of the attentional function. Underlying neuroanatomical mechanisms, too, may vary depending on the function modulated. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study recorded blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activity in minimally deprived smokers during tasks of simple stimulus detection, selective attention, or divided attention after single-blind application of a transdermal nicotine (21 mg) or placebo patch. Smokers' performance in the placebo condition was unimpaired as compared with matched nonsmokers. Nicotine reduced reaction time (RT) in the stimulus detection and selective attention but not divided attention condition. Across all task conditions, nicotine reduced activation in frontal, temporal, thalamic, and visual regions and enhanced deactivation in so-called "default" regions. Thalamic effects correlated with RT reduction selectively during stimulus detection. An interaction with task condition was observed in middle and superior frontal gyri, where nicotine reduced activation only during stimulus detection. A visuomotor control experiment provided evidence against nonspecific effects of nicotine. In conclusion, although prefrontal activity partly displayed differential modulation by nicotine, most BOLD effects were identical across tasks, despite differential performance effects, suggesting that common neuronal mechanisms can selectively benefit different attentional functions. Overall, the effects of nicotine may be explained by increased functional efficiency and downregulated task-independent "default" functions.

Effects of spatial and selective attention on basic multisensory integration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gondan, Matthias; Blurton, Steven Paul; Hughes, F.

2011-01-01

underlying the RSE. We investigated the role of spatial and selective attention on the RSE in audiovisual redundant signals tasks. In Experiment 1, stimuli were presented either centrally (narrow attentional focus) or at 1 of 3 unpredictable locations (wide focus). The RSE was accurately described...... task) or to central stimuli only (selective attention task). The RSE was consistent with task-specific coactivation models; accumulation of evidence, however, differed between the 2 tasks....... by a coactivation model assuming linear superposition of modality-specific activation. Effects of spatial attention were explained by a shift of the evidence criterion. In Experiment 2, stimuli were presented at 3 locations; participants had to respond either to all signals regardless of location (simple response...

Modality-specificity of Selective Attention Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Stewart, Hannah J; Amitay, Sygal

2015-01-01

To establish the modality specificity and generality of selective attention networks. Forty-eight young adults completed a battery of four auditory and visual selective attention tests based upon the Attention Network framework: the visual and auditory Attention Network Tests (vANT, aANT), the Test of Everyday Attention (TEA), and the Test of Attention in Listening (TAiL). These provided independent measures for auditory and visual alerting, orienting, and conflict resolution networks. The measures were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis to assess underlying attention constructs. The analysis yielded a four-component solution. The first component comprised of a range of measures from the TEA and was labeled "general attention." The third component was labeled "auditory attention," as it only contained measures from the TAiL using pitch as the attended stimulus feature. The second and fourth components were labeled as "spatial orienting" and "spatial conflict," respectively-they were comprised of orienting and conflict resolution measures from the vANT, aANT, and TAiL attend-location task-all tasks based upon spatial judgments (e.g., the direction of a target arrow or sound location). These results do not support our a-priori hypothesis that attention networks are either modality specific or supramodal. Auditory attention separated into selectively attending to spatial and non-spatial features, with the auditory spatial attention loading onto the same factor as visual spatial attention, suggesting spatial attention is supramodal. However, since our study did not include a non-spatial measure of visual attention, further research will be required to ascertain whether non-spatial attention is modality-specific.

Poorer divided attention in children born very preterm can be explained by difficulty with each component task, not the executive requirement to dual-task.

Science.gov (United States)

Delane, Louise; Campbell, Catherine; Bayliss, Donna M; Reid, Corinne; Stephens, Amelia; French, Noel; Anderson, Mike

2017-07-01

Children born very preterm (VP, ≤ 32 weeks) exhibit poor performance on tasks of executive functioning. However, it is largely unknown whether this reflects the cumulative impact of non-executive deficits or a separable impairment in executive-level abilities. A dual-task paradigm was used in the current study to differentiate the executive processes involved in performing two simple attention tasks simultaneously. The executive-level contribution to performance was indexed by the within-subject cost incurred to single-task performance under dual-task conditions, termed dual-task cost. The participants included 77 VP children (mean age: 7.17 years) and 74 peer controls (mean age: 7.16 years) who completed Sky Search (selective attention), Score (sustained attention) and Sky Search DT (divided attention) from the Test of Everyday Attention for Children. The divided-attention task requires the simultaneous performance of the selective- and sustained-attention tasks. The VP group exhibited poorer performance on the selective- and divided-attention tasks, and showed a strong trend toward poorer performance on the sustained-attention task. However, there were no significant group differences in dual-task cost. These results suggest a cumulative impact of vulnerable lower-level cognitive processes on dual-tasking or divided attention in VP children, and fail to support the hypothesis that VP children show a separable impairment in executive-level abilities.

The effects of selective and divided attention on sensory precision and integration.

Science.gov (United States)

Odegaard, Brian; Wozny, David R; Shams, Ladan

2016-02-12

In our daily lives, our capacity to selectively attend to stimuli within or across sensory modalities enables enhanced perception of the surrounding world. While previous research on selective attention has studied this phenomenon extensively, two important questions still remain unanswered: (1) how selective attention to a single modality impacts sensory integration processes, and (2) the mechanism by which selective attention improves perception. We explored how selective attention impacts performance in both a spatial task and a temporal numerosity judgment task, and employed a Bayesian Causal Inference model to investigate the computational mechanism(s) impacted by selective attention. We report three findings: (1) in the spatial domain, selective attention improves precision of the visual sensory representations (which were relatively precise), but not the auditory sensory representations (which were fairly noisy); (2) in the temporal domain, selective attention improves the sensory precision in both modalities (both of which were fairly reliable to begin with); (3) in both tasks, selective attention did not exert a significant influence over the tendency to integrate sensory stimuli. Therefore, it may be postulated that a sensory modality must possess a certain inherent degree of encoding precision in order to benefit from selective attention. It also appears that in certain basic perceptual tasks, the tendency to integrate crossmodal signals does not depend significantly on selective attention. We conclude with a discussion of how these results relate to recent theoretical considerations of selective attention. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Spatial Scaling of the Profile of Selective Attention in the Visual Field.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthew A Gannon

Full Text Available Neural mechanisms of selective attention must be capable of adapting to variation in the absolute size of an attended stimulus in the ever-changing visual environment. To date, little is known regarding how attentional selection interacts with fluctuations in the spatial expanse of an attended object. Here, we use event-related potentials (ERPs to investigate the scaling of attentional enhancement and suppression across the visual field. We measured ERPs while participants performed a task at fixation that varied in its attentional demands (attentional load and visual angle (1.0° or 2.5°. Observers were presented with a stream of task-relevant stimuli while foveal, parafoveal, and peripheral visual locations were probed by irrelevant distractor stimuli. We found two important effects in the N1 component of visual ERPs. First, N1 modulations to task-relevant stimuli indexed attentional selection of stimuli during the load task and further correlated with task performance. Second, with increased task size, attentional modulation of the N1 to distractor stimuli showed a differential pattern that was consistent with a scaling of attentional selection. Together, these results demonstrate that the size of an attended stimulus scales the profile of attentional selection across the visual field and provides insights into the attentional mechanisms associated with such spatial scaling.

Symbiosis of Executive and Selective Attention in Working Memory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

André eVandierendonck

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The notion of working memory was introduced to account for the usage of short-term memory resources by other cognitive tasks such as reasoning, mental arithmetic, language comprehension, and many others. This collaboration between memory and other cognitive tasks can only be achieved by a dedicated working memory system that controls task coordination. To that end, working memory models include executive control. Nevertheless, other attention control systems may be involved in coordination of memory and cognitive tasks calling on memory resources. The present paper briefly reviews the evidence concerning the role of selective attention in working memory activities. A model is proposed in which selective attention control is directly linked to the executive control part of the working memory system. The model assumes that apart from storage of declarative information, the system also includes an executive working memory module that represents the current task set. Control processes are automatically triggered when particular conditions in these modules are met.. As each task set represents the parameter settings and the actions needed to achieve the task goal, it will depend on the specific settings and actions whether selective attention control will have to be shared among the active tasks. Only when such sharing is required, task performance will be affected by the capacity limits of the control system involved.

Modality-specificity of selective attention networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hannah Jamieson Stewart

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Objective: To establish the modality specificity and generality of selective attention networks. Method: Forty-eight young adults completed a battery of four auditory and visual selective attention tests based upon the Attention Network framework: the visual and auditory Attention Network Tests (vANT, aANT, the Test of Everyday Attention (TEA, and the Test of Attention in Listening (TAiL. These provided independent measures for auditory and visual alerting, orienting, and conflict resolution networks. The measures were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis to assess underlying attention constructs. Results: The analysis yielded a four-component solution. The first component comprised of a range of measures from the TEA and was labeled ‘general attention’. The third component was labeled ‘auditory attention’, as it only contained measures from the TAiL using pitch as the attended stimulus feature. The second and fourth components were labeled as ‘spatial orienting’ and ‘spatial conflict’, respectively – they were comprised of orienting and conflict resolution measures from the vANT, aANT and TAiL attend-location task – all tasks based upon spatial judgments (e.g., the direction of a target arrow or sound location. Conclusions: These results do not support our a-priori hypothesis that attention networks are either modality specific or supramodal. Auditory attention separated into selectively attending to spatial and non-spatial features, with the auditory spatial attention loading onto the same factor as visual spatial attention, suggesting spatial attention is supramodal. However, since our study did not include a non-spatial measure of visual attention, further research will be required to ascertain whether non-spatial attention is modality-specific.

Changes in otoacoustic emissions during selective auditory and visual attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Walsh, Kyle P; Pasanen, Edward G; McFadden, Dennis

2015-05-01

Previous studies have demonstrated that the otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) measured during behavioral tasks can have different magnitudes when subjects are attending selectively or not attending. The implication is that the cognitive and perceptual demands of a task can affect the first neural stage of auditory processing-the sensory receptors themselves. However, the directions of the reported attentional effects have been inconsistent, the magnitudes of the observed differences typically have been small, and comparisons across studies have been made difficult by significant procedural differences. In this study, a nonlinear version of the stimulus-frequency OAE (SFOAE), called the nSFOAE, was used to measure cochlear responses from human subjects while they simultaneously performed behavioral tasks requiring selective auditory attention (dichotic or diotic listening), selective visual attention, or relative inattention. Within subjects, the differences in nSFOAE magnitude between inattention and attention conditions were about 2-3 dB for both auditory and visual modalities, and the effect sizes for the differences typically were large for both nSFOAE magnitude and phase. These results reveal that the cochlear efferent reflex is differentially active during selective attention and inattention, for both auditory and visual tasks, although they do not reveal how attention is improved when efferent activity is greater.

Changes in otoacoustic emissions during selective auditory and visual attention

Science.gov (United States)

Walsh, Kyle P.; Pasanen, Edward G.; McFadden, Dennis

2015-01-01

Previous studies have demonstrated that the otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) measured during behavioral tasks can have different magnitudes when subjects are attending selectively or not attending. The implication is that the cognitive and perceptual demands of a task can affect the first neural stage of auditory processing—the sensory receptors themselves. However, the directions of the reported attentional effects have been inconsistent, the magnitudes of the observed differences typically have been small, and comparisons across studies have been made difficult by significant procedural differences. In this study, a nonlinear version of the stimulus-frequency OAE (SFOAE), called the nSFOAE, was used to measure cochlear responses from human subjects while they simultaneously performed behavioral tasks requiring selective auditory attention (dichotic or diotic listening), selective visual attention, or relative inattention. Within subjects, the differences in nSFOAE magnitude between inattention and attention conditions were about 2–3 dB for both auditory and visual modalities, and the effect sizes for the differences typically were large for both nSFOAE magnitude and phase. These results reveal that the cochlear efferent reflex is differentially active during selective attention and inattention, for both auditory and visual tasks, although they do not reveal how attention is improved when efferent activity is greater. PMID:25994703

Explicit attention interferes with selective emotion processing in human extrastriate cortex

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Junghöfer Markus

2007-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Brain imaging and event-related potential studies provide strong evidence that emotional stimuli guide selective attention in visual processing. A reflection of the emotional attention capture is the increased Early Posterior Negativity (EPN for pleasant and unpleasant compared to neutral images (~150–300 ms poststimulus. The present study explored whether this early emotion discrimination reflects an automatic phenomenon or is subject to interference by competing processing demands. Thus, emotional processing was assessed while participants performed a concurrent feature-based attention task varying in processing demands. Results Participants successfully performed the primary visual attention task as revealed by behavioral performance and selected event-related potential components (Selection Negativity and P3b. Replicating previous results, emotional modulation of the EPN was observed in a task condition with low processing demands. In contrast, pleasant and unpleasant pictures failed to elicit increased EPN amplitudes compared to neutral images in more difficult explicit attention task conditions. Further analyses determined that even the processing of pleasant and unpleasant pictures high in emotional arousal is subject to interference in experimental conditions with high task demand. Taken together, performing demanding feature-based counting tasks interfered with differential emotion processing indexed by the EPN. Conclusion The present findings demonstrate that taxing processing resources by a competing primary visual attention task markedly attenuated the early discrimination of emotional from neutral picture contents. Thus, these results provide further empirical support for an interference account of the emotion-attention interaction under conditions of competition. Previous studies revealed the interference of selective emotion processing when attentional resources were directed to locations of explicitly task

Explicit attention interferes with selective emotion processing in human extrastriate cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Schupp, Harald T; Stockburger, Jessica; Bublatzky, Florian; Junghöfer, Markus; Weike, Almut I; Hamm, Alfons O

2007-02-22

Brain imaging and event-related potential studies provide strong evidence that emotional stimuli guide selective attention in visual processing. A reflection of the emotional attention capture is the increased Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) for pleasant and unpleasant compared to neutral images (approximately 150-300 ms poststimulus). The present study explored whether this early emotion discrimination reflects an automatic phenomenon or is subject to interference by competing processing demands. Thus, emotional processing was assessed while participants performed a concurrent feature-based attention task varying in processing demands. Participants successfully performed the primary visual attention task as revealed by behavioral performance and selected event-related potential components (Selection Negativity and P3b). Replicating previous results, emotional modulation of the EPN was observed in a task condition with low processing demands. In contrast, pleasant and unpleasant pictures failed to elicit increased EPN amplitudes compared to neutral images in more difficult explicit attention task conditions. Further analyses determined that even the processing of pleasant and unpleasant pictures high in emotional arousal is subject to interference in experimental conditions with high task demand. Taken together, performing demanding feature-based counting tasks interfered with differential emotion processing indexed by the EPN. The present findings demonstrate that taxing processing resources by a competing primary visual attention task markedly attenuated the early discrimination of emotional from neutral picture contents. Thus, these results provide further empirical support for an interference account of the emotion-attention interaction under conditions of competition. Previous studies revealed the interference of selective emotion processing when attentional resources were directed to locations of explicitly task-relevant stimuli. The present data suggest

Visuospatial selective attention in chickens.

Science.gov (United States)

Sridharan, Devarajan; Ramamurthy, Deepa L; Schwarz, Jason S; Knudsen, Eric I

2014-05-13

Voluntary control of attention promotes intelligent, adaptive behaviors by enabling the selective processing of information that is most relevant for making decisions. Despite extensive research on attention in primates, the capacity for selective attention in nonprimate species has never been quantified. Here we demonstrate selective attention in chickens by applying protocols that have been used to characterize visual spatial attention in primates. Chickens were trained to localize and report the vertical position of a target in the presence of task-relevant distracters. A spatial cue, the location of which varied across individual trials, indicated the horizontal, but not vertical, position of the upcoming target. Spatial cueing improved localization performance: accuracy (d') increased and reaction times decreased in a space-specific manner. Distracters severely impaired perceptual performance, and this impairment was greatly reduced by spatial cueing. Signal detection analysis with an "indecision" model demonstrated that spatial cueing significantly increased choice certainty in localizing targets. By contrast, error-aversion certainty (certainty of not making an error) remained essentially constant across cueing protocols, target contrasts, and individuals. The results show that chickens shift spatial attention rapidly and dynamically, following principles of stimulus selection that closely parallel those documented in primates. The findings suggest that the mechanisms that control attention have been conserved through evolution, and establish chickens--a highly visual species that is easily trained and amenable to cutting-edge experimental technologies--as an attractive model for linking behavior to neural mechanisms of selective attention.

Explicit goal-driven attention, unlike implicitly learned attention, spreads to secondary tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Addleman, Douglas A; Tao, Jinyi; Remington, Roger W; Jiang, Yuhong V

2018-03-01

To what degree does spatial attention for one task spread to all stimuli in the attended region, regardless of task relevance? Most models imply that spatial attention acts through a unitary priority map in a task-general manner. We show that implicit learning, unlike endogenous spatial cuing, can bias spatial attention within one task without biasing attention to a spatially overlapping secondary task. Participants completed a visual search task superimposed on a background containing scenes, which they were told to encode for a later memory task. Experiments 1 and 2 used explicit instructions to bias spatial attention to one region for visual search; Experiment 3 used location probability cuing to implicitly bias spatial attention. In location probability cuing, a target appeared in one region more than others despite participants not being told of this. In all experiments, search performance was better in the cued region than in uncued regions. However, scene memory was better in the cued region only following endogenous guidance, not after implicit biasing of attention. These data support a dual-system view of top-down attention that dissociates goal-driven and implicitly learned attention. Goal-driven attention is task general, amplifying processing of a cued region across tasks, whereas implicit statistical learning is task-specific. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Visual selective attention in amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

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McLaughlin, Paula M; Anderson, Nicole D; Rich, Jill B; Chertkow, Howard; Murtha, Susan J E

2014-11-01

Subtle deficits in visual selective attention have been found in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). However, few studies have explored performance on visual search paradigms or the Simon task, which are known to be sensitive to disease severity in Alzheimer's patients. Furthermore, there is limited research investigating how deficiencies can be ameliorated with exogenous support (auditory cues). Sixteen individuals with aMCI and 14 control participants completed 3 experimental tasks that varied in demand and cue availability: visual search-alerting, visual search-orienting, and Simon task. Visual selective attention was influenced by aMCI, auditory cues, and task characteristics. Visual search abilities were relatively consistent across groups. The aMCI participants were impaired on the Simon task when working memory was required, but conflict resolution was similar to controls. Spatially informative orienting cues improved response times, whereas spatially neutral alerting cues did not influence performance. Finally, spatially informative auditory cues benefited the aMCI group more than controls in the visual search task, specifically at the largest array size where orienting demands were greatest. These findings suggest that individuals with aMCI have working memory deficits and subtle deficiencies in orienting attention and rely on exogenous information to guide attention. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The role of working memory in auditory selective attention.

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Dalton, Polly; Santangelo, Valerio; Spence, Charles

2009-11-01

A growing body of research now demonstrates that working memory plays an important role in controlling the extent to which irrelevant visual distractors are processed during visual selective attention tasks (e.g., Lavie, Hirst, De Fockert, & Viding, 2004). Recently, it has been shown that the successful selection of tactile information also depends on the availability of working memory (Dalton, Lavie, & Spence, 2009). Here, we investigate whether working memory plays a role in auditory selective attention. Participants focused their attention on short continuous bursts of white noise (targets) while attempting to ignore pulsed bursts of noise (distractors). Distractor interference in this auditory task, as measured in terms of the difference in performance between congruent and incongruent distractor trials, increased significantly under high (vs. low) load in a concurrent working-memory task. These results provide the first evidence demonstrating a causal role for working memory in reducing interference by irrelevant auditory distractors.

Selective attention reduces physiological noise in the external ear canals of humans. I: Auditory attention

Science.gov (United States)

Walsh, Kyle P.; Pasanen, Edward G.; McFadden, Dennis

2014-01-01

In this study, a nonlinear version of the stimulus-frequency OAE (SFOAE), called the nSFOAE, was used to measure cochlear responses from human subjects while they simultaneously performed behavioral tasks requiring, or not requiring, selective auditory attention. Appended to each stimulus presentation, and included in the calculation of each nSFOAE response, was a 30-ms silent period that was used to estimate the level of the inherent physiological noise in the ear canals of our subjects during each behavioral condition. Physiological-noise magnitudes were higher (noisier) for all subjects in the inattention task, and lower (quieter) in the selective auditory-attention tasks. These noise measures initially were made at the frequency of our nSFOAE probe tone (4.0 kHz), but the same attention effects also were observed across a wide range of frequencies. We attribute the observed differences in physiological-noise magnitudes between the inattention and attention conditions to different levels of efferent activation associated with the differing attentional demands of the behavioral tasks. One hypothesis is that when the attentional demand is relatively great, efferent activation is relatively high, and a decrease in the gain of the cochlear amplifier leads to lower-amplitude cochlear activity, and thus a smaller measure of noise from the ear. PMID:24732069

Selective Audiovisual Semantic Integration Enabled by Feature-Selective Attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Yuanqing; Long, Jinyi; Huang, Biao; Yu, Tianyou; Wu, Wei; Li, Peijun; Fang, Fang; Sun, Pei

2016-01-13

An audiovisual object may contain multiple semantic features, such as the gender and emotional features of the speaker. Feature-selective attention and audiovisual semantic integration are two brain functions involved in the recognition of audiovisual objects. Humans often selectively attend to one or several features while ignoring the other features of an audiovisual object. Meanwhile, the human brain integrates semantic information from the visual and auditory modalities. However, how these two brain functions correlate with each other remains to be elucidated. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we explored the neural mechanism by which feature-selective attention modulates audiovisual semantic integration. During the fMRI experiment, the subjects were presented with visual-only, auditory-only, or audiovisual dynamical facial stimuli and performed several feature-selective attention tasks. Our results revealed that a distribution of areas, including heteromodal areas and brain areas encoding attended features, may be involved in audiovisual semantic integration. Through feature-selective attention, the human brain may selectively integrate audiovisual semantic information from attended features by enhancing functional connectivity and thus regulating information flows from heteromodal areas to brain areas encoding the attended features.

Validation of a novel attentional bias modification task: the future may be in the cards.

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Notebaert, Lies; Clarke, Patrick J F; Grafton, Ben; MacLeod, Colin

2015-02-01

Attentional bias modification (ABM) is a promising therapeutic tool aimed at changing patterns of attentional selectivity associated with heightened anxiety. A number of studies have successfully implemented ABM using the modified dot-probe task. However others have not achieved the attentional change required to achieve emotional benefits, highlighting the need for new ABM methods. The current study compared the effectiveness of a newly developed ABM task against the traditional dot-probe ABM task. The new person-identity-matching (PIM) task presented participants with virtual cards, each depicting a happy and angry person. The task encourages selective attention toward or away from threat by requiring participants to make matching judgements between two cards, based either on the identities of the happy faces, or of the angry faces. Change in attentional bias achieved by both ABM tasks was measured by a dot-probe assessment task. Their impact on emotional vulnerability was assessed by measuring negative emotional reactions to a video stressor. The PIM task succeeded in modifying attentional bias, and exerting an impact on emotional reactivity, whereas this was not the case for the dot-probe task. These results are considered in relation to the potential clinical utility of the current task in comparison to traditional ABM methodologies. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Selectively Distracted: Divided Attention and Memory for Important Information.

Science.gov (United States)

Middlebrooks, Catherine D; Kerr, Tyson; Castel, Alan D

2017-08-01

Distractions and multitasking are generally detrimental to learning and memory. Nevertheless, people often study while listening to music, sitting in noisy coffee shops, or intermittently checking their e-mail. The current experiments examined how distractions and divided attention influence one's ability to selectively remember valuable information. Participants studied lists of words that ranged in value from 1 to 10 points while completing a digit-detection task, while listening to music, or without distractions. Though participants recalled fewer words following digit detection than in the other conditions, there were no significant differences between conditions in terms of selectively remembering the most valuable words. Similar results were obtained across a variety of divided-attention tasks that stressed attention and working memory to different degrees, which suggests that people may compensate for divided-attention costs by selectively attending to the most valuable items and that factors that worsen memory do not necessarily impair the ability to selectively remember important information.

The fate of task-irrelevant visual motion: perceptual load versus feature-based attention.

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Taya, Shuichiro; Adams, Wendy J; Graf, Erich W; Lavie, Nilli

2009-11-18

We tested contrasting predictions derived from perceptual load theory and from recent feature-based selection accounts. Observers viewed moving, colored stimuli and performed low or high load tasks associated with one stimulus feature, either color or motion. The resultant motion aftereffect (MAE) was used to evaluate attentional allocation. We found that task-irrelevant visual features received less attention than co-localized task-relevant features of the same objects. Moreover, when color and motion features were co-localized yet perceived to belong to two distinct surfaces, feature-based selection was further increased at the expense of object-based co-selection. Load theory predicts that the MAE for task-irrelevant motion would be reduced with a higher load color task. However, this was not seen for co-localized features; perceptual load only modulated the MAE for task-irrelevant motion when this was spatially separated from the attended color location. Our results suggest that perceptual load effects are mediated by spatial selection and do not generalize to the feature domain. Feature-based selection operates to suppress processing of task-irrelevant, co-localized features, irrespective of perceptual load.

Examining age-related differences in auditory attention control using a task-switching procedure.

Science.gov (United States)

Lawo, Vera; Koch, Iring

2014-03-01

Using a novel task-switching variant of dichotic selective listening, we examined age-related differences in the ability to intentionally switch auditory attention between 2 speakers defined by their sex. In our task, young (M age = 23.2 years) and older adults (M age = 66.6 years) performed a numerical size categorization on spoken number words. The task-relevant speaker was indicated by a cue prior to auditory stimulus onset. The cuing interval was either short or long and varied randomly trial by trial. We found clear performance costs with instructed attention switches. These auditory attention switch costs decreased with prolonged cue-stimulus interval. Older adults were generally much slower (but not more error prone) than young adults, but switching-related effects did not differ across age groups. These data suggest that the ability to intentionally switch auditory attention in a selective listening task is not compromised in healthy aging. We discuss the role of modality-specific factors in age-related differences.

Contextual control over selective attention: evidence from a two-target method.

Science.gov (United States)

MacLellan, Ellen; Shore, David I; Milliken, Bruce

2015-07-01

Selective attention is generally studied with conflict tasks, using response time as the dependent measure. Here, we study the impact of selective attention to a first target, T1, presented simultaneously with a distractor, on the accuracy of subsequent encoding of a second target item, T2. This procedure produces an "attentional blink" (AB) effect much like that reported in other studies, and allowed us to study the influence of context on cognitive control with a novel method. In particular, we examined whether preparation to attend selectively to T1 had an impact on the selective encoding of T1 that would translate to report of T2. Preparation to attend selectively was manipulated by varying whether difficult selective attention T1 trials were presented in the context of other difficult selective attention T1 trials. The results revealed strong context effects of this nature, with smaller AB effects when difficult selective attention T1 trials were embedded in a context with many, rather than few, other difficult selective attention T1 trials. Further, the results suggest that both the trial-to-trial local context and the block-wide global context modulate performance in this task.

Stroop interference and disorders of selective attention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kingma, A.; LaHeij, W.; Fasotti, L.; Eling, P.

1996-01-01

Fourteen patients with a right-hemisphere CVA and 8 patients with a left-hemisphere CVA were examined for selective attention deficits using a variant of the Stroop color-word task: the picture-word interference task. Experiments 1 and 2 first compared the performance of the two patient groups and a

Selective attention and avoidance on a pictorial cueing task during stress in clinically anxious and depressed participants.

Science.gov (United States)

Ellenbogen, Mark A; Schwartzman, Alex E

2009-02-01

Although it is well established that attentional biases exist in anxious populations, the specific components of visual orienting towards and away from emotional stimuli are not well delineated. The present study was designed to examine these processes. We used a modified spatial cueing task to assess the speed of engagement and disengagement from supraliminal and masked pictorial cues depicting threat, dysphoria, or neutral content in 36 clinically anxious, 41 depressed and 41 control participants. Participants were randomly assigned to a stress or neutral condition. During stress, anxious participants were slow to disengage from masked left hemifield pictures depicting threat or dysphoria, but were quick to disengage from supraliminal threat pictures. Information processing in anxious participants during stress was characterized by early selective attention of emotional stimuli, occurring prior to full conscious awareness, followed by effortful avoidance of threat. Depressed participants were distinct from the anxious group, displaying selective attention for stimuli depicting dysphoria, but not threat, during the neutral condition. In sum, attentional biases in clinical populations are associated with difficulties in the disengagement component of visual orienting. Further, a vigilant-avoidant pattern of attentional bias may represent a strategic attempt to compensate for the early activation of a fear response.

Selective attentional enhancement and inhibition of fronto-posterior connectivity by the basal ganglia during attention switching.

Science.gov (United States)

van Schouwenburg, Martine R; den Ouden, Hanneke E M; Cools, Roshan

2015-06-01

The prefrontal cortex and the basal ganglia interact to selectively gate a desired action. Recent studies have shown that this selective gating mechanism of the basal ganglia extends to the domain of attention. Here, we investigate the nature of this action-like gating mechanism for attention using a spatial attention-switching paradigm in combination with functional neuroimaging and dynamic causal modeling. We show that the basal ganglia guide attention by focally releasing inhibition of task-relevant representations, while simultaneously inhibiting task-irrelevant representations by selectively modulating prefrontal top-down connections. These results strengthen and specify the role of the basal ganglia in attention. Moreover, our findings have implications for psychological theorizing by suggesting that inhibition of unattended sensory regions is not only a consequence of mutual suppression, but is an active process, subserved by the basal ganglia. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Endogenous attention modulates early selective attention in psychopathy: An ERP investigation.

Science.gov (United States)

Krusemark, Elizabeth A; Kiehl, Kent A; Newman, Joseph P

2016-10-01

Psychopathic individuals are prone to act on urges without adequate consideration of future consequences or the rights of other individuals. One interpretation of this behavior is that it reflects abnormal selective attention (i.e., a failure to process information that is incongruent with their primary focus of attention; Hiatt, Schmitt, & Newman, Neuropsychology, 18, 50-59, 2004). Unfortunately, it is unclear whether this selective attention abnormality reflects top-down endogenous influences, such as the strength or specificity of attention focus (i.e., top-down set) apart from other, more exogenous (bottom-up), effects on attention. To explore this question, we used an early visual event-related potential (N2pc) in combination with a modified visual search task designed to assess the effect of early endogenous (i.e., top-down) attention on the processing of set-congruent information. The task was administered to a sample of 70 incarcerated adult males, who were assigned to high, intermediate, and low psychopathy groups using Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (Hare, 2003). Based on the assumption that their failure to process set-incongruent information reflects the exaggerated effects of endogenous attention, we predicted that participants with high psychopathy scores would show an exaggerated N2pc response to set-congruent information. The results supported the hypothesis and provide novel electrophysiological evidence that psychopathy is associated with exaggerated endogenous attention effects during early stages of processing. Further research is needed to examine the implications of this finding for the well-established failure of psychopathic individuals to process set-incongruent information and inhibit inappropriate responses.

Neural evidence reveals the rapid effects of reward history on selective attention.

Science.gov (United States)

MacLean, Mary H; Giesbrecht, Barry

2015-05-05

Selective attention is often framed as being primarily driven by two factors: task-relevance and physical salience. However, factors like selection and reward history, which are neither currently task-relevant nor physically salient, can reliably and persistently influence visual selective attention. The current study investigated the nature of the persistent effects of irrelevant, physically non-salient, reward-associated features. These features affected one of the earliest reliable neural indicators of visual selective attention in humans, the P1 event-related potential, measured one week after the reward associations were learned. However, the effects of reward history were moderated by current task demands. The modulation of visually evoked activity supports the hypothesis that reward history influences the innate salience of reward associated features, such that even when no longer relevant, nor physically salient, these features have a rapid, persistent, and robust effect on early visual selective attention. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Selective and sustained attention in children with spina bifida myelomeningocele

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Caspersen, Ida Dyhr; Habekost, Thomas

2013-01-01

distinguish perceptual from response-related components of attention. We used a verbal-report paradigm based on the Theory of Visual Attention (Bundesen, 1990) and a new continuous performance test, the Dual Attention to Response Task (Dockree et al., 2006), for measuring parameters of selective and sustained......Spina bifida myelomeningocele (SBM) is a neural tube defect that has been related to deficits in several cognitive domains including attention. Attention function in children with SBM has often been studied using tasks that are confounded by complex motor demands or tasks that do not clearly...... attention in 6 children with SBM and 18 healthy control children. The two tasks had minimal motor demands, were functionally specific and were sensitive to minor deficits. As a group, the children with SBM were significantly less efficient at filtering out irrelevant stimuli. Moreover, they exhibited...

Attention and Implicit Memory in the Category-Verification and Lexical Decision Tasks

Science.gov (United States)

Mulligan, Neil W.; Peterson, Daniel

2008-01-01

Prior research on implicit memory appeared to support 3 generalizations: Conceptual tests are affected by divided attention, perceptual tasks are affected by certain divided-attention manipulations, and all types of priming are affected by selective attention. These generalizations are challenged in experiments using the implicit tests of category…

Cognitive training and selective attention in the aging brain: an electrophysiological study.

Science.gov (United States)

O'Brien, Jennifer L; Edwards, Jerri D; Maxfield, Nathan D; Peronto, Carol L; Williams, Victoria A; Lister, Jennifer J

2013-11-01

Age-related deficits in selective attention are hypothesized to result from decrements in inhibition of task-irrelevant information. Speed of processing (SOP) training is an adaptive cognitive intervention designed to enhance processing speed for attention tasks. The effectiveness of SOP training to improve cognitive and everyday functional performance is well documented. However, underlying mechanisms of these training benefits are unknown. Participants completed a visual search task evaluated using event-related potentials (ERPs) before and after 10 weeks of SOP training or no contact. N2pc and P3b components were evaluated to determine SOP training effects on attentional resource allocation and capacity. Selective attention to a target was enhanced after SOP training compared to no training. N2pc and P3b amplitudes increased after training, reflecting attentional allocation and capacity enhancement, consistent with previous studies demonstrating behavioral improvements in selective attention following SOP training. Changes in ERPs related to attention allocation and capacity following SOP training support the idea that training leads to cognitive enhancement. Specifically, we provide electrophysiological evidence that SOP training may be successful in counteracting age-related declines in selective attention. This study provides important evidence of the underlying mechanisms by which SOP training improves cognitive function in older adults. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Chronic cannabis use and ERP correlates of visual selective attention during the performance of a flanker go/nogo task.

Science.gov (United States)

Nicholls, Clare; Bruno, Raimondo; Matthews, Allison

2015-09-01

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between chronic cannabis use and visual selective attention by examining event-related potentials (ERPs) during the performance of a flanker go/nogo task. Male participants were 15 chronic cannabis users (minimum two years use, at least once per week) and 15 drug naive controls. Cannabis users showed longer reaction times compared to controls with equivalent accuracy. Cannabis users also showed a reduction in the N2 'nogo effect' at frontal sites, particularly for incongruent stimuli, and particularly in the right hemisphere. This suggests differences between chronic cannabis users and controls in terms of inhibitory processing within the executive control network, and may implicate the right inferior frontal cortex. There was also preliminary evidence for differences in early selective attention, with controls but not cannabis users showing modulation of N1 amplitude by flanker congruency. Further investigation is required to examine the potential reversibility of these residual effects after long-term abstinence and to examine the role of early selective attention mechanisms in more detail. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Mental rotation impairs attention shifting and short-term memory encoding: neurophysiological evidence against the response-selection bottleneck model of dual-task performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Pannebakker, Merel M; Jolicœur, Pierre; van Dam, Wessel O; Band, Guido P H; Ridderinkhof, K Richard; Hommel, Bernhard

2011-09-01

Dual tasks and their associated delays have often been used to examine the boundaries of processing in the brain. We used the dual-task procedure and recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate how mental rotation of a first stimulus (S1) influences the shifting of visual-spatial attention to a second stimulus (S2). Visual-spatial attention was monitored by using the N2pc component of the ERP. In addition, we examined the sustained posterior contralateral negativity (SPCN) believed to index the retention of information in visual short-term memory. We found modulations of both the N2pc and the SPCN, suggesting that engaging mechanisms of mental rotation impairs the deployment of visual-spatial attention and delays the passage of a representation of S2 into visual short-term memory. Both results suggest interactions between mental rotation and visual-spatial attention in capacity-limited processing mechanisms indicating that response selection is not pivotal in dual-task delays and all three processes are likely to share a common resource like executive control. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Classification effects of real and imaginary movement selective attention tasks on a P300-based brain-computer interface

Science.gov (United States)

Salvaris, Mathew; Sepulveda, Francisco

2010-10-01

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) rely on various electroencephalography methodologies that allow the user to convey their desired control to the machine. Common approaches include the use of event-related potentials (ERPs) such as the P300 and modulation of the beta and mu rhythms. All of these methods have their benefits and drawbacks. In this paper, three different selective attention tasks were tested in conjunction with a P300-based protocol (i.e. the standard counting of target stimuli as well as the conduction of real and imaginary movements in sync with the target stimuli). The three tasks were performed by a total of 10 participants, with the majority (7 out of 10) of the participants having never before participated in imaginary movement BCI experiments. Channels and methods used were optimized for the P300 ERP and no sensory-motor rhythms were explicitly used. The classifier used was a simple Fisher's linear discriminant. Results were encouraging, showing that on average the imaginary movement achieved a P300 versus No-P300 classification accuracy of 84.53%. In comparison, mental counting, the standard selective attention task used in previous studies, achieved 78.9% and real movement 90.3%. Furthermore, multiple trial classification results were recorded and compared, with real movement reaching 99.5% accuracy after four trials (12.8 s), imaginary movement reaching 99.5% accuracy after five trials (16 s) and counting reaching 98.2% accuracy after ten trials (32 s).

Neural effects of cognitive control load on auditory selective attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Sabri, Merav; Humphries, Colin; Verber, Matthew; Liebenthal, Einat; Binder, Jeffrey R; Mangalathu, Jain; Desai, Anjali

2014-08-01

Whether and how working memory disrupts or alters auditory selective attention is unclear. We compared simultaneous event-related potentials (ERP) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) responses associated with task-irrelevant sounds across high and low working memory load in a dichotic-listening paradigm. Participants performed n-back tasks (1-back, 2-back) in one ear (Attend ear) while ignoring task-irrelevant speech sounds in the other ear (Ignore ear). The effects of working memory load on selective attention were observed at 130-210ms, with higher load resulting in greater irrelevant syllable-related activation in localizer-defined regions in auditory cortex. The interaction between memory load and presence of irrelevant information revealed stronger activations primarily in frontal and parietal areas due to presence of irrelevant information in the higher memory load. Joint independent component analysis of ERP and fMRI data revealed that the ERP component in the N1 time-range is associated with activity in superior temporal gyrus and medial prefrontal cortex. These results demonstrate a dynamic relationship between working memory load and auditory selective attention, in agreement with the load model of attention and the idea of common neural resources for memory and attention. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Selective Attention to Emotion in the Aging Brain

Science.gov (United States)

Samanez-Larkin, Gregory R.; Robertson, Elaine R.; Mikels, Joseph A.; Carstensen, Laura L.; Gotlib, Ian H.

2009-01-01

A growing body of research suggests that the ability to regulate emotion remains stable or improves across the adult life span. Socioemotional selectivity theory maintains that this pattern of findings reflects the prioritization of emotional goals. Given that goal-directed behavior requires attentional control, the present study was designed to investigate age differences in selective attention to emotional lexical stimuli under conditions of emotional interference. Both neural and behavioral measures were obtained during an experiment in which participants completed a flanker task that required them to make categorical judgments about emotional and non-emotional stimuli. Older adults showed interference in both the behavioral and neural measures on control trials, but not on emotion trials. Although older adults typically show relatively high levels of interference and reduced cognitive control during non-emotional tasks, they appear to be able successfully to reduce interference during emotional tasks. PMID:19739908

Automatic selective attention as a function of sensory modality in aging.

Science.gov (United States)

Guerreiro, Maria J S; Adam, Jos J; Van Gerven, Pascal W M

2012-03-01

It was recently hypothesized that age-related differences in selective attention depend on sensory modality (Guerreiro, M. J. S., Murphy, D. R., & Van Gerven, P. W. M. (2010). The role of sensory modality in age-related distraction: A critical review and a renewed view. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 975-1022. doi:10.1037/a0020731). So far, this hypothesis has not been tested in automatic selective attention. The current study addressed this issue by investigating age-related differences in automatic spatial cueing effects (i.e., facilitation and inhibition of return [IOR]) across sensory modalities. Thirty younger (mean age = 22.4 years) and 25 older adults (mean age = 68.8 years) performed 4 left-right target localization tasks, involving all combinations of visual and auditory cues and targets. We used stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 100, 500, 1,000, and 1,500 ms between cue and target. The results showed facilitation (shorter reaction times with valid relative to invalid cues at shorter SOAs) in the unimodal auditory and in both cross-modal tasks but not in the unimodal visual task. In contrast, there was IOR (longer reaction times with valid relative to invalid cues at longer SOAs) in both unimodal tasks but not in either of the cross-modal tasks. Most important, these spatial cueing effects were independent of age. The results suggest that the modality hypothesis of age-related differences in selective attention does not extend into the realm of automatic selective attention.

Focusing on Attention: The Effects of Working Memory Capacity and Load on Selective Attention.

OpenAIRE

Ahmed, Lubna; de Fockert, Jan

2012-01-01

Background\\ud \\ud Working memory (WM) is imperative for effective selective attention. Distractibility is greater under conditions of high (vs. low) concurrent working memory load (WML), and in individuals with low (vs. high) working memory capacity (WMC). In the current experiments, we recorded the flanker task performance of individuals with high and low WMC during low and high WML, to investigate the combined effect of WML and WMC on selective attention.\\ud \\ud Methodology/Principal Findin...

Impaired distractor inhibition on a selective attention task in unmedicated, depressed subjects.

Science.gov (United States)

MacQueen, G M; Tipper, S P; Young, L T; Joffe, R T; Levitt, A J

2000-05-01

Impaired distractor inhibition may contribute to the selective attention deficits observed in depressed patients, but studies to date have not tested the distractor inhibition theory against the possibility that processes such as transient memory review processes may account for the observed deficits. A negative priming paradigm can dissociate inhibition from such a potentially confounding process called object review. The negative priming task also isolates features of the distractor such as colour and location for independent examination. A computerized negative priming task was used in which colour, identification and location features of a stimulus and distractor were systematically manipulated across successive prime and probe trials. Thirty-two unmedicated subjects with DSM-IV diagnoses of non-psychotic unipolar depression were compared with 32 age, sex and IQ matched controls. Depressed subjects had reduced levels of negative priming for conditions where the colour feature of the stimulus was repeated across prime and probe trials but not when identity or location was the repeated feature. When both the colour and location feature were the repeated feature across trials, facilitation in response was apparent. The pattern of results supports studies that found reduced distractor inhibition in depressed subjects, and suggests that object review is intact in these subjects. Greater impairment in negative priming for colour versus location suggests that subjects may have greater impairment in the visual stream associated with processing colour features.

Specialization in the default mode: Task-induced brain deactivations dissociate between visual working memory and attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Mayer, Jutta S; Roebroeck, Alard; Maurer, Konrad; Linden, David E J

2010-01-01

The idea of an organized mode of brain function that is present as default state and suspended during goal-directed behaviors has recently gained much interest in the study of human brain function. The default mode hypothesis is based on the repeated observation that certain brain areas show task-induced deactivations across a wide range of cognitive tasks. In this event-related functional resonance imaging study we tested the default mode hypothesis by comparing common and selective patterns of BOLD deactivation in response to the demands on visual attention and working memory (WM) that were independently modulated within one task. The results revealed task-induced deactivations within regions of the default mode network (DMN) with a segregation of areas that were additively deactivated by an increase in the demands on both attention and WM, and areas that were selectively deactivated by either high attentional demand or WM load. Attention-selective deactivations appeared in the left ventrolateral and medial prefrontal cortex and the left lateral temporal cortex. Conversely, WM-selective deactivations were found predominantly in the right hemisphere including the medial-parietal, the lateral temporo-parietal, and the medial prefrontal cortex. Moreover, during WM encoding deactivated regions showed task-specific functional connectivity. These findings demonstrate that task-induced deactivations within parts of the DMN depend on the specific characteristics of the attention and WM components of the task. The DMN can thus be subdivided into a set of brain regions that deactivate indiscriminately in response to cognitive demand ("the core DMN") and a part whose deactivation depends on the specific task. 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Cognitive load selectively influences the interruptive effect of pain on attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, David J; Eccleston, Christopher; Keogh, Edmund

2017-10-01

Pain is known to interrupt attentional performance. Such interference effects seem to occur preferentially for tasks that are complex and/or difficult. However, few studies have directly manipulated memory load in the context of pain interference to test this view. Therefore, this study examines the effect of experimental manipulations of both memory load and pain on 3 tasks previously found to be sensitive to pain interference. Three experiments were conducted. A different task was examined in each experiment, each comprising of a high- and low-cognitive load versions of the task. Experiment 1 comprised an attention span (n-back) task, experiment 2 an attention switching task, and experiment 3 a divided attention task. Each task was conducted under painful and nonpainful conditions. Within the pain condition, an experimental thermal pain induction protocol was administered at the same time participants completed the task. The load manipulations were successful in all experiments. Pain-related interference occurred under the high-load condition but only for the attention span task. No effect of pain was found on either the attentional switching or divided attention task. These results suggest that while cognitive load may influence the interruptive effect of pain on attention, this effect may be selective. Because pain affected the high-load version of the n-back task but did not interrupt performance on attentional switching or dual-task paradigms, this means that our findings did not completely support our hypotheses. Future research should explore further the parameters and conditions under which pain-related interference occurs.

Selective Attention to Auditory Memory Neurally Enhances Perceptual Precision.

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Lim, Sung-Joo; Wöstmann, Malte; Obleser, Jonas

2015-12-09

Selective attention to a task-relevant stimulus facilitates encoding of that stimulus into a working memory representation. It is less clear whether selective attention also improves the precision of a stimulus already represented in memory. Here, we investigate the behavioral and neural dynamics of selective attention to representations in auditory working memory (i.e., auditory objects) using psychophysical modeling and model-based analysis of electroencephalographic signals. Human listeners performed a syllable pitch discrimination task where two syllables served as to-be-encoded auditory objects. Valid (vs neutral) retroactive cues were presented during retention to allow listeners to selectively attend to the to-be-probed auditory object in memory. Behaviorally, listeners represented auditory objects in memory more precisely (expressed by steeper slopes of a psychometric curve) and made faster perceptual decisions when valid compared to neutral retrocues were presented. Neurally, valid compared to neutral retrocues elicited a larger frontocentral sustained negativity in the evoked potential as well as enhanced parietal alpha/low-beta oscillatory power (9-18 Hz) during memory retention. Critically, individual magnitudes of alpha oscillatory power (7-11 Hz) modulation predicted the degree to which valid retrocues benefitted individuals' behavior. Our results indicate that selective attention to a specific object in auditory memory does benefit human performance not by simply reducing memory load, but by actively engaging complementary neural resources to sharpen the precision of the task-relevant object in memory. Can selective attention improve the representational precision with which objects are held in memory? And if so, what are the neural mechanisms that support such improvement? These issues have been rarely examined within the auditory modality, in which acoustic signals change and vanish on a milliseconds time scale. Introducing a new auditory memory

Selective attention to smoking cues in former smokers.

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Rehme, Anne K; Bey, Katharina; Frommann, Ingo; Mogg, Karin; Bradley, Brendan P; Bludau, Julia; Block, Verena; Sträter, Birgitta; Schütz, Christian G; Wagner, Michael

2018-02-01

Repeated drug use modifies the emotional and cognitive processing of drug-associated cues. These changes are supposed to persist even after prolonged abstinence. Several studies demonstrated that smoking cues selectively attract the attention of smokers, but empirical evidence for such an attentional bias among successful quitters is inconclusive. Here, we investigated whether attentional biases persist after smoking cessation. Thirty-eight former smokers, 34 current smokers, and 29 non-smokers participated in a single experimental session. We used three measures of attentional bias for smoking stimuli: A visual probe task with short (500ms) and long (2000ms) picture stimulus durations, and a modified Stroop task with smoking-related and neutral words. Former smokers and current smokers, as compared to non-smokers, showed an attentional bias in visual orienting to smoking pictures in the 500ms condition of the visual probe task. The Stroop interference index of smoking words was negatively related to nicotine dependence in current smokers. Former smokers and mildly dependent smokers, as compared to non-smokers, showed increased interference by smoking words in the Stroop task. Neither current nor former smokers showed an attentional bias in maintained attention (2000ms visual probe task). In conclusion, even after prolonged abstinence smoking cues retain incentive salience in former smokers, who differed from non-smokers on two attentional bias indices. Attentional biases in former smokers operate mainly in early involuntary rather than in controlled processing, and may represent a vulnerability factor for relapse. Therefore, smoking cessation programs should strengthen self-control abilities to prevent relapses. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. and ECNP. All rights reserved.

Influence of acute high-intensity aerobic interval exercise bout on selective attention and short-term memory tasks.

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Alves, Christiano R R; Tessaro, Victor H; Teixeira, Luis A C; Murakava, Karina; Roschel, Hamilton; Gualano, Bruno; Takito, Monica Y

2014-02-01

Acute moderate intensity continuous aerobic exercise can improve specific cognitive functions, such as short-term memory and selective attention. Moreover, high-intensity interval training (HIT) has been recently proposed as a time-efficient alternative to traditional cardiorespiratory exercise. However, considering previous speculations that the exercise intensity affects cognition in a U-shaped fashion, it was hypothesized that a HIT session may impair cognitive performance. Therefore, this study assessed the effects of an acute HIT session on selective attention and short-term memory tasks. 22 healthy middle-aged individuals (M age = 53.7 yr.) engaged in both (1) a HIT session, 10 1 min. cycling bouts at the intensity corresponding to 80% of the reserve heart rate interspersed by 1 min. active pauses cycling at 60% of the reserve heart rate and (2) a control session, consisting of an active condition with low-intensity active stretching exercise. Before and after each experimental session, cognitive performance was assessed by the Victoria Version of the Stroop test (a selective attention test) and the Digit Span test (a short-term memory test). Following the HIT session, the time to complete the Stroop "Color word" test was significantly lower when compared with that of the control session. The performances in the other subtasks of the Stroop test as well as in the Digit Span test were not significantly different. A HIT session can improve cognitive function.

Stress improves selective attention towards emotionally neutral left ear stimuli.

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Hoskin, Robert; Hunter, M D; Woodruff, P W R

2014-09-01

Research concerning the impact of psychological stress on visual selective attention has produced mixed results. The current paper describes two experiments which utilise a novel auditory oddball paradigm to test the impact of psychological stress on auditory selective attention. Participants had to report the location of emotionally-neutral auditory stimuli, while ignoring task-irrelevant changes in their content. The results of the first experiment, in which speech stimuli were presented, suggested that stress improves the ability to selectively attend to left, but not right ear stimuli. When this experiment was repeated using tonal stimuli the same result was evident, but only for female participants. Females were also found to experience greater levels of distraction in general across the two experiments. These findings support the goal-shielding theory which suggests that stress improves selective attention by reducing the attentional resources available to process task-irrelevant information. The study also demonstrates, for the first time, that this goal-shielding effect extends to auditory perception. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A new perspective on the perceptual selectivity of attention under load

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Giesbrecht, Barry; Sy, Jocelyn; Bundesen, Claus

2014-01-01

The human attention system helps us cope with a complex environment by supporting the selective processing of information relevant to our current goals. Understanding the perceptual, cognitive, and neural mechanisms that mediate selective attention is a core issue in cognitive neuroscience. One...... prominent model of selective attention, known as load theory, offers an account of how task demands determine when information is selected and an account of the efficiency of the selection process. However, load theory has several critical weaknesses that suggest that it is time for a new perspective. Here...... is integrated to provide efficient attentional selection and allocation of perceptual processing resources....

Quantitative analysis of task selection for brain-computer interfaces

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Llera, Alberto; Gómez, Vicenç; Kappen, Hilbert J.

2014-10-01

Objective. To assess quantitatively the impact of task selection in the performance of brain-computer interfaces (BCI). Approach. We consider the task-pairs derived from multi-class BCI imagery movement tasks in three different datasets. We analyze for the first time the benefits of task selection on a large-scale basis (109 users) and evaluate the possibility of transferring task-pair information across days for a given subject. Main results. Selecting the subject-dependent optimal task-pair among three different imagery movement tasks results in approximately 20% potential increase in the number of users that can be expected to control a binary BCI. The improvement is observed with respect to the best task-pair fixed across subjects. The best task-pair selected for each subject individually during a first day of recordings is generally a good task-pair in subsequent days. In general, task learning from the user side has a positive influence in the generalization of the optimal task-pair, but special attention should be given to inexperienced subjects. Significance. These results add significant evidence to existing literature that advocates task selection as a necessary step towards usable BCIs. This contribution motivates further research focused on deriving adaptive methods for task selection on larger sets of mental tasks in practical online scenarios.

Cholinergic enhancement reduces functional connectivity and BOLD variability in visual extrastriate cortex during selective attention.

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Ricciardi, Emiliano; Handjaras, Giacomo; Bernardi, Giulio; Pietrini, Pietro; Furey, Maura L

2013-01-01

Enhancing cholinergic function improves performance on various cognitive tasks and alters neural responses in task specific brain regions. We have hypothesized that the changes in neural activity observed during increased cholinergic function reflect an increase in neural efficiency that leads to improved task performance. The current study tested this hypothesis by assessing neural efficiency based on cholinergically-mediated effects on regional brain connectivity and BOLD signal variability. Nine subjects participated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover fMRI study. Following an infusion of physostigmine (1 mg/h) or placebo, echo-planar imaging (EPI) was conducted as participants performed a selective attention task. During the task, two images comprised of superimposed pictures of faces and houses were presented. Subjects were instructed periodically to shift their attention from one stimulus component to the other and to perform a matching task using hand held response buttons. A control condition included phase-scrambled images of superimposed faces and houses that were presented in the same temporal and spatial manner as the attention task; participants were instructed to perform a matching task. Cholinergic enhancement improved performance during the selective attention task, with no change during the control task. Functional connectivity analyses showed that the strength of connectivity between ventral visual processing areas and task-related occipital, parietal and prefrontal regions reduced significantly during cholinergic enhancement, exclusively during the selective attention task. Physostigmine administration also reduced BOLD signal temporal variability relative to placebo throughout temporal and occipital visual processing areas, again during the selective attention task only. Together with the observed behavioral improvement, the decreases in connectivity strength throughout task-relevant regions and BOLD variability within stimulus

Individual Alpha Peak Frequency Predicts 10 Hz Flicker Effects on Selective Attention.

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Gulbinaite, Rasa; van Viegen, Tara; Wieling, Martijn; Cohen, Michael X; VanRullen, Rufin

2017-10-18

Rhythmic visual stimulation ("flicker") is primarily used to "tag" processing of low-level visual and high-level cognitive phenomena. However, preliminary evidence suggests that flicker may also entrain endogenous brain oscillations, thereby modulating cognitive processes supported by those brain rhythms. Here we tested the interaction between 10 Hz flicker and endogenous alpha-band (∼10 Hz) oscillations during a selective visuospatial attention task. We recorded EEG from human participants (both genders) while they performed a modified Eriksen flanker task in which distractors and targets flickered within (10 Hz) or outside (7.5 or 15 Hz) the alpha band. By using a combination of EEG source separation, time-frequency, and single-trial linear mixed-effects modeling, we demonstrate that 10 Hz flicker interfered with stimulus processing more on incongruent than congruent trials (high vs low selective attention demands). Crucially, the effect of 10 Hz flicker on task performance was predicted by the distance between 10 Hz and individual alpha peak frequency (estimated during the task). Finally, the flicker effect on task performance was more strongly predicted by EEG flicker responses during stimulus processing than during preparation for the upcoming stimulus, suggesting that 10 Hz flicker interfered more with reactive than proactive selective attention. These findings are consistent with our hypothesis that visual flicker entrained endogenous alpha-band networks, which in turn impaired task performance. Our findings also provide novel evidence for frequency-dependent exogenous modulation of cognition that is determined by the correspondence between the exogenous flicker frequency and the endogenous brain rhythms. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Here we provide novel evidence that the interaction between exogenous rhythmic visual stimulation and endogenous brain rhythms can have frequency-specific behavioral effects. We show that alpha-band (10 Hz) flicker impairs stimulus

How motivation and reward learning modulate selective attention.

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Bourgeois, A; Chelazzi, L; Vuilleumier, P

2016-01-01

Motivational stimuli such as rewards elicit adaptive responses and influence various cognitive functions. Notably, increasing evidence suggests that stimuli with particular motivational values can strongly shape perception and attention. These effects resemble both selective top-down and stimulus-driven attentional orienting, as they depend on internal states but arise without conscious will, yet they seem to reflect attentional systems that are functionally and anatomically distinct from those classically associated with frontoparietal cortical networks in the brain. Recent research in human and nonhuman primates has begun to reveal how reward can bias attentional selection, and where within the cognitive system the signals providing attentional priority are generated. This review aims at describing the different mechanisms sustaining motivational attention, their impact on different behavioral tasks, and current knowledge concerning the neural networks governing the integration of motivational influences on attentional behavior. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Event-related potentials during visual selective attention in children of alcoholics.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Stelt, O.; Gunning, W.B.; Snel, J.; Kok, A.

1998-01-01

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 50 7-18 yr old children of alcoholics (COAs) and 50 age- and sex-matched control children while they performed a visual selective attention task. The task was to attend selectively to stimuli with a specified color (red or blue) in an attempt to

Feature-Selective Attention Adaptively Shifts Noise Correlations in Primary Auditory Cortex.

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Downer, Joshua D; Rapone, Brittany; Verhein, Jessica; O'Connor, Kevin N; Sutter, Mitchell L

2017-05-24

Sensory environments often contain an overwhelming amount of information, with both relevant and irrelevant information competing for neural resources. Feature attention mediates this competition by selecting the sensory features needed to form a coherent percept. How attention affects the activity of populations of neurons to support this process is poorly understood because population coding is typically studied through simulations in which one sensory feature is encoded without competition. Therefore, to study the effects of feature attention on population-based neural coding, investigations must be extended to include stimuli with both relevant and irrelevant features. We measured noise correlations ( r noise ) within small neural populations in primary auditory cortex while rhesus macaques performed a novel feature-selective attention task. We found that the effect of feature-selective attention on r noise depended not only on the population tuning to the attended feature, but also on the tuning to the distractor feature. To attempt to explain how these observed effects might support enhanced perceptual performance, we propose an extension of a simple and influential model in which shifts in r noise can simultaneously enhance the representation of the attended feature while suppressing the distractor. These findings present a novel mechanism by which attention modulates neural populations to support sensory processing in cluttered environments. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Although feature-selective attention constitutes one of the building blocks of listening in natural environments, its neural bases remain obscure. To address this, we developed a novel auditory feature-selective attention task and measured noise correlations ( r noise ) in rhesus macaque A1 during task performance. Unlike previous studies showing that the effect of attention on r noise depends on population tuning to the attended feature, we show that the effect of attention depends on the tuning

Selective attention reduces physiological noise in the external ear canals of humans. II: Visual attention

Science.gov (United States)

Walsh, Kyle P.; Pasanen, Edward G.; McFadden, Dennis

2014-01-01

Human subjects performed in several behavioral conditions requiring, or not requiring, selective attention to visual stimuli. Specifically, the attentional task was to recognize strings of digits that had been presented visually. A nonlinear version of the stimulus-frequency otoacoustic emission (SFOAE), called the nSFOAE, was collected during the visual presentation of the digits. The segment of the physiological response discussed here occurred during brief silent periods immediately following the SFOAE-evoking stimuli. For all subjects tested, the physiological-noise magnitudes were substantially weaker (less noisy) during the tasks requiring the most visual attention. Effect sizes for the differences were >2.0. Our interpretation is that cortico-olivo influences adjusted the magnitude of efferent activation during the SFOAE-evoking stimulation depending upon the attention task in effect, and then that magnitude of efferent activation persisted throughout the silent period where it also modulated the physiological noise present. Because the results were highly similar to those obtained when the behavioral conditions involved auditory attention, similar mechanisms appear to operate both across modalities and within modalities. Supplementary measurements revealed that the efferent activation was spectrally global, as it was for auditory attention. PMID:24732070

Action video games and improved attentional control: Disentangling selection- and response-based processes.

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Chisholm, Joseph D; Kingstone, Alan

2015-10-01

Research has demonstrated that experience with action video games is associated with improvements in a host of cognitive tasks. Evidence from paradigms that assess aspects of attention has suggested that action video game players (AVGPs) possess greater control over the allocation of attentional resources than do non-video-game players (NVGPs). Using a compound search task that teased apart selection- and response-based processes (Duncan, 1985), we required participants to perform an oculomotor capture task in which they made saccades to a uniquely colored target (selection-based process) and then produced a manual directional response based on information within the target (response-based process). We replicated the finding that AVGPs are less susceptible to attentional distraction and, critically, revealed that AVGPs outperform NVGPs on both selection-based and response-based processes. These results not only are consistent with the improved-attentional-control account of AVGP benefits, but they suggest that the benefit of action video game playing extends across the full breadth of attention-mediated stimulus-response processes that impact human performance.

Exploring the function of selective attention and hypervigilance for threat in anxiety.

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Richards, Helen J; Benson, Valerie; Donnelly, Nick; Hadwin, Julie A

2014-02-01

Theoretical frameworks of anxiety propose that attentional biases to threat-related stimuli cause or maintain anxious states. The current paper draws on theoretical frameworks and key empirical studies to outline the distinctive attentional processes highlighted as being important in understanding anxiety. We develop a conceptual framework to make a distinction between two attentional biases: selective attention to threat and hypervigilance for threat. We suggest that these biases each have a different purpose and can account for the typical patterns of facilitated and impaired attention evident in anxious individuals. The framework is novel in its specification of the eye movement behavior associated with these attentional biases. We highlight that selective attention involves narrowing overt attention onto threat to ensure that these stimuli receive processing priority, leading to rapid engagement with task-relevant threat and delayed disengagement from task-irrelevant threat. We show that hypervigilance operates in the presence and absence of threat and involves monitoring for potential dangers via attentional broadening or excessive scanning of the environment with numerous eye movements, leading to improved threat detection and increased distraction from task-irrelevant threat. We conclude that future research could usefully employ eye movement measures to more clearly understand the diverse roles of attention in anxiety. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Methylphenidate alters selective attention by amplifying salience.

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ter Huurne, Niels; Fallon, Sean James; van Schouwenburg, Martine; van der Schaaf, Marieke; Buitelaar, Jan; Jensen, Ole; Cools, Roshan

2015-12-01

Methylphenidate, the most common treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), is increasingly used by healthy individuals as a "smart drug" to enhance cognitive abilities like attention. A key feature of (selective) attention is the ability to ignore irrelevant but salient information in the environment (distractors). Although crucial for cognitive performance, until now, it is not known how the use of methylphenidate affects resistance to attentional capture by distractors. The present study aims to clarify how methylphenidate affects distractor suppression in healthy individuals. The effect of methylphenidate (20 mg) on distractor suppression was assessed in healthy subjects (N = 20), in a within-subject double-blind placebo-controlled crossover design. We used a visuospatial attention task with target faces flanked by strong (faces) or weak distractors (scrambled faces). Methylphenidate increased accuracy on trials that required gender identification of target face stimuli (methylphenidate 88.9 ± 1.4 [mean ± SEM], placebo 86.0 ± 1.2 %; p = .003), suggesting increased processing of the faces. At the same time, however, methylphenidate increased reaction time when the target face was flanked by a face distractor relative to a scrambled face distractor (methylphenidate 34.9 ± 3.73, placebo 26.7 ± 2.84 ms; p = .027), suggesting enhanced attentional capture by distractors with task-relevant features. We conclude that methylphenidate amplifies salience of task-relevant information at the level of the stimulus category. This leads to enhanced processing of the target (faces) but also increased attentional capture by distractors drawn from the same category as the target.

A competitive interaction theory of attentional selection and decision making in brief, multielement displays.

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Smith, Philip L; Sewell, David K

2013-07-01

We generalize the integrated system model of Smith and Ratcliff (2009) to obtain a new theory of attentional selection in brief, multielement visual displays. The theory proposes that attentional selection occurs via competitive interactions among detectors that signal the presence of task-relevant features at particular display locations. The outcome of the competition, together with attention, determines which stimuli are selected into visual short-term memory (VSTM). Decisions about the contents of VSTM are made by a diffusion-process decision stage. The selection process is modeled by coupled systems of shunting equations, which perform gated where-on-what pathway VSTM selection. The theory provides a computational account of key findings from attention tasks with near-threshold stimuli. These are (a) the success of the MAX model of visual search and spatial cuing, (b) the distractor homogeneity effect, (c) the double-target detection deficit, (d) redundancy costs in the post-stimulus probe task, (e) the joint item and information capacity limits of VSTM, and (f) the object-based nature of attentional selection. We argue that these phenomena are all manifestations of an underlying competitive VSTM selection process, which arise as a natural consequence of our theory. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

Visual Short-Term Memory Activity in Parietal Lobe Reflects Cognitive Processes beyond Attentional Selection.

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Sheremata, Summer L; Somers, David C; Shomstein, Sarah

2018-02-07

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) and attention are distinct yet interrelated processes. While both require selection of information across the visual field, memory additionally requires the maintenance of information across time and distraction. VSTM recruits areas within human (male and female) dorsal and ventral parietal cortex that are also implicated in spatial selection; therefore, it is important to determine whether overlapping activation might reflect shared attentional demands. Here, identical stimuli and controlled sustained attention across both tasks were used to ask whether fMRI signal amplitude, functional connectivity, and contralateral visual field bias reflect memory-specific task demands. While attention and VSTM activated similar cortical areas, BOLD amplitude and functional connectivity in parietal cortex differentiated the two tasks. Relative to attention, VSTM increased BOLD amplitude in dorsal parietal cortex and decreased BOLD amplitude in the angular gyrus. Additionally, the tasks differentially modulated parietal functional connectivity. Contrasting VSTM and attention, intraparietal sulcus (IPS) 1-2 were more strongly connected with anterior frontoparietal areas and more weakly connected with posterior regions. This divergence between tasks demonstrates that parietal activation reflects memory-specific functions and consequently modulates functional connectivity across the cortex. In contrast, both tasks demonstrated hemispheric asymmetries for spatial processing, exhibiting a stronger contralateral visual field bias in the left versus the right hemisphere across tasks, suggesting that asymmetries are characteristic of a shared selection process in IPS. These results demonstrate that parietal activity and patterns of functional connectivity distinguish VSTM from more general attention processes, establishing a central role of the parietal cortex in maintaining visual information. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Visual short-term memory (VSTM) and

Strategic predictors of performance in a divided attention task

Science.gov (United States)

Faragó, Kinga Bettina; Lőrincz, András

2018-01-01

In this study we investigate the strategies of subjects in a complex divided attention task. We conducted a series of experiments with ten participants and evaluated their performance. After an extensive analysis, we identified four strategic measures that justify the achievement of the participants, by highlighting the individual differences and predicting performance in a regression analysis using generalized estimating equations. Selecting the more urgent task and user action between multiple simultaneous possibilities form two of the strategic decisions, respectively. The third one refers to choosing a response within the same task when the opportunity is present. The fourth and most important measure of strategy involves thinking ahead and executing an action before a situation would become critical. This latter one has the effect of reducing later cognitive load or timing constraints and it is shown to explain almost as much variance in performance as the other three, more straightforward predictors together. In addition to determining these strategic predictors, we also show how manipulating task difficulty induces a shift in strategy, thus impairing human performance in the rehearsed task. The results of this study indicate that considerable differences in the divided attention ability of normal subjects can be identified early and with simple measurements. The importance of describing and analyzing strategies is also emphasized, which can substantially influence performance in complex tasks and may serve training needs. PMID:29621292

Strategic predictors of performance in a divided attention task.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Róbert Adrian Rill

Full Text Available In this study we investigate the strategies of subjects in a complex divided attention task. We conducted a series of experiments with ten participants and evaluated their performance. After an extensive analysis, we identified four strategic measures that justify the achievement of the participants, by highlighting the individual differences and predicting performance in a regression analysis using generalized estimating equations. Selecting the more urgent task and user action between multiple simultaneous possibilities form two of the strategic decisions, respectively. The third one refers to choosing a response within the same task when the opportunity is present. The fourth and most important measure of strategy involves thinking ahead and executing an action before a situation would become critical. This latter one has the effect of reducing later cognitive load or timing constraints and it is shown to explain almost as much variance in performance as the other three, more straightforward predictors together. In addition to determining these strategic predictors, we also show how manipulating task difficulty induces a shift in strategy, thus impairing human performance in the rehearsed task. The results of this study indicate that considerable differences in the divided attention ability of normal subjects can be identified early and with simple measurements. The importance of describing and analyzing strategies is also emphasized, which can substantially influence performance in complex tasks and may serve training needs.

Strategic predictors of performance in a divided attention task.

Science.gov (United States)

Rill, Róbert Adrian; Faragó, Kinga Bettina; Lőrincz, András

2018-01-01

In this study we investigate the strategies of subjects in a complex divided attention task. We conducted a series of experiments with ten participants and evaluated their performance. After an extensive analysis, we identified four strategic measures that justify the achievement of the participants, by highlighting the individual differences and predicting performance in a regression analysis using generalized estimating equations. Selecting the more urgent task and user action between multiple simultaneous possibilities form two of the strategic decisions, respectively. The third one refers to choosing a response within the same task when the opportunity is present. The fourth and most important measure of strategy involves thinking ahead and executing an action before a situation would become critical. This latter one has the effect of reducing later cognitive load or timing constraints and it is shown to explain almost as much variance in performance as the other three, more straightforward predictors together. In addition to determining these strategic predictors, we also show how manipulating task difficulty induces a shift in strategy, thus impairing human performance in the rehearsed task. The results of this study indicate that considerable differences in the divided attention ability of normal subjects can be identified early and with simple measurements. The importance of describing and analyzing strategies is also emphasized, which can substantially influence performance in complex tasks and may serve training needs.

Functional connectivity of parietal cortex during temporal selective attention.

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Tyler, Sarah C; Dasgupta, Samhita; Agosta, Sara; Battelli, Lorella; Grossman, Emily D

2015-04-01

Perception of natural experiences requires allocation of attention towards features, objects, and events that are moving and changing over time. This allocation of attention is controlled by large-scale brain networks that, when damaged, cause widespread cognitive deficits. In particular, damage to ventral parietal cortex (right lateralized TPJ, STS, supramarginal and angular gyri) is associated with failures to selectively attend to and isolate features embedded within rapidly changing visual sequences (Battelli, Pascual-Leone, & Cavanagh, 2007; Husain, Shapiro, Martin, & Kennard, 1997). In this study, we used fMRI to investigate the neural activity and functional connectivity of intact parietal cortex while typical subjects judged the relative onsets and offsets of rapidly flickering tokens (a phase discrimination task in which right parietal patients are impaired). We found two regions in parietal cortex correlated with task performance: a bilateral posterior TPJ (pTPJ) and an anterior right-lateralized TPJ (R aTPJ). Both regions were deactivated when subjects engaged in the task but showed different patterns of functional connectivity. The bilateral pTPJ was strongly connected to nodes within the default mode network (DMN) and the R aTPJ was connected to the attention network. Accurate phase discriminations were associated with increased functional correlations between sensory cortex (hMT+) and the bilateral pTPJ, whereas accuracy on a control task was associated with yoked activity in the hMT+ and the R aTPJ. We conclude that temporal selective attention is particularly sensitive for revealing information pathways between sensory and core cognitive control networks that, when damaged, can lead to nonspatial attention impairments in right parietal stroke patients. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dynamic, continuous multitasking training leads to task-specific improvements but does not transfer across action selection tasks

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Bender, Angela D.; Filmer, Hannah L.; Naughtin, Claire K.; Dux, Paul E.

2017-12-01

The ability to perform multiple tasks concurrently is an ever-increasing requirement in our information-rich world. Despite this, multitasking typically compromises performance due to the processing limitations associated with cognitive control and decision-making. While intensive dual-task training is known to improve multitasking performance, only limited evidence suggests that training-related performance benefits can transfer to untrained tasks that share overlapping processes. In the real world, however, coordinating and selecting several responses within close temporal proximity will often occur in high-interference environments. Over the last decade, there have been notable reports that training on video action games that require dynamic multitasking in a demanding environment can lead to transfer effects on aspects of cognition such as attention and working memory. Here, we asked whether continuous and dynamic multitasking training extends benefits to tasks that are theoretically related to the trained tasks. To examine this issue, we asked a group of participants to train on a combined continuous visuomotor tracking task and a perceptual discrimination task for six sessions, while an active control group practiced the component tasks in isolation. A battery of tests measuring response selection, response inhibition, and spatial attention was administered before and immediately after training to investigate transfer. Multitasking training resulted in substantial, task-specific gains in dual-task ability, but there was no evidence that these benefits generalized to other action control tasks. The findings suggest that training on a combined visuomotor tracking and discrimination task results in task-specific benefits but provides no additional value for untrained action selection tasks.

Which Behavioral and Personality Characteristics Are Associated with Difficulties in Selective Attention?

Science.gov (United States)

Avisar, Alon

2011-01-01

Objective: The present study investigated the behavioral and personality profile associated with difficulties in selective attention. Method: A group of participants with ADHD were assessed for ADHD behaviors. Adults with ADHD (n = 22) and without ADHD (n = 84) were tested on the conjunctive visual-search task for selective attention and…

Crossmodal effects of Guqin and piano music on selective attention: an event-related potential study.

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Zhu, Weina; Zhang, Junjun; Ding, Xiaojun; Zhou, Changle; Ma, Yuanye; Xu, Dan

2009-11-27

To compare the effects of music from different cultural environments (Guqin: Chinese music; piano: Western music) on crossmodal selective attention, behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) data in a standard two-stimulus visual oddball task were recorded from Chinese subjects in three conditions: silence, Guqin music or piano music background. Visual task data were then compared with auditory task data collected previously. In contrast with the results of the auditory task, the early (N1) and late (P300) stages exhibited no differences between Guqin and piano backgrounds during the visual task. Taking our previous study and this study together, we can conclude that: although the cultural-familiar music influenced selective attention both in the early and late stages, these effects appeared only within a sensory modality (auditory) but not in cross-sensory modalities (visual). Thus, the musical cultural factor is more obvious in intramodal than in crossmodal selective attention.

The Influence of Selective and Divided Attention on Audiovisual Integration in Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Weiping; Ren, Yanna; Yang, Dan Ou; Yuan, Xue; Wu, Jinglong

2016-01-24

This article aims to investigate whether there is a difference in audiovisual integration in school-aged children (aged 6 to 13 years; mean age = 9.9 years) between the selective attention condition and divided attention condition. We designed a visual and/or auditory detection task that included three blocks (divided attention, visual-selective attention, and auditory-selective attention). The results showed that the response to bimodal audiovisual stimuli was faster than to unimodal auditory or visual stimuli under both divided attention and auditory-selective attention conditions. However, in the visual-selective attention condition, no significant difference was found between the unimodal visual and bimodal audiovisual stimuli in response speed. Moreover, audiovisual behavioral facilitation effects were compared between divided attention and selective attention (auditory or visual attention). In doing so, we found that audiovisual behavioral facilitation was significantly difference between divided attention and selective attention. The results indicated that audiovisual integration was stronger in the divided attention condition than that in the selective attention condition in children. Our findings objectively support the notion that attention can modulate audiovisual integration in school-aged children. Our study might offer a new perspective for identifying children with conditions that are associated with sustained attention deficit, such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. © The Author(s) 2016.

Impact of Auditory Selective Attention on Verbal Short-Term Memory and Vocabulary Development

Science.gov (United States)

Majerus, Steve; Heiligenstein, Lucie; Gautherot, Nathalie; Poncelet, Martine; Van der Linden, Martial

2009-01-01

This study investigated the role of auditory selective attention capacities as a possible mediator of the well-established association between verbal short-term memory (STM) and vocabulary development. A total of 47 6- and 7-year-olds were administered verbal immediate serial recall and auditory attention tasks. Both task types probed processing…

Threat-related selective attention predicts treatment success in childhood anxiety disorders.

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Legerstee, Jeroen S; Tulen, Joke H M; Kallen, Victor L; Dieleman, Gwen C; Treffers, Philip D A; Verhulst, Frank C; Utens, Elisabeth M W J

2009-02-01

The present study examined whether threat-related selective attention was predictive of treatment success in children with anxiety disorders and whether age moderated this association. Specific components of selective attention were examined in treatment responders and nonresponders. Participants consisted of 131 children with anxiety disorders (aged 8-16 years), who received standardized cognitive-behavioral therapy. At pretreatment, a pictorial dot-probe task was administered to assess selective attention. Both at pretreatment and posttreatment, diagnostic status of the children was evaluated with a semistructured clinical interview (the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children). Selective attention for severely threatening pictures at pretreatment assessment was predictive of treatment success. Examination of the specific components of selective attention revealed that nonresponders showed difficulties to disengage their attention away from severe threat. Treatment responders showed a tendency not to engage their attention toward severe threat. Age was not associated with selective attention and treatment success. Threat-related selective attention is a significant predictor of treatment success in children with anxiety disorders. Clinically anxious children with difficulties disengaging their attention away from severe threat profit less from cognitive-behavioral therapy. For these children, additional training focused on learning to disengage attention away from anxiety-arousing stimuli may be beneficial.

Examining Age-Related Differences in Auditory Attention Control Using a Task-Switching Procedure

OpenAIRE

Vera Lawo; Iring Koch

2014-01-01

Objectives. Using a novel task-switching variant of dichotic selective listening, we examined age-related differences in the ability to intentionally switch auditory attention between 2 speakers defined by their sex.

Modulation of selective attention by polarity-specific tDCS effects.

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Pecchinenda, Anna; Ferlazzo, Fabio; Lavidor, Michal

2015-02-01

Selective attention relies on working memory to maintain an attention set of task priorities. Consequently, selective attention is more efficient when working memory resources are not depleted. However, there is some evidence that distractors are processed even when working memory load is low. We used tDCS to assess whether boosting the activity of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC), involved in selective attention and working memory, would reduce interference from emotional distractors. Findings showed that anodal tDCS over the DLPFC was not sufficient to reduce interference from angry distractors. In contrast, cathodal tDCS over the DLPFC reduced interference from happy distractors. These findings show that altering the DLPFC activity is not sufficient to establish top-down control and increase selective attention efficiency. Although, when the neural signal in the DLPFC is altered by cathodal tDCS, interference from emotional distractors is reduced, leading to an improved performance. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Attentional load and attentional boost: A review of data and theory

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Khena M Swallow

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Both perceptual and cognitive processes are limited in capacity. As a result, attention is selective, prioritizing items and tasks that are important for adaptive behavior. However, a number of recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies suggest that, at least under some circumstances, increasing attention to one task can enhance performance in a second task (e.g., the attentional boost effect. Here we review these findings and suggest a new theoretical framework, the dual-task interaction model, that integrates these findings with current views of attentional selection. To reconcile the attentional boost effect with the effects of attentional load, we suggest that temporal selection results in a temporally specific enhancement across modalities, tasks, and spatial locations. Moreover, the effects of temporal selection may be best observed when the attentional system is optimally tuned to the temporal dynamics of incoming stimuli. Several avenues of research motivated by the dual-task interaction model are then discussed.

Attentional load and attentional boost: a review of data and theory.

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Swallow, Khena M; Jiang, Yuhong V

2013-01-01

Both perceptual and cognitive processes are limited in capacity. As a result, attention is selective, prioritizing items and tasks that are important for adaptive behavior. However, a number of recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies suggest that, at least under some circumstances, increasing attention to one task can enhance performance in a second task (e.g., the attentional boost effect). Here we review these findings and suggest a new theoretical framework, the dual-task interaction model, that integrates these findings with current views of attentional selection. To reconcile the attentional boost effect with the effects of attentional load, we suggest that temporal selection results in a temporally specific enhancement across modalities, tasks, and spatial locations. Moreover, the effects of temporal selection may be best observed when the attentional system is optimally tuned to the temporal dynamics of incoming stimuli. Several avenues of research motivated by the dual-task interaction model are then discussed.

Attentional Load and Attentional Boost: A Review of Data and Theory

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Swallow, Khena M.; Jiang, Yuhong V.

2013-01-01

Both perceptual and cognitive processes are limited in capacity. As a result, attention is selective, prioritizing items and tasks that are important for adaptive behavior. However, a number of recent behavioral and neuroimaging studies suggest that, at least under some circumstances, increasing attention to one task can enhance performance in a second task (e.g., the attentional boost effect). Here we review these findings and suggest a new theoretical framework, the dual-task interaction model, that integrates these findings with current views of attentional selection. To reconcile the attentional boost effect with the effects of attentional load, we suggest that temporal selection results in a temporally specific enhancement across modalities, tasks, and spatial locations. Moreover, the effects of temporal selection may be best observed when the attentional system is optimally tuned to the temporal dynamics of incoming stimuli. Several avenues of research motivated by the dual-task interaction model are then discussed. PMID:23730294

A new perspective on the perceptual selectivity of attention under load.

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Giesbrecht, Barry; Sy, Jocelyn; Bundesen, Claus; Kyllingsbaek, Søren

2014-05-01

The human attention system helps us cope with a complex environment by supporting the selective processing of information relevant to our current goals. Understanding the perceptual, cognitive, and neural mechanisms that mediate selective attention is a core issue in cognitive neuroscience. One prominent model of selective attention, known as load theory, offers an account of how task demands determine when information is selected and an account of the efficiency of the selection process. However, load theory has several critical weaknesses that suggest that it is time for a new perspective. Here we review the strengths and weaknesses of load theory and offer an alternative biologically plausible computational account that is based on the neural theory of visual attention. We argue that this new perspective provides a detailed computational account of how bottom-up and top-down information is integrated to provide efficient attentional selection and allocation of perceptual processing resources. © 2014 New York Academy of Sciences.

Touchscreen Sustained Attention Task (SAT) for Rats.

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Bangasser, Debra A; Wicks, Brittany; Waxler, David E; Eck, Samantha R

2017-09-15

Sustained attention is the ability to monitor intermittent and unpredictable events over a prolonged period of time. This attentional process subserves other aspects of cognition and is disrupted in certain neurodevelopmental, neuropsychiatric, and neurodegenerative disorders. Thus, it is clinically important to identify mechanisms that impair and improve sustained attention. Such mechanisms are often first discovered using rodent models. Therefore, several behavior procedures for testing aspects of sustained attention have been developed for rodents. One, first described by McGaughy and Sarter (1995), called the sustained attention task (SAT), trains rats to distinguish between signal (i.e., brief light presentation) and non-signal trials. The signals are short and thus require careful attention to be perceived. Attentional demands can be increased further by introducing a distractor (e.g., flashing houselight). We have modified this task for touchscreen operant chambers, which are configured with a touchscreen on one wall that can present stimuli and record responses. Here we detail our protocol for SAT in touchscreen chambers. Additionally, we present standard measures of performance in male and female Sprague-Dawley rats. Comparable performance on this task in both sexes highlights its use for attention studies, especially as more researchers are including female rodents in their experimental design. Moreover, the easy implementation of SAT for the increasingly popular touchscreen chambers increases its utility.

Online Modulation of Selective Attention is not Impaired in Healthy Aging.

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Sekuler, Robert; Huang, Jie; Sekuler, Allison B; Bennett, Patrick J

2017-01-01

Background/Study Context: Reduced processing speed pervades a great many aspects of human aging and cognition. However, little is known about one aspect of cognitive aging in which speed is of the essence, namely, the speed with which older adults can deploy attention in response to a cue. The authors compared rapid temporal modulation of cued visual attention in younger (M age  = 22.3 years) and older (M age  = 68.9 years) adults. On each trial of a short-term memory task, a cue identified which of two briefly presented stimuli was task relevant and which one should be ignored. After a short delay, subjects demonstrated recall by reproducing from memory the task-relevant stimulus. This produced estimates of (i) accuracy with which the task-relevant stimulus was recalled, (ii) the influence of stimuli encountered on previous trials (a prototype effect), and (iii) the influence of the trial's task-irrelevant stimulus. For both groups, errors in recall were considerably smaller when selective attention was cued before rather than after presentation of the stimuli. Both groups showed serial position effects to the same degree, and both seemed equally adept at exploiting the stimuli encountered on previous trials as a means of supplementing recall accuracy on the current trial. Younger and older subjects may not differ reliably in capacity for cue-directed temporal modulation of selective attention, or in ability to draw on previously seen stimuli as memory support.

The Attentional Boost Effect: Transient increases in attention to one task enhance performance in a second task.

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Swallow, Khena M; Jiang, Yuhong V

2010-04-01

Recent work on event perception suggests that perceptual processing increases when events change. An important question is how such changes influence the way other information is processed, particularly during dual-task performance. In this study, participants monitored a long series of distractor items for an occasional target as they simultaneously encoded unrelated background scenes. The appearance of an occasional target could have two opposite effects on the secondary task: It could draw attention away from the second task, or, as a change in the ongoing event, it could improve secondary task performance. Results were consistent with the second possibility. Memory for scenes presented simultaneously with the targets was better than memory for scenes that preceded or followed the targets. This effect was observed when the primary detection task involved visual feature oddball detection, auditory oddball detection, and visual color-shape conjunction detection. It was eliminated when the detection task was omitted, and when it required an arbitrary response mapping. The appearance of occasional, task-relevant events appears to trigger a temporal orienting response that facilitates processing of concurrently attended information (Attentional Boost Effect). Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An Attentional Resources-effectiveness Measure in Complex Diagnostic Tasks in NPPs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ha, Jun Su; Seong, Poong Hyun [KAIST, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2007-07-01

The main role of the human operators in main control rooms (MCRs) of nuclear power plants (NPPs) is generally to supervise and operate the system. The operator's tasks in NPPs are performed through a series of cognitive activities: monitoring the environment, detecting data or information, understanding and assessing the situation, diagnosing the symptoms, decision-making, planning responses, and implementing the responses. In NPPs, there are a lot of information sources that should be monitored but the operators have only limited capacity of attention and memory. Because it is impossible to monitor all information sources, the operators continuously decide where to allocate their attentional resources. This kind of cognitive skill is called selective attention. In order for operators to effectively monitor, detect, and thus understand the state of a system, the operator should allocate their attentional resources to valuable information sources. Hence, the effectiveness of selective attention is expected to be able to reflect the effectiveness of monitoring, detection, and eventually understanding. In this study, an attentional resources effectiveness measure is proposed which based on cost benefit (or resource-effectiveness) principle.

An Attentional Resources-effectiveness Measure in Complex Diagnostic Tasks in NPPs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ha, Jun Su; Seong, Poong Hyun

2007-01-01

The main role of the human operators in main control rooms (MCRs) of nuclear power plants (NPPs) is generally to supervise and operate the system. The operator's tasks in NPPs are performed through a series of cognitive activities: monitoring the environment, detecting data or information, understanding and assessing the situation, diagnosing the symptoms, decision-making, planning responses, and implementing the responses. In NPPs, there are a lot of information sources that should be monitored but the operators have only limited capacity of attention and memory. Because it is impossible to monitor all information sources, the operators continuously decide where to allocate their attentional resources. This kind of cognitive skill is called selective attention. In order for operators to effectively monitor, detect, and thus understand the state of a system, the operator should allocate their attentional resources to valuable information sources. Hence, the effectiveness of selective attention is expected to be able to reflect the effectiveness of monitoring, detection, and eventually understanding. In this study, an attentional resources effectiveness measure is proposed which based on cost benefit (or resource-effectiveness) principle

Attentional Lapses of Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Tasks of Sustained Attention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gmehlin, Dennis; Fuermaier, Anselm B.M.; Walther, Stephan; Tucha, Lara; Koerts, Janneke; Lange, Klaus W.; Tucha, Oliver; Weisbrod, Matthias; Aschenbrenner, Steffen

Adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show attentional dysfunction such as distractibility and mind-wandering, especially in lengthy tasks. However, fundamentals of dysfunction are ambiguous and relationships of neuropsychological test parameters with self-report measures of

The Competitive Influences of Perceptual Load and Working Memory Guidance on Selective Attention.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jinfeng Tan

Full Text Available The perceptual load theory in selective attention literature proposes that the interference from task-irrelevant distractor is eliminated when perceptual capacity is fully consumed by task-relevant information. However, the biased competition model suggests that the contents of working memory (WM can guide attentional selection automatically, even when this guidance is detrimental to visual search. An intriguing but unsolved question is what will happen when selective attention is influenced by both perceptual load and WM guidance. To study this issue, behavioral performances and event-related potentials (ERPs were recorded when participants were presented with a cue to either identify or hold in memory and had to perform a visual search task subsequently, under conditions of low or high perceptual load. Behavioural data showed that high perceptual load eliminated the attentional capture by WM. The ERP results revealed an obvious WM guidance effect in P1 component with invalid trials eliciting larger P1 than neutral trials, regardless of the level of perceptual load. The interaction between perceptual load and WM guidance was significant for the posterior N1 component. The memory guidance effect on N1 was eliminated by high perceptual load. Standardized Low Resolution Electrical Tomography Analysis (sLORETA showed that the WM guidance effect and the perceptual load effect on attention can be localized into the occipital area and parietal lobe, respectively. Merely identifying the cue produced no effect on the P1 or N1 component. These results suggest that in selective attention, the information held in WM could capture attention at the early stage of visual processing in the occipital cortex. Interestingly, this initial capture of attention by WM could be modulated by the level of perceptual load and the parietal lobe mediates target selection at the discrimination stage.

The Competitive Influences of Perceptual Load and Working Memory Guidance on Selective Attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Jinfeng; Zhao, Yuanfang; Wang, Lijun; Tian, Xia; Cui, Yan; Yang, Qian; Pan, Weigang; Zhao, Xiaoyue; Chen, Antao

2015-01-01

The perceptual load theory in selective attention literature proposes that the interference from task-irrelevant distractor is eliminated when perceptual capacity is fully consumed by task-relevant information. However, the biased competition model suggests that the contents of working memory (WM) can guide attentional selection automatically, even when this guidance is detrimental to visual search. An intriguing but unsolved question is what will happen when selective attention is influenced by both perceptual load and WM guidance. To study this issue, behavioral performances and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded when participants were presented with a cue to either identify or hold in memory and had to perform a visual search task subsequently, under conditions of low or high perceptual load. Behavioural data showed that high perceptual load eliminated the attentional capture by WM. The ERP results revealed an obvious WM guidance effect in P1 component with invalid trials eliciting larger P1 than neutral trials, regardless of the level of perceptual load. The interaction between perceptual load and WM guidance was significant for the posterior N1 component. The memory guidance effect on N1 was eliminated by high perceptual load. Standardized Low Resolution Electrical Tomography Analysis (sLORETA) showed that the WM guidance effect and the perceptual load effect on attention can be localized into the occipital area and parietal lobe, respectively. Merely identifying the cue produced no effect on the P1 or N1 component. These results suggest that in selective attention, the information held in WM could capture attention at the early stage of visual processing in the occipital cortex. Interestingly, this initial capture of attention by WM could be modulated by the level of perceptual load and the parietal lobe mediates target selection at the discrimination stage.

Selective Attention and Inhibitory Deficits in ADHD: Does Subtype or Comorbidity Modulate Negative Priming Effects?

Science.gov (United States)

Pritchard, Verena E.; Neumann, Ewald; Rucklidge, Julia J.

2008-01-01

Selective attention has durable consequences for behavior and neural activation. Negative priming (NP) effects are assumed to reflect a critical inhibitory component of selective attention. The performance of adolescents with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was assessed across two conceptually based NP tasks within a selective…

Neural Correlates of Selective Attention With Hearing Aid Use Followed by ReadMyQuips Auditory Training Program.

Science.gov (United States)

Rao, Aparna; Rishiq, Dania; Yu, Luodi; Zhang, Yang; Abrams, Harvey

The objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of hearing aid use and the effectiveness of ReadMyQuips (RMQ), an auditory training program, on speech perception performance and auditory selective attention using electrophysiological measures. RMQ is an audiovisual training program designed to improve speech perception in everyday noisy listening environments. Participants were adults with mild to moderate hearing loss who were first-time hearing aid users. After 4 weeks of hearing aid use, the experimental group completed RMQ training in 4 weeks, and the control group received listening practice on audiobooks during the same period. Cortical late event-related potentials (ERPs) and the Hearing in Noise Test (HINT) were administered at prefitting, pretraining, and post-training to assess effects of hearing aid use and RMQ training. An oddball paradigm allowed tracking of changes in P3a and P3b ERPs to distractors and targets, respectively. Behavioral measures were also obtained while ERPs were recorded from participants. After 4 weeks of hearing aid use but before auditory training, HINT results did not show a statistically significant change, but there was a significant P3a reduction. This reduction in P3a was correlated with improvement in d prime (d') in the selective attention task. Increased P3b amplitudes were also correlated with improvement in d' in the selective attention task. After training, this correlation between P3b and d' remained in the experimental group, but not in the control group. Similarly, HINT testing showed improved speech perception post training only in the experimental group. The criterion calculated in the auditory selective attention task showed a reduction only in the experimental group after training. ERP measures in the auditory selective attention task did not show any changes related to training. Hearing aid use was associated with a decrement in involuntary attention switch to distractors in the auditory selective

Endogenously- and Exogenously-Driven Selective Sustained Attention: Contributions to Learning in Kindergarten Children

Science.gov (United States)

Erickson, Lucy C.; Thiessen, Erik D.; Godwin, Karrie E.; Dickerson, John P.; Fisher, Anna V.

2015-01-01

Selective sustained attention is vital for higher order cognition. Although endogenous and exogenous factors influence selective sustained attention, assessment of the degree to which these factors influence performance and learning is often challenging. We report findings from the Track-It task, a paradigm that aims to assess the contribution of…

Distinguishing Different Strategies of Across-Dimension Attentional Selection

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Liqiang; Pashler, Harold

2012-01-01

Selective attention in multidimensional displays has usually been examined using search tasks requiring the detection of a single target. We examined the ability to perceive a spatial structure in multi-item subsets of a display that were defined either conjunctively or disjunctively. Observers saw two adjacent displays and indicated whether the…

Separable sustained and selective attention factors are apparent in 5-year-old children

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Underbjerg, Mette; George, Melanie S; Thorsen, Poul

2013-01-01

In adults and older children, evidence consistent with relative separation between selective and sustained attention, superimposed upon generally positive inter-test correlations, has been reported. Here we examine whether this pattern is detectable in 5-year-old children from the healthy...... and auditory stimuli were good. In a factor analysis, the two TEA-Ch(J) selective attention tasks (one visual, one auditory) loaded onto a common factor and diverged from the two sustained attention tasks (one auditory, one motor), which shared a common loading on the second factor. This pattern, which...... suggests that the tests are indeed sensitive to underlying attentional capacities, was supported by the relationships between the TEA-Ch(J) factors and Test of Everyday Attention for Children subtests in the older children in the sample. It is possible to gain convincing performance-based estimates...

Object width modulates object-based attentional selection.

Science.gov (United States)

Nah, Joseph C; Neppi-Modona, Marco; Strother, Lars; Behrmann, Marlene; Shomstein, Sarah

2018-04-24

Visual input typically includes a myriad of objects, some of which are selected for further processing. While these objects vary in shape and size, most evidence supporting object-based guidance of attention is drawn from paradigms employing two identical objects. Importantly, object size is a readily perceived stimulus dimension, and whether it modulates the distribution of attention remains an open question. Across four experiments, the size of the objects in the display was manipulated in a modified version of the two-rectangle paradigm. In Experiment 1, two identical parallel rectangles of two sizes (thin or thick) were presented. Experiments 2-4 employed identical trapezoids (each having a thin and thick end), inverted in orientation. In the experiments, one end of an object was cued and participants performed either a T/L discrimination or a simple target-detection task. Combined results show that, in addition to the standard object-based attentional advantage, there was a further attentional benefit for processing information contained in the thick versus thin end of objects. Additionally, eye-tracking measures demonstrated increased saccade precision towards thick object ends, suggesting that Fitts's Law may play a role in object-based attentional shifts. Taken together, these results suggest that object-based attentional selection is modulated by object width.

Focal Suppression of Distractor Sounds by Selective Attention in Auditory Cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Schwartz, Zachary P; David, Stephen V

2018-01-01

Auditory selective attention is required for parsing crowded acoustic environments, but cortical systems mediating the influence of behavioral state on auditory perception are not well characterized. Previous neurophysiological studies suggest that attention produces a general enhancement of neural responses to important target sounds versus irrelevant distractors. However, behavioral studies suggest that in the presence of masking noise, attention provides a focal suppression of distractors that compete with targets. Here, we compared effects of attention on cortical responses to masking versus non-masking distractors, controlling for effects of listening effort and general task engagement. We recorded single-unit activity from primary auditory cortex (A1) of ferrets during behavior and found that selective attention decreased responses to distractors masking targets in the same spectral band, compared with spectrally distinct distractors. This suppression enhanced neural target detection thresholds, suggesting that limited attention resources serve to focally suppress responses to distractors that interfere with target detection. Changing effort by manipulating target salience consistently modulated spontaneous but not evoked activity. Task engagement and changing effort tended to affect the same neurons, while attention affected an independent population, suggesting that distinct feedback circuits mediate effects of attention and effort in A1. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

Event-related potentials during visual selective attention in children of alcoholics.

Science.gov (United States)

van der Stelt, O; Gunning, W B; Snel, J; Kok, A

1998-12-01

Event-related potentials were recorded from 7- to 18-year-old children of alcoholics (COAs, n = 50) and age- and sex-matched control children (n = 50) while they performed a visual selective attention task. The task was to attend selectively to stimuli with a specified color (red or blue) in an attempt to detect the occurrence of target stimuli. COAs manifested a smaller P3b amplitude to attended-target stimuli over the parietal and occipital scalp than did the controls. A more specific analysis indicated that both the attentional relevance and the target properties of the eliciting stimulus determined the observed P3b amplitude differences between COAs and controls. In contrast, no significant group differences were observed in attention-related earlier occurring event-related potential components, referred to as frontal selection positivity, selection negativity, and N2b. These results represent neurophysiological evidence that COAs suffer from deficits at a late (semantic) level of visual selective information processing that are unlikely a consequence of deficits at earlier (sensory) levels of selective processing. The findings support the notion that a reduced visual P3b amplitude in COAs represents a high-level processing dysfunction indicating their increased vulnerability to alcoholism.

Sleep deprivation impairs object-selective attention: a view from the ventral visual cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Lim, Julian; Tan, Jiat Chow; Parimal, Sarayu; Dinges, David F; Chee, Michael W L

2010-02-05

Most prior studies on selective attention in the setting of total sleep deprivation (SD) have focused on behavior or activation within fronto-parietal cognitive control areas. Here, we evaluated the effects of SD on the top-down biasing of activation of ventral visual cortex and on functional connectivity between cognitive control and other brain regions. Twenty-three healthy young adult volunteers underwent fMRI after a normal night of sleep (RW) and after sleep deprivation in a counterbalanced manner while performing a selective attention task. During this task, pictures of houses or faces were randomly interleaved among scrambled images. Across different blocks, volunteers responded to house but not face pictures, face but not house pictures, or passively viewed pictures without responding. The appearance of task-relevant pictures was unpredictable in this paradigm. SD resulted in less accurate detection of target pictures without affecting the mean false alarm rate or response time. In addition to a reduction of fronto-parietal activation, attending to houses strongly modulated parahippocampal place area (PPA) activation during RW, but this attention-driven biasing of PPA activation was abolished following SD. Additionally, SD resulted in a significant decrement in functional connectivity between the PPA and two cognitive control areas, the left intraparietal sulcus and the left inferior frontal lobe. SD impairs selective attention as evidenced by reduced selectivity in PPA activation. Further, reduction in fronto-parietal and ventral visual task-related activation suggests that it also affects sustained attention. Reductions in functional connectivity may be an important additional imaging parameter to consider in characterizing the effects of sleep deprivation on cognition.

Sleep deprivation impairs object-selective attention: a view from the ventral visual cortex.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Julian Lim

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Most prior studies on selective attention in the setting of total sleep deprivation (SD have focused on behavior or activation within fronto-parietal cognitive control areas. Here, we evaluated the effects of SD on the top-down biasing of activation of ventral visual cortex and on functional connectivity between cognitive control and other brain regions. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Twenty-three healthy young adult volunteers underwent fMRI after a normal night of sleep (RW and after sleep deprivation in a counterbalanced manner while performing a selective attention task. During this task, pictures of houses or faces were randomly interleaved among scrambled images. Across different blocks, volunteers responded to house but not face pictures, face but not house pictures, or passively viewed pictures without responding. The appearance of task-relevant pictures was unpredictable in this paradigm. SD resulted in less accurate detection of target pictures without affecting the mean false alarm rate or response time. In addition to a reduction of fronto-parietal activation, attending to houses strongly modulated parahippocampal place area (PPA activation during RW, but this attention-driven biasing of PPA activation was abolished following SD. Additionally, SD resulted in a significant decrement in functional connectivity between the PPA and two cognitive control areas, the left intraparietal sulcus and the left inferior frontal lobe. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: SD impairs selective attention as evidenced by reduced selectivity in PPA activation. Further, reduction in fronto-parietal and ventral visual task-related activation suggests that it also affects sustained attention. Reductions in functional connectivity may be an important additional imaging parameter to consider in characterizing the effects of sleep deprivation on cognition.

When congruence breeds preference: the influence of selective attention processes on evaluative conditioning.

Science.gov (United States)

Blask, Katarina; Walther, Eva; Frings, Christian

2017-09-01

We investigated in two experiments whether selective attention processes modulate evaluative conditioning (EC). Based on the fact that the typical stimuli in an EC paradigm involve an affect-laden unconditioned stimulus (US) and a neutral conditioned stimulus (CS), we started from the assumption that learning might depend in part upon selective attention to the US. Attention to the US was manipulated by including a variant of the Eriksen flanker task in the EC paradigm. Similarly to the original Flanker paradigm, we implemented a target-distracter logic by introducing the CS as the task-relevant stimulus (i.e. the target) to which the participants had to respond and the US as a task-irrelevant distracter. Experiment 1 showed that CS-US congruence modulated EC if the CS had to be selected against the US. Specifically, EC was more pronounced for congruent CS-US pairs as compared to incongruent CS-US pairs. Experiment 2 disentangled CS-US congruence and CS-US compatibility and suggested that it is indeed CS-US stimulus congruence rather than CS-US response compatibility that modulates EC.

Effects of Task Performance and Task Complexity on the Validity of Computational Models of Attention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koning, L. de; Maanen, P.P. van; Dongen, K. van

2008-01-01

Computational models of attention can be used as a component of decision support systems. For accurate support, a computational model of attention has to be valid and robust. The effects of task performance and task complexity on the validity of three different computational models of attention were

Acoustic noise alters selective attention processes as indicated by direct current (DC) brain potential changes.

Science.gov (United States)

Trimmel, Karin; Schätzer, Julia; Trimmel, Michael

2014-09-26

Acoustic environmental noise, even of low to moderate intensity, is known to adversely affect information processing in animals and humans via attention mechanisms. In particular, facilitation and inhibition of information processing are basic functions of selective attention. Such mechanisms can be investigated by analyzing brain potentials under conditions of externally directed attention (intake of environmental information) versus internally directed attention (rejection of environmental stimuli and focusing on memory/planning processes). This study investigated brain direct current (DC) potential shifts-which are discussed to represent different states of cortical activation-of tasks that require intake and rejection of environmental information under noise. It was hypothesized that without background noise rejection tasks would show more positive DC potential changes compared to intake tasks and that under noise both kinds of tasks would show positive DC shifts as an expression of cortical inhibition caused by noise. DC potential shifts during intake and rejection tasks were analyzed at 16 standard locations in 45 persons during irrelevant speech or white noise vs. control condition. Without noise, rejection tasks were associated with more positive DC potential changes compared to intake tasks. During background noise, however, this difference disappeared and both kinds of tasks led to positive DC shifts. Results suggest-besides some limitations-that noise modulates selective attention mechanisms by switching to an environmental information processing and noise rejection mode, which could represent a suggested "attention shift". Implications for fMRI studies as well as for public health in learning and performance environments including susceptible persons are discussed.

Acoustic Noise Alters Selective Attention Processes as Indicated by Direct Current (DC Brain Potential Changes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Karin Trimmel

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Acoustic environmental noise, even of low to moderate intensity, is known to adversely affect information processing in animals and humans via attention mechanisms. In particular, facilitation and inhibition of information processing are basic functions of selective attention. Such mechanisms can be investigated by analyzing brain potentials under conditions of externally directed attention (intake of environmental information versus internally directed attention (rejection of environmental stimuli and focusing on memory/planning processes. This study investigated brain direct current (DC potential shifts—which are discussed to represent different states of cortical activation—of tasks that require intake and rejection of environmental information under noise. It was hypothesized that without background noise rejection tasks would show more positive DC potential changes compared to intake tasks and that under noise both kinds of tasks would show positive DC shifts as an expression of cortical inhibition caused by noise. DC potential shifts during intake and rejection tasks were analyzed at 16 standard locations in 45 persons during irrelevant speech or white noise vs. control condition. Without noise, rejection tasks were associated with more positive DC potential changes compared to intake tasks. During background noise, however, this difference disappeared and both kinds of tasks led to positive DC shifts. Results suggest—besides some limitations—that noise modulates selective attention mechanisms by switching to an environmental information processing and noise rejection mode, which could represent a suggested “attention shift”. Implications for fMRI studies as well as for public health in learning and performance environments including susceptible persons are discussed.

Matching cue size and task properties in exogenous attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Burnett, Katherine E; d'Avossa, Giovanni; Sapir, Ayelet

2013-01-01

Exogenous attention is an involuntary, reflexive orienting response that results in enhanced processing at the attended location. The standard view is that this enhancement generalizes across visual properties of a stimulus. We test whether the size of an exogenous cue sets the attentional field and whether this leads to different effects on stimuli with different visual properties. In a dual task with a random-dot kinematogram (RDK) in each quadrant of the screen, participants discriminated the direction of moving dots in one RDK and localized one red dot. Precues were uninformative and consisted of either a large or a small luminance-change frame. The motion discrimination task showed attentional effects following both large and small exogenous cues. The red dot probe localization task showed attentional effects following a small cue, but not a large cue. Two additional experiments showed that the different effects on localization were not due to reduced spatial uncertainty or suppression of RDK dots in the surround. These results indicate that the effects of exogenous attention depend on the size of the cue and the properties of the task, suggesting the involvement of receptive fields with different sizes in different tasks. These attentional effects are likely to be driven by bottom-up mechanisms in early visual areas.

Development of Selective Attention in Reflective and Impulsive Children.

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Weiner, Alan S.; Berzonsky, Michael D.

Selective attention was assessed in second, fourth, and sixth grade reflective and impulsive children with an incidental learning task using pictures (animal-household object pairs) or shapes (colored forms) as stimuli. By the sixth grade, reflective children displayed less incidental learning and greater central learning than impulsive children…

Sensation seeking and visual selective attention in adults with HIV/AIDS.

Science.gov (United States)

Hardy, David J; Castellon, Steven A; Hinkin, Charles H; Levine, Andrew J; Lam, Mona N

2008-11-01

The association between sensation seeking and visual selective attention was examined in 31 adults with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Sensation seeking was measured with Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale Form V (SSS-V). Selective attention was assessed with a perceptual span task, where a target letter-character must be identified in a quickly presented array of nontarget letter-characters. As predicted, sensation seeking was strongly associated (R(2) = .229) with perceptual span performance in the array size 12 condition, where selective attention demands were greatest, but not in the easier conditions. The Disinhibition, Boredom Susceptibility, and Experience Seeking subscales of the SSS-V were associated with span performance. It is argued that personality factors such as sensation seeking may play a significant role in selective attention and related cognitive abilities in HIV positive adults. Furthermore, sensation seeking differences might explain certain inconsistencies in the HIV neuropsychology literature.

The influence of executive capacity on selective attention and subsequent processing

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Kirk R. Daffner

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Recent investigations that suggest selective attention is dependent on top-down control mechanisms lead to the expectation that individuals with high executive capacity would exhibit more robust neural indices of selective attention. This prediction was tested by using event-related potentials (ERPs to examine differences in markers of information processing across 25 subjects divided into 2 groups based on high vs. average executive capacity, as defined by neuropsychological test scores. Subjects performed an experimental task requiring selective attention to a specified color. In contrast to expectation, individuals with high and average executive capacity did not differ in the size of ERP indices of selective attention: the anterior Selection Positivity (SP and posterior Selection Negativity (SN. However, there were substantial differences between groups in markers of subsequent processing, including the anterior N2 (a measure of attentional control and the P3a (an index of the orienting of attention. Executive capacity predicted speed of processing at both early and late attentional stages. Individuals with lower executive capacity exhibited prolonged SN, P3a, and P3b latencies. However, the delays in carrying out selective attention operations did not account for subsequent delays in decision making, or explain excessive orienting and reduced attentional control mechanisms in response to stimuli that should have been ignored. SN latency, P3 latency, and the size of the anterior N2 made independent contributions to the variance of executive capacity. In summary, our findings suggest that current views regarding the relationship between top-down control mechanisms and selective attention may need refinement.

Beyond perceptual load and dilution: a review of the role of working memory in selective attention.

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de Fockert, Jan W

2013-01-01

The perceptual load and dilution models differ fundamentally in terms of the proposed mechanism underlying variation in distractibility during different perceptual conditions. However, both models predict that distracting information can be processed beyond perceptual processing under certain conditions, a prediction that is well-supported by the literature. Load theory proposes that in such cases, where perceptual task aspects do not allow for sufficient attentional selectivity, the maintenance of task-relevant processing depends on cognitive control mechanisms, including working memory. The key prediction is that working memory plays a role in keeping clear processing priorities in the face of potential distraction, and the evidence reviewed and evaluated in a meta-analysis here supports this claim, by showing that the processing of distracting information tends to be enhanced when load on a concurrent task of working memory is high. Low working memory capacity is similarly associated with greater distractor processing in selective attention, again suggesting that the unavailability of working memory during selective attention leads to an increase in distractibility. Together, these findings suggest that selective attention against distractors that are processed beyond perception depends on the availability of working memory. Possible mechanisms for the effects of working memory on selective attention are discussed.

Beyond perceptual load and dilution: a review of the role of working memory in selective attention

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Jan W. De Fockert

2013-05-01

Full Text Available The perceptual load and dilution models differ fundamentally in terms of the proposed mechanism underlying variation in distractibility during different perceptual conditions. However, both models predict that distracting information can be processed beyond perceptual processing under certain conditions, a prediction that is well-supported by the literature. Load theory proposes that in such cases, where perceptual task aspects do not allow for sufficient attentional selectivity, the maintenance of task-relevant processing depends on cognitive control mechanisms, including working memory. The key prediction is that working memory plays a role in keeping clear processing priorities in the face of potential distraction, and the evidence reviewed and evaluated in a meta-analysis here supports this claim, by showing that the processing of distracting information tends to be enhanced when load on a concurrent task of working memory is high. Low working memory capacity is similarly associated with greater distractor processing in selective attention, again suggesting that the unavailability of working memory during selective attention leads to an increase in distractibility. Together, these findings suggest that selective attention against distractors that are processed beyond perception depends on the availability of working memory. Possible mechanisms for the effects of working memory on selective attention are discussed.

Beyond perceptual load and dilution: a review of the role of working memory in selective attention

Science.gov (United States)

de Fockert, Jan W.

2013-01-01

The perceptual load and dilution models differ fundamentally in terms of the proposed mechanism underlying variation in distractibility during different perceptual conditions. However, both models predict that distracting information can be processed beyond perceptual processing under certain conditions, a prediction that is well-supported by the literature. Load theory proposes that in such cases, where perceptual task aspects do not allow for sufficient attentional selectivity, the maintenance of task-relevant processing depends on cognitive control mechanisms, including working memory. The key prediction is that working memory plays a role in keeping clear processing priorities in the face of potential distraction, and the evidence reviewed and evaluated in a meta-analysis here supports this claim, by showing that the processing of distracting information tends to be enhanced when load on a concurrent task of working memory is high. Low working memory capacity is similarly associated with greater distractor processing in selective attention, again suggesting that the unavailability of working memory during selective attention leads to an increase in distractibility. Together, these findings suggest that selective attention against distractors that are processed beyond perception depends on the availability of working memory. Possible mechanisms for the effects of working memory on selective attention are discussed. PMID:23734139

Nicotine-induced enhancement of attention in the five-choice serial reaction time task: the influence of task demands.

Science.gov (United States)

Hahn, B; Shoaib, M; Stolerman, I P

2002-07-01

Beneficial effects of nicotine on cognitive processes including attention have potential therapeutic uses and have been proposed as incentives for tobacco smoking. To establish task conditions under which the effects of nicotine on attention are obtained reliably and to characterise such effects further. Rats were trained in a modified version of the five-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT) to detect 1-s light stimuli with greater than 70% accuracy and fewer than 20% omission errors. Nicotine was tested under different task requirements by varying signal event rate, stimulus duration and stimulus predictability, and by introducing white-noise distractors. Nicotine (0.05-0.2 mg/kg, s.c.) repeatedly improved accuracy and reduced omission errors and reaction times, leading to increases in numbers of reinforcers earned. Anticipatory responding was increased. Parametric modifications intended to increase demands on sustained attention did not affect performance in a manner suggesting that this subtype of attention was being taxed, and the effects of nicotine were not more marked under such conditions. Shorter stimulus durations impaired performance, but this manipulation weakened the effect of nicotine on accuracy. In contrast, the presence of noise distractors facilitated the effects of nicotine to the extent that distractor-induced impairments were abolished by the drug. The 5-CSRTT can provide a sensitive rodent model for the attention-enhancing effects of nicotine. Changes made to the procedure may have increased its sensitivity to nicotine, particularly with respect to accuracy. There were indications that the effects of nicotine were largest on processes of selective attention or on disengaging attention from irrelevant events and shifting it to behaviourally significant stimuli.

Neural signals of selective attention are modulated by subjective preferences and buying decisions in a virtual shopping task.

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Goto, Nobuhiko; Mushtaq, Faisal; Shee, Dexter; Lim, Xue Li; Mortazavi, Matin; Watabe, Motoki; Schaefer, Alexandre

2017-09-01

We investigated whether well-known neural markers of selective attention to motivationally-relevant stimuli were modulated by variations in subjective preference towards consumer goods in a virtual shopping task. Specifically, participants viewed and rated pictures of various goods on the extent to which they wanted each item, which they could potentially purchase afterwards. Using the event-related potentials (ERP) method, we found that variations in subjective preferences for consumer goods strongly modulated positive slow waves (PSW) from 800 to 3000 milliseconds after stimulus onset. We also found that subjective preferences modulated the N200 and the late positive potential (LPP). In addition, we found that both PSW and LPP were modulated by subsequent buying decisions. Overall, these findings show that well-known brain event-related potentials reflecting selective attention processes can reliably index preferences to consumer goods in a shopping environment. Based on a large body of previous research, we suggest that early ERPs (e.g. the N200) to consumer goods could be indicative of preferences driven by unconditional and automatic processes, whereas later ERPs such as the LPP and the PSW could reflect preferences built upon more elaborative and conscious cognitive processes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Vegetarianism and food perception. Selective visual attention to meat pictures.

Science.gov (United States)

Stockburger, Jessica; Renner, Britta; Weike, Almut I; Hamm, Alfons O; Schupp, Harald T

2009-04-01

Vegetarianism provides a model system to examine the impact of negative affect towards meat, based on ideational reasoning. It was hypothesized that meat stimuli are efficient attention catchers in vegetarians. Event-related brain potential recordings served to index selective attention processes at the level of initial stimulus perception. Consistent with the hypothesis, late positive potentials to meat pictures were enlarged in vegetarians compared to omnivores. This effect was specific for meat pictures and obtained during passive viewing and an explicit attention task condition. These findings demonstrate the attention capture of food stimuli, deriving affective salience from ideational reasoning and symbolic meaning.

Residual attentional capacity amongst young and elderly during dual and triple task walking

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Læssøe, Uffe; Hoeck, Hans C.; Simonsen, Ole

2008-01-01

to the cognitive task the elderly increased their temporal stride-to-stride variability by 39% in the walking task and by 57% in the combined motor task. These increases were significantly larger than observed for the young. Equivalent decreases in trunk acceleration autocorrelation coefficients and gait speed...... in the study. The participants walked along a figure-of-eight track at a self-selected speed. The effect of introducing a concurrent cognitive task and a concurrent functional motor task was evaluated. Stride-to-stride variability was measured by heel contacts and by trunk accelerometry. In response...... were found. A combination of sufficiently challenging motor tasks and concurrent cognitive tasks can reveal signs of limited residual attentional capacity during walking amongst the elderly....

Switching in the Cocktail Party: Exploring Intentional Control of Auditory Selective Attention

Science.gov (United States)

Koch, Iring; Lawo, Vera; Fels, Janina; Vorlander, Michael

2011-01-01

Using a novel variant of dichotic selective listening, we examined the control of auditory selective attention. In our task, subjects had to respond selectively to one of two simultaneously presented auditory stimuli (number words), always spoken by a female and a male speaker, by performing a numerical size categorization. The gender of the…

Attention demanding tasks during treadmill walking reduce step width variability in young adults

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Troy Karen L

2005-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The variability of step time and step width is associated with falls by older adults. Further, step time is significantly influenced when performing attention demanding tasks while walking. Without exception, step time variability has been reported to increase in normal and pathologically aging older adults. Because of the role of step width in managing frontal plane dynamic stability, documenting the influence of attention-demanding tasks on step width variability may provide insight to events that can disturb dynamic stability during locomotion and increase fall risk. Preliminary evidence suggests performance of an attention demanding task significantly decreases step width variability of young adults walking on a treadmill. The purpose of the present study was to confirm or refute this finding by characterizing the extent and direction of the effects of a widely used attention demanding task (Stroop test on the step width variability of young adults walking on a motorized treadmill. Methods Fifteen healthy young adults walked on a motorized treadmill at a self-selected velocity for 10 minutes under two conditions; without performing an attention demanding task and while performing the Stroop test. Step width of continuous and consecutive steps during the collection was derived from the data recorded using a motion capture system. Step width variability was computed as the standard deviation of all recorded steps. Results Step width decreased four percent during performance of the Stroop test but the effect was not significant (p = 0.10. In contrast, the 16 percent decrease in step width variability during the Stroop test condition was significant (p = 0.029. Conclusion The results support those of our previous work in which a different attention demanding task also decreased step width variability of young subjects while walking on a treadmill. The decreased step width variability observed while performing an attention

Abnormal Selective Attention Normalizes P3 Amplitudes in PDD

Science.gov (United States)

Hoeksma, Marco R.; Kemner, Chantal; Kenemans, J. Leon; van Engeland, Herman

2006-01-01

This paper studied whether abnormal P3 amplitudes in PDD are a corollary of abnormalities in ERP components related to selective attention in visual and auditory tasks. Furthermore, this study sought to clarify possible age differences in such abnormalities. Children with PDD showed smaller P3 amplitudes than controls, but no abnormalities in…

Selective Attention and Control of Action: Comparative Psychology of an Artificial, Evolved Agent and People

Science.gov (United States)

Ward, Robert; Ward, Ronnie

2008-01-01

This study examined the selective attention abilities of a simple, artificial, evolved agent and considered implications of the agent's performance for theories of selective attention and action. The agent processed two targets in continuous time, catching one and then the other. This task required many cognitive operations, including prioritizing…

Training Attentional Control Improves Cognitive and Motor Task Performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Ducrocq, Emmanuel; Wilson, Mark; Vine, Sam; Derakshan, Nazanin

2016-10-01

Attentional control is a necessary function for the regulation of goal-directed behavior. In three experiments we investigated whether training inhibitory control using a visual search task could improve task-specific measures of attentional control and performance. In Experiment 1 results revealed that training elicited a near-transfer effect, improving performance on a cognitive (antisaccade) task assessing inhibitory control. In Experiment 2 an initial far-transfer effect of training was observed on an index of attentional control validated for tennis. The principal aim of Experiment 3 was to expand on these findings by assessing objective gaze measures of inhibitory control during the performance of a tennis task. Training improved inhibitory control and performance when pressure was elevated, confirming the mechanisms by which cognitive anxiety impacts performance. These results suggest that attentional control training can improve inhibition and reduce taskspecific distractibility with promise of transfer to more efficient sporting performance in competitive contexts.

Sustained Selective Attention Skills of Preschool Children with Specific Language Impairment: Evidence for Separate Attentional Capacities

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Spaulding, Tammie J.; Plante, Elena; Vance, Rebecca

2008-01-01

Purpose: The present study was designed to investigate the performance of preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their typically developing (TD) peers on sustained selective attention tasks. Method: This study included 23 children diagnosed with SLI and 23 TD children matched for age, gender, and maternal education level.…

Segregating Top-Down Selective Attention from Response Inhibition in a Spatial Cueing Go/NoGo Task: An ERP and Source Localization Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Hong, Xiangfei; Wang, Yao; Sun, Junfeng; Li, Chunbo; Tong, Shanbao

2017-08-29

Successfully inhibiting a prepotent response tendency requires the attentional detection of signals which cue response cancellation. Although neuroimaging studies have identified important roles of stimulus-driven processing in the attentional detection, the effects of top-down control were scarcely investigated. In this study, scalp EEG was recorded from thirty-two participants during a modified Go/NoGo task, in which a spatial-cueing approach was implemented to manipulate top-down selective attention. We observed classical event-related potential components, including N2 and P3, in the attended condition of response inhibition. While in the ignored condition of response inhibition, a smaller P3 was observed and N2 was absent. The correlation between P3 and CNV during the foreperiod suggested an inhibitory role of P3 in both conditions. Furthermore, source analysis suggested that P3 generation was mainly localized to the midcingulate cortex, and the attended condition showed increased activation relative to the ignored condition in several regions, including inferior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, precentral gyrus, insula and uncus, suggesting that these regions were involved in top-down attentional control rather than inhibitory processing. Taken together, by segregating electrophysiological correlates of top-down selective attention from those of response inhibition, our findings provide new insights in understanding the neural mechanisms of response inhibition.

Adaptive attunement of selective covert attention to evolutionary-relevant emotional visual scenes.

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Fernández-Martín, Andrés; Gutiérrez-García, Aída; Capafons, Juan; Calvo, Manuel G

2017-05-01

We investigated selective attention to emotional scenes in peripheral vision, as a function of adaptive relevance of scene affective content for male and female observers. Pairs of emotional-neutral images appeared peripherally-with perceptual stimulus differences controlled-while viewers were fixating on a different stimulus in central vision. Early selective orienting was assessed by the probability of directing the first fixation towards either scene, and the time until first fixation. Emotional scenes selectively captured covert attention even when they were task-irrelevant, thus revealing involuntary, automatic processing. Sex of observers and specific emotional scene content (e.g., male-to-female-aggression, families and babies, etc.) interactively modulated covert attention, depending on adaptive priorities and goals for each sex, both for pleasant and unpleasant content. The attentional system exhibits domain-specific and sex-specific biases and attunements, probably rooted in evolutionary pressures to enhance reproductive and protective success. Emotional cues selectively capture covert attention based on their bio-social significance. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Disadvantageous Deck Selection in the Iowa Gambling Task: The Effect of Cognitive Load

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Melissa J. Hawthorne

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Research has shown that cognitive load affects overall Iowa Gambling Task (IGT performance, but it is unknown whether such load impacts the selection of the individual decks that correspond to gains or losses. Here, participants performed the IGT either in a full attention condition or while engaged in a number monitoring task to divide attention. Results showed that the full attention group was more aware of the magnitude of gains or losses for each draw (i.e., payoff awareness than was the divided attention group. However, the divided attention group was more sensitive to the frequency of the losses (i.e., frequency awareness, as evidenced by their increased preference for Deck B, which is the large but infrequent loss deck. An analysis across blocks showed that the number monitoring group was consistently more aware of loss frequency, whereas the full attention group shifted between awareness of loss frequency and awareness of payoff amount. Furthermore, the full attention group was better able to weigh loss frequency and payoff amount when making deck selections. These findings support the notion that diminished cognitive resources may result in greater selection of Deck B, otherwise known as the prominent Deck B phenomenon.

Auditory-Cortex Short-Term Plasticity Induced by Selective Attention

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Jääskeläinen, Iiro P.; Ahveninen, Jyrki

2014-01-01

The ability to concentrate on relevant sounds in the acoustic environment is crucial for everyday function and communication. Converging lines of evidence suggests that transient functional changes in auditory-cortex neurons, “short-term plasticity”, might explain this fundamental function. Under conditions of strongly focused attention, enhanced processing of attended sounds can take place at very early latencies (~50 ms from sound onset) in primary auditory cortex and possibly even at earlier latencies in subcortical structures. More robust selective-attention short-term plasticity is manifested as modulation of responses peaking at ~100 ms from sound onset in functionally specialized nonprimary auditory-cortical areas by way of stimulus-specific reshaping of neuronal receptive fields that supports filtering of selectively attended sound features from task-irrelevant ones. Such effects have been shown to take effect in ~seconds following shifting of attentional focus. There are findings suggesting that the reshaping of neuronal receptive fields is even stronger at longer auditory-cortex response latencies (~300 ms from sound onset). These longer-latency short-term plasticity effects seem to build up more gradually, within tens of seconds after shifting the focus of attention. Importantly, some of the auditory-cortical short-term plasticity effects observed during selective attention predict enhancements in behaviorally measured sound discrimination performance. PMID:24551458

Social exclusion impairs distractor suppression but not target enhancement in selective attention.

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Xu, Mengsi; Li, Zhiai; Diao, Liuting; Fan, Lingxia; Zhang, Lijie; Yuan, Shuge; Yang, Dong

2017-11-01

Social exclusion has been thought to weaken one's ability to exert inhibitory control. Existing studies have primarily focused on the relationship between exclusion and behavioral inhibition, and have reported that exclusion impairs behavioral inhibition. However, whether exclusion also affects selective attention, another important aspect of inhibitory control, remains unknown. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore whether social exclusion impairs selective attention, and to specifically examine its effect on two hypothesized mechanisms of selective attention: target enhancement and distractor suppression. The Cyberball game was used to manipulate social exclusion. Participants then performed a visual search task while event-related potentials were recorded. In the visual search task, target and salient distractor were either both presented laterally or one was presented on the vertical midline and the other laterally. Results showed that social exclusion differentially affected target and distractor processing. While exclusion impaired distractor suppression, reflected as smaller distractor-positivity (Pd) amplitudes for the exclusion group compared to the inclusion group, it did not affect target enhancement, reflected as similar target-negativity (Nt) amplitudes for both the exclusion and inclusion groups. Together, these results extend our understanding of the relationship between exclusion and inhibitory control, and suggest that social exclusion affects selective attention in a more complex manner than previously thought. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Attentional bias modification based on visual probe task: methodological issues, results and clinical relevance

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Fernanda Machado Lopes

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Attentional bias, the tendency that a person has to drive or maintain attention to a specific class of stimuli, may play an important role in the etiology and persistence of mental disorders. Attentional bias modification has been studied as a form of additional treatment related to automatic processing. Objectives: This systematic literature review compared and discussed methods, evidence of success and potential clinical applications of studies about attentional bias modification (ABM using a visual probe task. Methods: The Web of Knowledge, PubMed and PsycInfo were searched using the keywords attentional bias modification, attentional bias manipulation and attentional bias training. We selected empirical studies about ABM training using a visual probe task written in English and published between 2002 and 2014. Results: Fifty-seven studies met inclusion criteria. Most (78% succeeded in training attention in the predicted direction, and in 71% results were generalized to other measures correlated with the symptoms. Conclusions: ABM has potential clinical utility, but to standardize methods and maximize applicability, future studies should include clinical samples and be based on findings of studies about its effectiveness.

The Attentional Dependence of Emotion Cognition is Variable with the Competing Task

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Cheng Chen

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The relationship between emotion and attention has fascinated researchers for decades. Many previous studies have used eye-tracking, ERP, MEG and fMRI to explore this issue but have reached different conclusions: some researchers hold that emotion cognition is an automatic process and independent of attention, while some others believed that emotion cognition is modulated by attentional resources and is a type of controlled processing. The present research aimed to investigate this controversy, and we hypothesized that the attentional dependence of emotion cognition is variable with the competing task. Eye-tracking technology and a dual-task paradigm were adopted, and subjects’ attention was manipulated to fixate at the central task to investigate whether subjects could detect the emotional faces presented in the peripheral area with a decrease or near-absence of attention. The results revealed that when the peripheral task was emotional face discrimination but the central attention-demanding task was different, subjects performed well in the peripheral task, which means that emotional information can be processed in parallel with other stimuli, and there may be a specific channel in the human brain for processing emotional information. However, when the central and peripheral tasks were both emotional face discrimination, subjects could not perform well in the peripheral task, indicating that the processing of emotional information required attentional resources and that it is a type of controlled processing. Therefore, we concluded that the attentional dependence of emotion cognition varied with the competing task.

Individual Differences in Temporal Selective Attention as Reflected in Pupil Dilation

OpenAIRE

Willems, Charlotte; Herdzin, Johannes; Martens, Sander

2015-01-01

Background Attention is restricted for the second of two targets when it is presented within 200-500 ms of the first target. This attentional blink (AB) phenomenon allows one to study the dynamics of temporal selective attention by varying the interval between the two targets (T1 and T2). Whereas the AB has long been considered as a robust and universal cognitive limitation, several studies have demonstrated that AB task performance greatly differs between individuals, with some individuals s...

Effects of transdermally administered nicotine on aspects of attention, task load, and mood in women and men.

Science.gov (United States)

Trimmel, Michael; Wittberger, Susanne

2004-07-01

This double-blind placebo-controlled study was conducted to determine nicotine effects on diverse types of attentional performance, task load, and mood considering sex effects as suggested by animal studies. Twelve smokers, 12 deprived smokers and 12 nonsmokers (6 females, 6 males in each group) were investigated. Participants were treated either by 5 mg/16 h nicotine patches (Nicorette) or placebo. Effects of treatment were examined by a computerized attention-test battery; mood was assessed by the Berliner-Alltagssprachliches-Stimmungs-Inventar and task load by the NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX). Results showed that nicotine significantly increased the number of hits and decreased reaction time (RT) in the vigilance task. In the selective attention task combined with irrelevant speech as background noise, nicotine enhanced rate of hits. Although it was indicated that nicotine leads to a generally higher accuracy in attention tasks, response time of visual search was prolonged, contradicting a universal facilitation by nicotine. Participants experienced mental demand and temporal demand lower and rated alertness higher when in the nicotine condition. These effects were independent of smoking status, indicating "true" nicotine effects. Females took significant advantage of nicotine in the vigilance task, reaching the performance level of males, accompanied by a higher rated alertness. Results indicate task- and sex-dependent nicotine effects.

Acute exercise and aerobic fitness influence selective attention during visual search

Science.gov (United States)

Bullock, Tom; Giesbrecht, Barry

2014-01-01

Successful goal directed behavior relies on a human attention system that is flexible and able to adapt to different conditions of physiological stress. However, the effects of physical activity on multiple aspects of selective attention and whether these effects are mediated by aerobic capacity, remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of a prolonged bout of physical activity on visual search performance and perceptual distraction. Two groups of participants completed a hybrid visual search flanker/response competition task in an initial baseline session and then at 17-min intervals over a 2 h 16 min test period. Participants assigned to the exercise group engaged in steady-state aerobic exercise between completing blocks of the visual task, whereas participants assigned to the control group rested in between blocks. The key result was a correlation between individual differences in aerobic capacity and visual search performance, such that those individuals that were more fit performed the search task more quickly. Critically, this relationship only emerged in the exercise group after the physical activity had begun. The relationship was not present in either group at baseline and never emerged in the control group during the test period, suggesting that under these task demands, aerobic capacity may be an important determinant of visual search performance under physical stress. The results enhance current understanding about the relationship between exercise and cognition, and also inform current models of selective attention. PMID:25426094

Acute exercise and aerobic fitness influence selective attention during visual search.

Science.gov (United States)

Bullock, Tom; Giesbrecht, Barry

2014-01-01

Successful goal directed behavior relies on a human attention system that is flexible and able to adapt to different conditions of physiological stress. However, the effects of physical activity on multiple aspects of selective attention and whether these effects are mediated by aerobic capacity, remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of a prolonged bout of physical activity on visual search performance and perceptual distraction. Two groups of participants completed a hybrid visual search flanker/response competition task in an initial baseline session and then at 17-min intervals over a 2 h 16 min test period. Participants assigned to the exercise group engaged in steady-state aerobic exercise between completing blocks of the visual task, whereas participants assigned to the control group rested in between blocks. The key result was a correlation between individual differences in aerobic capacity and visual search performance, such that those individuals that were more fit performed the search task more quickly. Critically, this relationship only emerged in the exercise group after the physical activity had begun. The relationship was not present in either group at baseline and never emerged in the control group during the test period, suggesting that under these task demands, aerobic capacity may be an important determinant of visual search performance under physical stress. The results enhance current understanding about the relationship between exercise and cognition, and also inform current models of selective attention.

Acute exercise and aerobic fitness influence selective attention during visual search

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tom eBullock

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Successful goal directed behavior relies on a human attention system that is flexible and able to adapt to different conditions of physiological stress. However, the effects of physical activity on multiple aspects of selective attention and whether these effects are mediated by aerobic capacity, remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of a prolonged bout of physical activity on visual search performance and perceptual distraction. Two groups of participants completed a hybrid visual search flanker/response competition task in an initial baseline session and then at 17-minute intervals over a 2 hour 16 minute test period. Participants assigned to the exercise group engaged in steady-state aerobic exercise between completing blocks of the visual task, whereas participants assigned to the control group rested in between blocks. The key result was a correlation between individual differences in aerobic capacity and visual search performance, such that those individuals that were more fit performed the search task more quickly. Critically, this relationship only emerged in the exercise group after the physical activity had begun. The relationship was not present in either group at baseline and never emerged in the control group during the test period, suggesting that under these task demands, aerobic capacity may be an important determinant of visual search performance under physical stress. The results enhance current understanding about the relationship between exercise and cognition, and also inform current models of selective attention.

The Role of Executive Control of Attention and Selective Encoding for Preschoolers' Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Roderer, Thomas; Krebs, Saskia; Schmid, Corinne; Roebers, Claudia M.

2012-01-01

Selectivity in encoding, aspects of attentional control and their contribution to learning performance were explored in a sample of preschoolers. While the children are performing a learning task, their encoding of relevant and attention towards irrelevant information was recorded through an eye-tracking device. Recognition of target items was…

Attention, spatial integration, and the tail of response time distributions in Stroop task performance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Roelofs, A.P.A.

2012-01-01

A few studies have examined selective attention in Stroop task performance through ex-Gaussian analyses of response time (RT) distributions. It has remained unclear whether the tail of the RT distribution in vocal responding reflects spatial integration of relevant and irrelevant attributes, as

Spatial attention enhances the selective integration of activity from area MT.

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Masse, Nicolas Y; Herrington, Todd M; Cook, Erik P

2012-09-01

Distinguishing which of the many proposed neural mechanisms of spatial attention actually underlies behavioral improvements in visually guided tasks has been difficult. One attractive hypothesis is that attention allows downstream neural circuits to selectively integrate responses from the most informative sensory neurons. This would allow behavioral performance to be based on the highest-quality signals available in visual cortex. We examined this hypothesis by asking how spatial attention affects both the stimulus sensitivity of middle temporal (MT) neurons and their corresponding correlation with behavior. Analyzing a data set pooled from two experiments involving four monkeys, we found that spatial attention did not appreciably affect either the stimulus sensitivity of the neurons or the correlation between their activity and behavior. However, for those sessions in which there was a robust behavioral effect of attention, focusing attention inside the neuron's receptive field significantly increased the correlation between these two metrics, an indication of selective integration. These results suggest that, similar to mechanisms proposed for the neural basis of perceptual learning, the behavioral benefits of focusing spatial attention are attributable to selective integration of neural activity from visual cortical areas by their downstream targets.

An impaired attentional dwell time after parietal and frontal lesions related to impaired selective attention not unilateral neglect.

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Correani, Alessia; Humphreys, Glyn W

2011-07-01

The attentional blink, a measure of the temporal dynamics of visual processing, has been documented to be more pronounced following brain lesions that are associated with visual neglect. This suggests that, in addition to their spatial bias in attention, neglect patients may have a prolonged dwell time for attention. Here the attentional dwell time was examined in patients with damage focused on either posterior parietal or frontal cortices. In three experiments, we show that there is an abnormally pronounced attentional dwell time, which does not differ in patients with posterior parietal and with frontal lobe lesions, and this is associated with a measure of selective attention but not with measures of spatial bias in selection. These data occurred both when we attempted to match patients and controls for overall differences in performance and when a single set stimulus exposure was used across participants. In Experiments 1 and 2, requiring report of colour-form conjunctions, there was evidence that the patients were also impaired at temporal binding, showing errors in feature combination across stimuli and in reporting in the correct temporal order. In Experiment 3, requiring only the report of features but introducing task switching led to similar results. The data suggest that damage to a frontoparietal network can compromise temporal selection of visual stimuli; however, this is not necessarily related to a deficit in hemispatial visual attention but it is to impaired target selection. We discuss the implications for understanding visual selection.

Two different mechanisms support selective attention at different phases of training.

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Itthipuripat, Sirawaj; Cha, Kexin; Byers, Anna; Serences, John T

2017-06-01

Selective attention supports the prioritized processing of relevant sensory information to facilitate goal-directed behavior. Studies in human subjects demonstrate that attentional gain of cortical responses can sufficiently account for attention-related improvements in behavior. On the other hand, studies using highly trained nonhuman primates suggest that reductions in neural noise can better explain attentional facilitation of behavior. Given the importance of selective information processing in nearly all domains of cognition, we sought to reconcile these competing accounts by testing the hypothesis that extensive behavioral training alters the neural mechanisms that support selective attention. We tested this hypothesis using electroencephalography (EEG) to measure stimulus-evoked visual responses from human subjects while they performed a selective spatial attention task over the course of ~1 month. Early in training, spatial attention led to an increase in the gain of stimulus-evoked visual responses. Gain was apparent within ~100 ms of stimulus onset, and a quantitative model based on signal detection theory (SDT) successfully linked the magnitude of this gain modulation to attention-related improvements in behavior. However, after extensive training, this early attentional gain was eliminated even though there were still substantial attention-related improvements in behavior. Accordingly, the SDT-based model required noise reduction to account for the link between the stimulus-evoked visual responses and attentional modulations of behavior. These findings suggest that training can lead to fundamental changes in the way attention alters the early cortical responses that support selective information processing. Moreover, these data facilitate the translation of results across different species and across experimental procedures that employ different behavioral training regimes.

Two different mechanisms support selective attention at different phases of training

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Cha, Kexin; Byers, Anna; Serences, John T.

2017-01-01

Selective attention supports the prioritized processing of relevant sensory information to facilitate goal-directed behavior. Studies in human subjects demonstrate that attentional gain of cortical responses can sufficiently account for attention-related improvements in behavior. On the other hand, studies using highly trained nonhuman primates suggest that reductions in neural noise can better explain attentional facilitation of behavior. Given the importance of selective information processing in nearly all domains of cognition, we sought to reconcile these competing accounts by testing the hypothesis that extensive behavioral training alters the neural mechanisms that support selective attention. We tested this hypothesis using electroencephalography (EEG) to measure stimulus-evoked visual responses from human subjects while they performed a selective spatial attention task over the course of ~1 month. Early in training, spatial attention led to an increase in the gain of stimulus-evoked visual responses. Gain was apparent within ~100 ms of stimulus onset, and a quantitative model based on signal detection theory (SDT) successfully linked the magnitude of this gain modulation to attention-related improvements in behavior. However, after extensive training, this early attentional gain was eliminated even though there were still substantial attention-related improvements in behavior. Accordingly, the SDT-based model required noise reduction to account for the link between the stimulus-evoked visual responses and attentional modulations of behavior. These findings suggest that training can lead to fundamental changes in the way attention alters the early cortical responses that support selective information processing. Moreover, these data facilitate the translation of results across different species and across experimental procedures that employ different behavioral training regimes. PMID:28654635

Cardiac responsiveness to attention-demanding tasks in socially maladaptive children

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Althaus, M; Aarnoudse, CC; Minderaa, RB; Mulder, Gysbertus; Mulder, Lambertus

Cardiac responsiveness to attention-demanding tasks in socially maladaptive children A psychofysiological study of the cardiac adaptivity to attention-demanding reaction time tasks demonstrated that children with a lesser variant of the pervasive developmental disorder (DSM-IV: PDDNOS) exhibit less

Effect of Psychostimulants on Distinct Attentional Parameters in Attentional Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

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JAVIER LÓPEZ

2004-01-01

Full Text Available Although there is extensive literature about the effects of stimulants on sustained attention tasks in attentional deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, little is known about the effect of these drugs on other attentional tasks involving different neural systems. In this study we measured the effect of stimulants on ADHD children, both in the electroencephalographic (EEG activity during sustained attentional tasks and in psychometric performance during selective attentional tasks. These tasks are known to rely on different cortical networks. Our results in children medicated with 10 mg of d-amphetamine administered 60 min before the study indicate (i a significant increase in amplitude but not latency of the P300 component of the event-related potential (ERP during the sustained attentional task and (ii a significant improvement in the reaction times and correct responses in the selective attentional task. In addition to supporting the use of stimulants in children with attentional deficit/hyperactivity disorder, these results show a multifocal activity improvement of cortical structures linked to dopamine, and interestingly, to attention. All these analyses are framed in a wider study of diverse attentional functions in this syndrome.

Enhancing perceptual and attentional skills requires common demands between the action video games and transfer tasks

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Oei, Adam C.; Patterson, Michael D.

2015-01-01

Despite increasing evidence that shows action video game play improves perceptual and cognitive skills, the mechanisms of transfer are not well-understood. In line with previous work, we suggest that transfer is dependent upon common demands between the game and transfer task. In the current study, participants played one of four action games with varying speed, visual, and attentional demands for 20 h. We examined whether training enhanced performance for attentional blink, selective attention, attending to multiple items, visual search and auditory detection. Non-gamers who played the game (Modern Combat) with the highest demands showed transfer to tasks of attentional blink and attending to multiple items. The game (MGS Touch) with fewer attentional demands also decreased attentional blink, but to a lesser degree. Other games failed to show transfer, despite having many action game characteristics but at a reduced intensity. The results support the common demands hypothesis. PMID:25713551

Enhancing perceptual and attentional skills requires common demands between the action video games and transfer tasks.

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Oei, Adam C; Patterson, Michael D

2015-01-01

Despite increasing evidence that shows action video game play improves perceptual and cognitive skills, the mechanisms of transfer are not well-understood. In line with previous work, we suggest that transfer is dependent upon common demands between the game and transfer task. In the current study, participants played one of four action games with varying speed, visual, and attentional demands for 20 h. We examined whether training enhanced performance for attentional blink, selective attention, attending to multiple items, visual search and auditory detection. Non-gamers who played the game (Modern Combat) with the highest demands showed transfer to tasks of attentional blink and attending to multiple items. The game (MGS Touch) with fewer attentional demands also decreased attentional blink, but to a lesser degree. Other games failed to show transfer, despite having many action game characteristics but at a reduced intensity. The results support the common demands hypothesis.

Enhancing perceptual and attentional skills requires common demands between the action video games and transfer tasks

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Adam C Oei

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Despite increasing evidence that shows action video game play improves perceptual and cognitive skills, the mechanisms of transfer are not well understood. In line with previous work, we suggest that transfer is dependent upon common demands between the game and transfer task. In the current study, participants played one of four action games with varying speed, visual, and attentional demands for twenty hours. We examined whether training enhanced performance for attentional blink, selective attention, attending to multiple items, visual search and auditory detection. Non-gamers who played the game (Modern Combat with the highest demands showed transfer to tasks of attentional blink and attending to multiple items. The game (MGS Touch with fewer attentional demands also decreased attentional blink, but to a lesser degree. Other games failed to show transfer, despite having many action game characteristics but at a reduced intensity. The results support the common demands hypothesis

Effect of Psychostimulants on Distinct Attentional Parameters in Attentional Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

OpenAIRE

LÓPEZ, JAVIER; LÓPEZ, VLADIMIR; ROJAS, DANIEL; CARRASCO, XIMENA; ROTHHAMMER, PAULA; GARCÍA, RICARDO; ROTHHAMMER, FRANCISCO; ABOITIZ, FRANCISCO

2004-01-01

Although there is extensive literature about the effects of stimulants on sustained attention tasks in attentional deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), little is known about the effect of these drugs on other attentional tasks involving different neural systems. In this study we measured the effect of stimulants on ADHD children, both in the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity during sustained attentional tasks and in psychometric performance during selective attentional tasks. These tas...

Selective population rate coding: a possible computational role of gamma oscillations in selective attention.

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Masuda, Naoki

2009-12-01

Selective attention is often accompanied by gamma oscillations in local field potentials and spike field coherence in brain areas related to visual, motor, and cognitive information processing. Gamma oscillations are implicated to play an important role in, for example, visual tasks including object search, shape perception, and speed detection. However, the mechanism by which gamma oscillations enhance cognitive and behavioral performance of attentive subjects is still elusive. Using feedforward fan-in networks composed of spiking neurons, we examine a possible role for gamma oscillations in selective attention and population rate coding of external stimuli. We implement the concept proposed by Fries ( 2005 ) that under dynamic stimuli, neural populations effectively communicate with each other only when there is a good phase relationship among associated gamma oscillations. We show that the downstream neural population selects a specific dynamic stimulus received by an upstream population and represents it by population rate coding. The encoded stimulus is the one for which gamma rhythm in the corresponding upstream population is resonant with the downstream gamma rhythm. The proposed role for gamma oscillations in stimulus selection is to enable top-down control, a neural version of time division multiple access used in communication engineering.

Rejection Positivity Predicts Trial-to-Trial Reaction Times in an Auditory Selective Attention Task: A Computational Analysis of Inhibitory Control

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Sufen eChen

2014-08-01

Full Text Available A series of computer simulations using variants of a formal model of attention (Melara & Algom, 2003 probed the role of rejection positivity (RP, a slow-wave electroencephalographic (EEG component, in the inhibitory control of distraction. Behavioral and EEG data were recorded as participants performed auditory selective attention tasks. Simulations that modulated processes of distractor inhibition accounted well for reaction-time (RT performance, whereas those that modulated target excitation did not. A model that incorporated RP from actual EEG recordings in estimating distractor inhibition was superior in predicting changes in RT as a function of distractor salience across conditions. A model that additionally incorporated momentary fluctuations in EEG as the source of trial-to-trial variation in performance precisely predicted individual RTs within each condition. The results lend support to the linking proposition that RP controls the speed of responding to targets through the inhibitory control of distractors.

Simulating the role of visual selective attention during the development of perceptual completion.

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Schlesinger, Matthew; Amso, Dima; Johnson, Scott P

2012-11-01

We recently proposed a multi-channel, image-filtering model for simulating the development of visual selective attention in young infants (Schlesinger, Amso & Johnson, 2007). The model not only captures the performance of 3-month-olds on a visual search task, but also implicates two cortical regions that may play a role in the development of visual selective attention. In the current simulation study, we used the same model to simulate 3-month-olds' performance on a second measure, the perceptual unity task. Two parameters in the model - corresponding to areas in the occipital and parietal cortices - were systematically varied while the gaze patterns produced by the model were recorded and subsequently analyzed. Three key findings emerged from the simulation study. First, the model successfully replicated the performance of 3-month-olds on the unity perception task. Second, the model also helps to explain the improved performance of 2-month-olds when the size of the occluder in the unity perception task is reduced. Third, in contrast to our previous simulation results, variation in only one of the two cortical regions simulated (i.e. recurrent activity in posterior parietal cortex) resulted in a performance pattern that matched 3-month-olds. These findings provide additional support for our hypothesis that the development of perceptual completion in early infancy is promoted by progressive improvements in visual selective attention and oculomotor skill. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Thalamic control of sensory selection in divided attention.

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Wimmer, Ralf D; Schmitt, L Ian; Davidson, Thomas J; Nakajima, Miho; Deisseroth, Karl; Halassa, Michael M

2015-10-29

How the brain selects appropriate sensory inputs and suppresses distractors is unknown. Given the well-established role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in executive function, its interactions with sensory cortical areas during attention have been hypothesized to control sensory selection. To test this idea and, more generally, dissect the circuits underlying sensory selection, we developed a cross-modal divided-attention task in mice that allowed genetic access to this cognitive process. By optogenetically perturbing PFC function in a temporally precise window, the ability of mice to select appropriately between conflicting visual and auditory stimuli was diminished. Equivalent sensory thalamocortical manipulations showed that behaviour was causally dependent on PFC interactions with the sensory thalamus, not sensory cortex. Consistent with this notion, we found neurons of the visual thalamic reticular nucleus (visTRN) to exhibit PFC-dependent changes in firing rate predictive of the modality selected. visTRN activity was causal to performance as confirmed by bidirectional optogenetic manipulations of this subnetwork. Using a combination of electrophysiology and intracellular chloride photometry, we demonstrated that visTRN dynamically controls visual thalamic gain through feedforward inhibition. Our experiments introduce a new subcortical model of sensory selection, in which the PFC biases thalamic reticular subnetworks to control thalamic sensory gain, selecting appropriate inputs for further processing.

Selective attention increases choice certainty in human decision making.

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Zizlsperger, Leopold; Sauvigny, Thomas; Haarmeier, Thomas

2012-01-01

Choice certainty is a probabilistic estimate of past performance and expected outcome. In perceptual decisions the degree of confidence correlates closely with choice accuracy and reaction times, suggesting an intimate relationship to objective performance. Here we show that spatial and feature-based attention increase human subjects' certainty more than accuracy in visual motion discrimination tasks. Our findings demonstrate for the first time a dissociation of choice accuracy and certainty with a significantly stronger influence of voluntary top-down attention on subjective performance measures than on objective performance. These results reveal a so far unknown mechanism of the selection process implemented by attention and suggest a unique biological valence of choice certainty beyond a faithful reflection of the decision process.

Perceptual load manipulation reveals sensitivity of the face-selective N170 to attention.

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Mohamed, Tarik N; Neumann, Markus F; Schweinberger, Stefan R

2009-05-27

It has been controversial whether the face-sensitive N170 is affected by selective attention. We manipulated attention sensu Lavie's perceptual load theory to short (200 ms) presentations of task-irrelevant unfamiliar faces or houses, while participants identified superimposed target letters 'X' versus 'N'. These targets were strings of either six identical (low load) or six different letters (high load). Under low load, we found a prominent face-selective N170 response. Under high load, however, we not only observed a dramatic reduction of the face N170 but also an unexpected enhancement of the house N170, such that face selectivity was almost completely lost. We conclude that the early stages of face processing indexed by the N170 strongly depend on selective attention.

Cholinergic enhancement modulates neural correlates of selective attention and emotional processing.

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Bentley, Paul; Vuilleumier, Patrik; Thiel, Christiane M; Driver, Jon; Dolan, Raymond J

2003-09-01

Neocortical cholinergic afferents are proposed to influence both selective attention and emotional processing. In a study of healthy adults we used event-related fMRI while orthogonally manipulating attention and emotionality to examine regions showing effects of cholinergic modulation by the anticholinesterase physostigmine. Either face or house pictures appeared at task-relevant locations, with the alternative picture type at irrelevant locations. Faces had either neutral or fearful expressions. Physostigmine increased relative activity within the anterior fusiform gyrus for faces at attended, versus unattended, locations, but decreased relative activity within the posterolateral occipital cortex for houses in attended, versus unattended, locations. A similar pattern of regional differences in the effect of physostigmine on cue-evoked responses was also present in the absence of stimuli. Cholinergic enhancement augmented the relative neuronal response within the middle fusiform gyrus to fearful faces, whether at attended or unattended locations. By contrast, physostigmine influenced responses in the orbitofrontal, intraparietal and cingulate cortices to fearful faces when faces occupied task-irrelevant locations. These findings suggest that acetylcholine may modulate both selective attention and emotional processes through independent, region-specific effects within the extrastriate cortex. Furthermore, cholinergic inputs to the frontoparietal cortex may influence the allocation of attention to emotional information.

Modulation of the attentional span by foveal and parafoveal task load: An ERP study using attentional probes.

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Kornrumpf, Benthe; Sommer, Werner

2015-09-01

Due to capacity limitation, visual attention must be focused to a limited region of the visual field. Nevertheless, it is assumed that the size of that region may vary with task demands. We aimed to obtain direct evidence for the modulation of visuospatial attention as a function of foveal and parafoveal task load. Participants were required to fixate the center word of word triplets. In separate task blocks, either just the fixated word or both the fixated and the parafoveal word to the right should be semantically classified. The spatiotemporal distribution of attention was assessed with task-irrelevant probes flashed briefly at center or parafoveal positions, during or in between word presentation trials. The N1 component of the ERP elicited by intertrial probes at possible target positions increased with task demands within a block. These results suggest the recruitment of additional attentional resources rather than a redistribution of a fixed resource pool, which persists across trials. © 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Additive effects of emotional content and spatial selective attention on electrocortical facilitation.

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Keil, Andreas; Moratti, Stephan; Sabatinelli, Dean; Bradley, Margaret M; Lang, Peter J

2005-08-01

Affectively arousing visual stimuli have been suggested to automatically attract attentional resources in order to optimize sensory processing. The present study crosses the factors of spatial selective attention and affective content, and examines the relationship between instructed (spatial) and automatic attention to affective stimuli. In addition to response times and error rate, electroencephalographic data from 129 electrodes were recorded during a covert spatial attention task. This task required silent counting of random-dot targets embedded in a 10 Hz flicker of colored pictures presented to both hemifields. Steady-state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs) were obtained to determine amplitude and phase of electrocortical responses to pictures. An increase of ssVEP amplitude was observed as an additive function of spatial attention and emotional content. Statistical parametric mapping of this effect indicated occipito-temporal and parietal cortex activation contralateral to the attended visual hemifield in ssVEP amplitude modulation. This difference was most pronounced during selection of the left visual hemifield, at right temporal electrodes. In line with this finding, phase information revealed accelerated processing of aversive arousing, compared to affectively neutral pictures. The data suggest that affective stimulus properties modulate the spatiotemporal process along the ventral stream, encompassing amplitude amplification and timing changes of posterior and temporal cortex.

Genetic Influence on Slope Variability in a Childhood Reflexive Attention Task.

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Rebecca A Lundwall

Full Text Available Individuals are not perfectly consistent, and interindividual variability is a common feature in all varieties of human behavior. Some individuals respond more variably than others, however, and this difference may be important to understanding how the brain works. In this paper, we explore genetic contributions to response time (RT slope variability on a reflexive attention task. We are interested in such variability because we believe it is an important part of the overall picture of attention that, if understood, has the potential to improve intervention for those with attentional deficits. Genetic association studies are valuable in discovering biological pathways of variability and several studies have found such associations with a sustained attention task. Here, we expand our knowledge to include a reflexive attention task. We ask whether specific candidate genes are associated with interindividual variability on a childhood reflexive attention task in 9-16 year olds. The genetic makers considered are on 11 genes: APOE, BDNF, CHRNA4, COMT, DRD4, HTR4, IGF2, MAOA, SLC5A7, SLC6A3, and SNAP25. We find significant associations with variability with markers on nine and we discuss the results in terms of neurotransmitters associated with each gene and the characteristics of the associated measures from the reflexive attention task.

Task relevance of emotional information affects anxiety-linked attention bias in visual search.

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Dodd, Helen F; Vogt, Julia; Turkileri, Nilgun; Notebaert, Lies

2017-01-01

Task relevance affects emotional attention in healthy individuals. Here, we investigate whether the association between anxiety and attention bias is affected by the task relevance of emotion during an attention task. Participants completed two visual search tasks. In the emotion-irrelevant task, participants were asked to indicate whether a discrepant face in a crowd of neutral, middle-aged faces was old or young. Irrelevant to the task, target faces displayed angry, happy, or neutral expressions. In the emotion-relevant task, participants were asked to indicate whether a discrepant face in a crowd of middle-aged neutral faces was happy or angry (target faces also varied in age). Trait anxiety was not associated with attention in the emotion-relevant task. However, in the emotion-irrelevant task, trait anxiety was associated with a bias for angry over happy faces. These findings demonstrate that the task relevance of emotional information affects conclusions about the presence of an anxiety-linked attention bias. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A novel test for evaluating horses' spontaneous visual attention is predictive of attention in operant learning tasks.

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Rochais, C; Sébilleau, M; Houdebine, M; Bec, P; Hausberger, M; Henry, S

2017-08-01

Attention is described as the ability to process selectively one aspect of the environment over others. In this study, we characterized horses' spontaneous attention by designing a novel visual attention test (VAT) that is easy to apply in the animal's home environment. The test was repeated over three consecutive days and repeated again 6 months later in order to assess inter-individual variations and intra-individual stability. Different patterns of attention have been revealed: 'overall' attention when the horse merely gazed at the stimulus and 'fixed' attention characterized by fixity and orientation of at least the visual and auditory organs towards the stimulus. The individual attention characteristics remained consistent over time (after 6 months, Spearman correlation test, P attentional skills was assessed by comparing the results, for the same horses, with those obtained in both a 'classical' experimental attention test the 'five-choice serial reaction time task' (5-CSRTT) and a work situation (lunge working context). Our results revealed that (i) individual variations remained consistent across tests and (ii) the VAT attention measures were not only predictive of attentional skills but also of learning abilities. Differences appeared however between the first day of testing and the following test days: attention structure on the second day was predictive of learning abilities, attention performances in the 5-CSRRT and at work. The VAT appears as a promising easy-to-use tool to assess animals' attention characteristics and the impact of different factors of variation on attention.

Individual differences in selective attention predict speech identification at a cocktail party.

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Oberfeld, Daniel; Klöckner-Nowotny, Felicitas

2016-08-31

Listeners with normal hearing show considerable individual differences in speech understanding when competing speakers are present, as in a crowded restaurant. Here, we show that one source of this variance are individual differences in the ability to focus selective attention on a target stimulus in the presence of distractors. In 50 young normal-hearing listeners, the performance in tasks measuring auditory and visual selective attention was associated with sentence identification in the presence of spatially separated competing speakers. Together, the measures of selective attention explained a similar proportion of variance as the binaural sensitivity for the acoustic temporal fine structure. Working memory span, age, and audiometric thresholds showed no significant association with speech understanding. These results suggest that a reduced ability to focus attention on a target is one reason why some listeners with normal hearing sensitivity have difficulty communicating in situations with background noise.

Seeing the World through Another Person's Eyes: Simulating Selective Attention via Action Observation

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Frischen, Alexandra; Loach, Daniel; Tipper, Steven P.

2009-01-01

Selective attention is usually considered an egocentric mechanism, biasing sensory information based on its behavioural relevance to oneself. This study provides evidence for an equivalent allocentric mechanism that allows passive observers to selectively attend to information from the perspective of another person. In a negative priming task,…

CBT for childhood anxiety disorders: differential changes in selective attention between treatment responders and non-responders.

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Legerstee, Jeroen S; Tulen, Joke H M; Dierckx, Bram; Treffers, Philip D A; Verhulst, Frank C; Utens, Elisabeth M W J

2010-02-01

This study examined whether treatment response to stepped-care cognitive-behavioural treatment (CBT) is associated with changes in threat-related selective attention and its specific components in a large clinical sample of anxiety-disordered children. Ninety-one children with an anxiety disorder were included in the present study. Children received a standardized stepped-care CBT. Three treatment response groups were distinguished: initial responders (anxiety disorder free after phase one: child-focused CBT), secondary responders (anxiety disorder free after phase two: child-parent-focused CBT), and treatment non-responders. Treatment response was determined using a semi-structured clinical interview. Children performed a pictorial dot-probe task before and after stepped-care CBT (i.e., before phase one and after phase two CBT). Changes in selective attention to severely threatening pictures, but not to mildly threatening pictures, were significantly associated with treatment success. At pre-treatment assessment, initial responders selectively attended away from severely threatening pictures, whereas secondary responders selectively attended toward severely threatening pictures. After stepped-care CBT, initial and secondary responders did not show any selectivity in the attentional processing of severely threatening pictures. Treatment non-responders did not show any changes in selective attention due to CBT. Initial and secondary treatment responders showed a reduction of their predisposition to selectively attend away or toward severely threatening pictures, respectively. Treatment non-responders did not show any changes in selective attention. The pictorial dot-probe task can be considered a potentially valuable tool in assigning children to appropriate treatment formats as well as for monitoring changes in selective attention during the course of CBT.

Simulating the role of visual selective attention during the development of perceptual completion

OpenAIRE

Schlesinger, Matthew; Amso, Dima; Johnson, Scott P.

2012-01-01

We recently proposed a multi-channel, image-filtering model for simulating the development of visual selective attention in young infants (Schlesinger, Amso & Johnson, 2007). The model not only captures the performance of 3-month-olds on a visual search task, but also implicates two cortical regions that may play a role in the development of visual selective attention. In the current simulation study, we used the same model to simulate 3-month-olds’ performance on a second measure, the percep...

Alcohol-related biases in selective attention and action tendency make distinct contributions to dysregulated drinking behaviour.

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Sharbanee, Jason M; Stritzke, Werner G K; Wiers, Reinout W; MacLeod, Colin

2013-10-01

To assess whether alcohol-related biases in selective-attention and action tendency uniquely or concurrently predict the ability to regulate alcohol consumption. Two groups of undergraduate social drinkers (total n = 55) who differed in their ability to regulate their alcohol consumption completed a novel Selective-Attention/Action-Tendency Task (SA/ATT), which assessed separately alcohol-related biases in selective attention and action tendency. University of Western Australia, Australia. Dysregulated drinking was operationalized as a self-reported high level of alcohol consumption on the Alcohol Consumption Questionnaire, and a high desire to reduce consumption on the Brief Readiness to Change Algorithm. Selective attention and action tendency were assessed using the SA/ATT, working memory was assessed using the operation-span task and participant characteristics were assessed using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and Stages of Change Readiness and Treatment Eagerness Scale (SOCRATES). Results indicated that (i) there was no significant association between alcohol-related biases in selective attention and action tendency, r = 0.16, P = 0.274, and (ii) biases towards alcohol, in both selective attention, β = 1.01, odds ratio = 2.74, P = 0.022, and action tendency, β = 1.24, odds ratio = 3.45, P = 0.015, predicted independent variance in dysregulated-drinker status. Biases in selective attention and action tendency appear to be distinct mechanisms that contribute independently to difficulty regulating alcohol consumption. Treatment components that could be combined to target both mechanisms could enhance treatment outcomes for alcohol-use disorders. © 2013 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Four minutes of in-class high-intensity interval activity improves selective attention in 9- to 11-year olds.

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Ma, Jasmin K; Le Mare, Lucy; Gurd, Brendon J

2015-03-01

The amount of time allocated to physical activity in schools is declining. Time-efficient physical activity solutions that demonstrate their impact on academic achievement-related outcomes are needed to prioritize physical activity within the school curricula. "FUNtervals" are 4-min, high-intensity interval activities that use whole-body actions to complement a storyline. The purpose of this study was to (i) explore whether FUNtervals can improve selective attention, an executive function posited to be essential for learning and academic success; and (ii) examine whether this relationship is predicted by students' classroom off-task behaviour. Seven grade 3-5 classes (n = 88) were exposed to a single-group, repeated cross-over design where each student's selective attention was compared between no-activity and FUNtervals days. In week 1, students were familiarized with the d2 test of attention and FUNterval activities, and baseline off-task behaviour was observed. In both weeks 2 and 3 students completed the d2 test of attention following either a FUNterval break or a no-activity break. The order of these breaks was randomized and counterbalanced between weeks. Neither motor nor passive off-task behaviour predicted changes in selective attention following FUNtervals; however, a weak relationship was observed for verbal off-task behaviour and improvements in d2 test performance. More importantly, students made fewer errors during the d2 test following FUNtervals. In supporting the priority of physical activity inclusion within schools, FUNtervals, a time efficient and easily implemented physical activity break, can improve selective attention in 9- to 11-year olds.

Selective attention modulates human auditory brainstem responses: relative contributions of frequency and spatial cues.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexandre Lehmann

Full Text Available Selective attention is the mechanism that allows focusing one's attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, for instance, on a single conversation in a noisy room. Attending to one sound source rather than another changes activity in the human auditory cortex, but it is unclear whether attention to different acoustic features, such as voice pitch and speaker location, modulates subcortical activity. Studies using a dichotic listening paradigm indicated that auditory brainstem processing may be modulated by the direction of attention. We investigated whether endogenous selective attention to one of two speech signals affects amplitude and phase locking in auditory brainstem responses when the signals were either discriminable by frequency content alone, or by frequency content and spatial location. Frequency-following responses to the speech sounds were significantly modulated in both conditions. The modulation was specific to the task-relevant frequency band. The effect was stronger when both frequency and spatial information were available. Patterns of response were variable between participants, and were correlated with psychophysical discriminability of the stimuli, suggesting that the modulation was biologically relevant. Our results demonstrate that auditory brainstem responses are susceptible to efferent modulation related to behavioral goals. Furthermore they suggest that mechanisms of selective attention actively shape activity at early subcortical processing stages according to task relevance and based on frequency and spatial cues.

Genetic and developmental factors in spontaneous selective attention: a study of normal twins.

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Myles-Worsley, M; Coon, H

1997-08-08

The Spontaneous Selective Attention Task (SSAT) is a visual word identification task designed to measure the type of selective attention that occurs spontaneously when there are multiple stimuli, all potentially relevant, and insufficient time to process each of them fully. These are conditions which are common in everyday life. SSAT performance is measured by word identification accuracy, first under a baseline divided attention condition with no predictability, then under a selective attention condition with partial predictability introduced via word repetition. Accuracy to identify novel words in the upper location which becomes partially predictable (P words) vs. the lower location which remains non-predictable (N words) can be used to calculate a baseline performance index and a P/N ratio measure of selective attention. The SSAT has been shown to identify an attentional abnormality that may be useful in the development of an attentional endophenotype for family-genetic studies of schizophrenia. This study examined age and genetic effects on SSAT performance in normal children in order to evaluate whether the SSAT has the potential to qualify as a candidate endophenotype for schizophrenia in studies of at-risk children. A total of 59 monozygotic twin pairs and 33 same-sex dizygotic twin pairs ranging from 10 to 18 years of age were tested on the SSAT, a Continuous Performance Test. (CPT), a Span of Apprehension Test (SPAN) and a full-scale IQ test. Baseline performance on the SSAT, which was correlated with verbal IQ and SPAN performance, improved with age but showed no significant heritability. The P/N selectivity ratio was stable over the 10-18-year age range, was not significantly correlated with IQ, CPT, or SPAN performance, and its heritability was estimated to be 0.41. These findings suggest that the P/N selectivity ratio measured by the SSAT may be useful as a vulnerability marker in studies of children born into families segregating schizophrenia.

Selective attention without a neocortex.

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Krauzlis, Richard J; Bogadhi, Amarender R; Herman, James P; Bollimunta, Anil

2018-05-01

Selective attention refers to the ability to restrict neural processing and behavioral responses to a relevant subset of available stimuli, while simultaneously excluding other valid stimuli from consideration. In primates and other mammals, descriptions of this ability typically emphasize the neural processing that takes place in the cerebral neocortex. However, non-mammals such as birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, which completely lack a neocortex, also have the ability to selectively attend. In this article, we survey the behavioral evidence for selective attention in non-mammals, and review the midbrain and forebrain structures that are responsible. The ancestral forms of selective attention are presumably selective orienting behaviors, such as prey-catching and predator avoidance. These behaviors depend critically on a set of subcortical structures, including the optic tectum (OT), thalamus and striatum, that are highly conserved across vertebrate evolution. In contrast, the contributions of different pallial regions in the forebrain to selective attention have been subject to more substantial changes and reorganization. This evolutionary perspective makes plain that selective attention is not a function achieved de novo with the emergence of the neocortex, but instead is implemented by circuits accrued and modified over hundreds of millions of years, beginning well before the forebrain contained a neocortex. Determining how older subcortical circuits interact with the more recently evolved components in the neocortex will likely be crucial for understanding the complex properties of selective attention in primates and other mammals, and for identifying the etiology of attention disorders. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Chewing gum benefits sustained attention in the absence of task degradation.

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Johnson, Andrew J; Muneem, Mohammed; Miles, Christopher

2013-07-01

The present study examined the effect of chewing gum on sustained attention and associated changes in subjective alertness. In a within-participants design, 20 participants completed an extended version of the sustained attention response task (SART: Robertson et al., 1997), both with and without chewing gum. Self-rated measures of alertness, contentedness, and calmness were taken before and after the SART. Chewing gum was associated with improved attentional task performance. This finding was not contingent upon a general decrease in attentional performance and was apparent at all stages of the task. Subjective measures of alertness, contentedness, and calmness were higher following the chewing of gum. Changes in sustained attention co-varied with subjective alertness. The effects of chewing gum on attention and alertness are consistent with past literature and were not contingent on declines in attention. Additionally, we found evidence that gum-induced changes in self-rated alertness and attention are related. We found no support for the proposition that chewing gum can impair attention due to the division of resources.

Individual differences in selective attention predict speech identification at a cocktail party

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Oberfeld, Daniel; Klöckner-Nowotny, Felicitas

2016-01-01

Listeners with normal hearing show considerable individual differences in speech understanding when competing speakers are present, as in a crowded restaurant. Here, we show that one source of this variance are individual differences in the ability to focus selective attention on a target stimulus in the presence of distractors. In 50 young normal-hearing listeners, the performance in tasks measuring auditory and visual selective attention was associated with sentence identification in the presence of spatially separated competing speakers. Together, the measures of selective attention explained a similar proportion of variance as the binaural sensitivity for the acoustic temporal fine structure. Working memory span, age, and audiometric thresholds showed no significant association with speech understanding. These results suggest that a reduced ability to focus attention on a target is one reason why some listeners with normal hearing sensitivity have difficulty communicating in situations with background noise. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.16747.001 PMID:27580272

Emotion disrupts neural activity during selective attention in psychopathy.

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Sadeh, Naomi; Spielberg, Jeffrey M; Heller, Wendy; Herrington, John D; Engels, Anna S; Warren, Stacie L; Crocker, Laura D; Sutton, Bradley P; Miller, Gregory A

2013-03-01

Dimensions of psychopathy are theorized to be associated with distinct cognitive and emotional abnormalities that may represent unique neurobiological risk factors for the disorder. This hypothesis was investigated by examining whether the psychopathic personality dimensions of fearless-dominance and impulsive-antisociality moderated neural activity and behavioral responses associated with selective attention and emotional processing during an emotion-word Stroop task in 49 adults. As predicted, the dimensions evidenced divergent selective-attention deficits and sensitivity to emotional distraction. Fearless-dominance was associated with disrupted attentional control to positive words, and activation in right superior frontal gyrus mediated the relationship between fearless-dominance and errors to positive words. In contrast, impulsive-antisociality evidenced increased behavioral interference to both positive and negative words and correlated positively with recruitment of regions associated with motivational salience (amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, insula), emotion regulation (temporal cortex, superior frontal gyrus) and attentional control (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex). Individuals high on both dimensions had increased recruitment of regions related to attentional control (temporal cortex, rostral anterior cingulate cortex), response preparation (pre-/post-central gyri) and motivational value (orbitofrontal cortex) in response to negative words. These findings provide evidence that the psychopathy dimensions represent dual sets of risk factors characterized by divergent dysfunction in cognitive and affective processes.

Auditory measures of selective and divided attention in young and older adults using single-talker competition.

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Humes, Larry E; Lee, Jae Hee; Coughlin, Maureen P

2006-11-01

In this study, two experiments were conducted on auditory selective and divided attention in which the listening task involved the identification of words in sentences spoken by one talker while a second talker produced a very similar competing sentence. Ten young normal-hearing (YNH) and 13 elderly hearing-impaired (EHI) listeners participated in each experiment. The type of attention cue used was the main difference between experiments. Across both experiments, several consistent trends were observed. First, in eight of the nine divided-attention tasks across both experiments, the EHI subjects performed significantly worse than the YNH subjects. By comparison, significant differences in performance between age groups were only observed on three of the nine selective-attention tasks. Finally, there were consistent individual differences in performance across both experiments. Correlational analyses performed on the data from the 13 older adults suggested that the individual differences in performance were associated with individual differences in memory (digit span). Among the elderly, differences in age or differences in hearing loss did not contribute to the individual differences observed in either experiment.

ERP Correlates of Encoding Success and Encoding Selectivity in Attention Switching

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Yeung, Nick

2016-01-01

Long-term memory encoding depends critically on effective processing of incoming information. The degree to which participants engage in effective encoding can be indexed in electroencephalographic (EEG) data by studying event-related potential (ERP) subsequent memory effects. The current study investigated ERP correlates of memory success operationalised with two different measures—memory selectivity and global memory—to assess whether previously observed ERP subsequent memory effects reflect focused encoding of task-relevant information (memory selectivity), general encoding success (global memory), or both. Building on previous work, the present study combined an attention switching paradigm—in which participants were presented with compound object-word stimuli and switched between attending to the object or the word across trials—with a later recognition memory test for those stimuli, while recording their EEG. Our results provided clear evidence that subsequent memory effects resulted from selective attentional focusing and effective top-down control (memory selectivity) in contrast to more general encoding success effects (global memory). Further analyses addressed the question of whether successful encoding depended on similar control mechanisms to those involved in attention switching. Interestingly, differences in the ERP correlates of attention switching and successful encoding, particularly during the poststimulus period, indicated that variability in encoding success occurred independently of prestimulus demands for top-down cognitive control. These results suggest that while effects of selective attention and selective encoding co-occur behaviourally their ERP correlates are at least partly dissociable. PMID:27907075

Study of target and non-target interplay in spatial attention task.

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Sweeti; Joshi, Deepak; Panigrahi, B K; Anand, Sneh; Santhosh, Jayasree

2018-02-01

Selective visual attention is the ability to selectively pay attention to the targets while inhibiting the distractors. This paper aims to study the targets and non-targets interplay in spatial attention task while subject attends to the target object present in one visual hemifield and ignores the distractor present in another visual hemifield. This paper performs the averaged evoked response potential (ERP) analysis and time-frequency analysis. ERP analysis agrees to the left hemisphere superiority over late potentials for the targets present in right visual hemifield. Time-frequency analysis performed suggests two parameters i.e. event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) and inter-trial coherence (ITC). These parameters show the same properties for the target present in either of the visual hemifields but show the difference while comparing the activity corresponding to the targets and non-targets. In this way, this study helps to visualise the difference between targets present in the left and right visual hemifields and, also the targets and non-targets present in the left and right visual hemifields. These results could be utilised to monitor subjects' performance in brain-computer interface (BCI) and neurorehabilitation.

Selective attention supports working memory maintenance by modulating perceptual processing of distractors.

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Sreenivasan, Kartik K; Jha, Amishi P

2007-01-01

Selective attention has been shown to bias sensory processing in favor of relevant stimuli and against irrelevant or distracting stimuli in perceptual tasks. Increasing evidence suggests that selective attention plays an important role during working memory maintenance, possibly by biasing sensory processing in favor of to-be-remembered items. In the current study, we investigated whether selective attention may also support working memory by biasing processing against irrelevant and potentially distracting information. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while subjects (n = 22) performed a delayed-recognition task for faces and shoes. The delay period was filled with face or shoe distractors. Behavioral performance was impaired when distractors were congruent with the working memory domain (e.g., face distractor during working memory for faces) relative to when distractors were incongruent with the working memory domain (e.g., face distractor during shoe working memory). If attentional biasing against distractor processing is indeed functionally relevant in supporting working memory maintenance, perceptual processing of distractors is predicted to be attenuated when distractors are more behaviorally intrusive relative to when they are nonintrusive. As such, we predicted that perceptual processing of distracting faces, as measured by the face-sensitive N170 ERP component, would be reduced in the context of congruent (face) working memory relative to incongruent (shoe) working memory. The N170 elicited by distracting faces demonstrated reduced amplitude during congruent versus incongruent working memory. These results suggest that perceptual processing of distracting faces may be attenuated due to attentional biasing against sensory processing of distractors that are most behaviorally intrusive during working memory maintenance.

Continuous Performance Tasks: Not Just about Sustaining Attention

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Roebuck, Hettie; Freigang, Claudia; Barry, Johanna G.

2016-01-01

Purpose: Continuous performance tasks (CPTs) are used to measure individual differences in sustained attention. Many different stimuli have been used as response targets without consideration of their impact on task performance. Here, we compared CPT performance in typically developing adults and children to assess the role of stimulus processing…

The influence of caffeine on spatial-selective attention: an event-related potential study.

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Ruijter, J; de Ruiter, M B; Snel, J; Lorist, M M

2000-12-01

Following the indications of previous studies that caffeine might have a specific effect on the processing of spatial information compared with other types of information, the present study investigated the influence of caffeine on an often used spatial-selective attention task. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 11 participants under conditions of caffeine (250 mg) and placebo. Spatial-selective attention effects were reflected in the ERPs as more positive going occipital P1 and broadly distributed P2 components, and more negative going occipital-temporal N1 and broadly distributed N2 components. A treatment effect was found as a more positive going frontal P2 component in the caffeine condition, whereas interactions between treatment and attention were observed for P2 and N2 components, but not for P1 and N1 components. This pattern of results suggests that caffeine has no specific influence on spatial-selective attention, but rather, has a more general facilitating effect on perceptual processing, as well as a possible effect on the frontal control mechanisms, i.e. focusing attention and increasing selectivity.

Focusing on attention: the effects of working memory capacity and load on selective attention.

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Ahmed, Lubna; de Fockert, Jan W

2012-01-01

Working memory (WM) is imperative for effective selective attention. Distractibility is greater under conditions of high (vs. low) concurrent working memory load (WML), and in individuals with low (vs. high) working memory capacity (WMC). In the current experiments, we recorded the flanker task performance of individuals with high and low WMC during low and high WML, to investigate the combined effect of WML and WMC on selective attention. In Experiment 1, distractibility from a distractor at a fixed distance from the target was greater when either WML was high or WMC was low, but surprisingly smaller when both WML was high and WMC low. Thus we observed an inverted-U relationship between reductions in WM resources and distractibility. In Experiment 2, we mapped the distribution of spatial attention as a function of WMC and WML, by recording distractibility across several target-to-distractor distances. The pattern of distractor effects across the target-to-distractor distances demonstrated that the distribution of the attentional window becomes dispersed as WM resources are limited. The attentional window was more spread out under high compared to low WML, and for low compared to high WMC individuals, and even more so when the two factors co-occurred (i.e., under high WML in low WMC individuals). The inverted-U pattern of distractibility effects in Experiment 1, replicated in Experiment 2, can thus be explained by differences in the spread of the attentional window as a function of WM resource availability. The current findings show that limitations in WM resources, due to either WML or individual differences in WMC, affect the spatial distribution of attention. The difference in attentional constraining between high and low WMC individuals demonstrated in the current experiments helps characterise the nature of previously established associations between WMC and controlled attention.

Focusing on attention: the effects of working memory capacity and load on selective attention.

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Lubna Ahmed

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Working memory (WM is imperative for effective selective attention. Distractibility is greater under conditions of high (vs. low concurrent working memory load (WML, and in individuals with low (vs. high working memory capacity (WMC. In the current experiments, we recorded the flanker task performance of individuals with high and low WMC during low and high WML, to investigate the combined effect of WML and WMC on selective attention. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In Experiment 1, distractibility from a distractor at a fixed distance from the target was greater when either WML was high or WMC was low, but surprisingly smaller when both WML was high and WMC low. Thus we observed an inverted-U relationship between reductions in WM resources and distractibility. In Experiment 2, we mapped the distribution of spatial attention as a function of WMC and WML, by recording distractibility across several target-to-distractor distances. The pattern of distractor effects across the target-to-distractor distances demonstrated that the distribution of the attentional window becomes dispersed as WM resources are limited. The attentional window was more spread out under high compared to low WML, and for low compared to high WMC individuals, and even more so when the two factors co-occurred (i.e., under high WML in low WMC individuals. The inverted-U pattern of distractibility effects in Experiment 1, replicated in Experiment 2, can thus be explained by differences in the spread of the attentional window as a function of WM resource availability. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The current findings show that limitations in WM resources, due to either WML or individual differences in WMC, affect the spatial distribution of attention. The difference in attentional constraining between high and low WMC individuals demonstrated in the current experiments helps characterise the nature of previously established associations between WMC and controlled

You see what you have learned. Evidence for an interrelation of associative learning and visual selective attention.

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Feldmann-Wüstefeld, Tobias; Uengoer, Metin; Schubö, Anna

2015-11-01

Besides visual salience and observers' current intention, prior learning experience may influence deployment of visual attention. Associative learning models postulate that observers pay more attention to stimuli previously experienced as reliable predictors of specific outcomes. To investigate the impact of learning experience on deployment of attention, we combined an associative learning task with a visual search task and measured event-related potentials of the EEG as neural markers of attention deployment. In the learning task, participants categorized stimuli varying in color/shape with only one dimension being predictive of category membership. In the search task, participants searched a shape target while disregarding irrelevant color distractors. Behavioral results showed that color distractors impaired performance to a greater degree when color rather than shape was predictive in the learning task. Neurophysiological results show that the amplified distraction was due to differential attention deployment (N2pc). Experiment 2 showed that when color was predictive for learning, color distractors captured more attention in the search task (ND component) and more suppression of color distractor was required (PD component). The present results thus demonstrate that priority in visual attention is biased toward predictive stimuli, which allows learning experience to shape selection. We also show that learning experience can overrule strong top-down control (blocked tasks, Experiment 3) and that learning experience has a longer-term effect on attention deployment (tasks on two successive days, Experiment 4). © 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Spatial selective auditory attention in the presence of reverberant energy: individual differences in normal-hearing listeners.

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Ruggles, Dorea; Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara

2011-06-01

Listeners can selectively attend to a desired target by directing attention to known target source features, such as location or pitch. Reverberation, however, reduces the reliability of the cues that allow a target source to be segregated and selected from a sound mixture. Given this, it is likely that reverberant energy interferes with selective auditory attention. Anecdotal reports suggest that the ability to focus spatial auditory attention degrades even with early aging, yet there is little evidence that middle-aged listeners have behavioral deficits on tasks requiring selective auditory attention. The current study was designed to look for individual differences in selective attention ability and to see if any such differences correlate with age. Normal-hearing adults, ranging in age from 18 to 55 years, were asked to report a stream of digits located directly ahead in a simulated rectangular room. Simultaneous, competing masker digit streams were simulated at locations 15° left and right of center. The level of reverberation was varied to alter task difficulty by interfering with localization cues (increasing localization blur). Overall, performance was best in the anechoic condition and worst in the high-reverberation condition. Listeners nearly always reported a digit from one of the three competing streams, showing that reverberation did not render the digits unintelligible. Importantly, inter-subject differences were extremely large. These differences, however, were not significantly correlated with age, memory span, or hearing status. These results show that listeners with audiometrically normal pure tone thresholds differ in their ability to selectively attend to a desired source, a task important in everyday communication. Further work is necessary to determine if these differences arise from differences in peripheral auditory function or in more central function.

Threat Related Selective Attention Predicts Treatment Success in Childhood Anxiety Disorders

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Legerstee, Jeroen S.; Tulen, Joke H. M.; Kallen, Victor L.; Dieleman, Gwen C.; Treffers, Philip D. A.; Verhulst, Frank C.; Utens, Elisabeth M. W. J.

2009-01-01

Threat-related selective attention was found to predict the success of the treatment of childhood anxiety disorders through administering a pictorial dot-probe task to 131 children with anxiety disorders prior to cognitive behavioral therapy. The diagnostic status of the subjects was evaluated with a semistructured clinical interview at both pre-…

Aging effects on selective attention-related electroencephalographic patterns during face encoding.

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Deiber, M-P; Rodriguez, C; Jaques, D; Missonnier, P; Emch, J; Millet, P; Gold, G; Giannakopoulos, P; Ibañez, V

2010-11-24

Previous electrophysiological studies revealed that human faces elicit an early visual event-related potential (ERP) within the occipito-temporal cortex, the N170 component. Although face perception has been proposed to rely on automatic processing, the impact of selective attention on N170 remains controversial both in young and elderly individuals. Using early visual ERP and alpha power analysis, we assessed the influence of aging on selective attention to faces during delayed-recognition tasks for face and letter stimuli, examining 36 elderly and 20 young adults with preserved cognition. Face recognition performance worsened with age. Aging induced a latency delay of the N1 component for faces and letters, as well as of the face N170 component. Contrasting with letters, ignored faces elicited larger N1 and N170 components than attended faces in both age groups. This counterintuitive attention effect on face processing persisted when scenes replaced letters. In contrast with young, elderly subjects failed to suppress irrelevant letters when attending faces. Whereas attended stimuli induced a parietal alpha band desynchronization within 300-1000 ms post-stimulus with bilateral-to-right distribution for faces and left lateralization for letters, ignored and passively viewed stimuli elicited a central alpha synchronization larger on the right hemisphere. Aging delayed the latency of this alpha synchronization for both face and letter stimuli, and reduced its amplitude for ignored letters. These results suggest that due to their social relevance, human faces may cause paradoxical attention effects on early visual ERP components, but they still undergo classical top-down control as a function of endogenous selective attention. Aging does not affect the face bottom-up alerting mechanism but reduces the top-down suppression of distracting letters, possibly impinging upon face recognition, and more generally delays the top-down suppression of task-irrelevant information

Impaired Attentional Control in Pedophiles in a Sexual Distractor Task

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Jordan, Kirsten; Fromberger, Peter; von Herder, Jakob; Steinkrauss, Henrike; Nemetschek, Rebekka; Witzel, Joachim; Müller, Jürgen L.

2016-01-01

Pedophilic disorder, a subtype of paraphilia, is defined as a recurrent sexual interest in prepubescent children, which is characterized by persistent thoughts, fantasies, urges, sexual arousal, or behavior. Besides a deviant sexual preference, sexual preoccupation was found to be a dynamic risk factor for reoffending. Thus, it is conceivable that sex offenders and especially sex offenders against children have difficulties to control their responses to sexual stimuli. In the current study pedophiles, forensic and non-forensic control subjects had to solve a cognitive task, while sexual distractors were presented simultaneously. This kind of task also requires control functions. Therefore, data were analyzed with respect to attentional control while comparing eye movements toward sexual distractors and toward the cognitive task. We were mainly interested in how early (fixation latency) and late (relative fixation time) attentional processes were allocated to both, the cognitive target stimuli and the sexual distractors. Pedophiles demonstrated significantly lower attentional control in the sexual distractor task than both control groups (non-pedophiles). They showed a shorter fixation latency and longer fixation time for sexual distractors than non-pedophiles. Furthermore, pedophiles demonstrated a longer fixation latency and shorter fixation time for cognitive target stimuli. For classification analyses, an attentional control index (ACI) was built, i.e., the difference between eye movements on cognitive target stimuli and sexual distractors. For the ACI of early attentional processes, i.e., fixation latency, a good classification between pedophiles and non-pedophiles was found. We assumed that the measured attentional control represents inhibitory executive functions, specifically interference control. Further studies should examine if low attentional control in pedophiles is due to low motivation to solve the task or rather to a lack of ability to control

Sustained attention in adult ADHD : time-on-task effects of various measures of attention

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Tucha, Lara; Fuermaier, Anselm B.M.; Koerts, Janneke; Buggenthin, Rieka; Aschenbrenner, Steffen; Weisbrod, Matthias; Thome, Johannes; Lange, Klaus W.; Tucha, Oliver

Neuropsychological research on adults with ADHD showed deficits in various aspects of attention. However, the majority of studies failed to explore the change of performance over time, so-called time-on-task effects. As a consequence, little is known about sustained attention performance of adults

Working memory load can both improve and impair selective attention: evidence from the Navon paradigm.

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Ahmed, Lubna; de Fockert, Jan W

2012-10-01

Selective attention to relevant targets has been shown to depend on the availability of working memory (WM). Under conditions of high WM load, processing of irrelevant distractors is enhanced. Here we showed that this detrimental effect of WM load on selective attention efficiency is reversed when the task requires global- rather than local-level processing. Participants were asked to attend to either the local or the global level of a hierarchical Navon stimulus while keeping either a low or a high load in WM. In line with previous findings, during attention to the local level, distractors at the global level produced more interference under high than under low WM load. By contrast, loading WM had the opposite effect of improving selective attention during attention to the global level. The findings demonstrate that the impact of WM load on selective attention is not invariant, but rather is dependent on the level of the to-be-attended information.

Selective Attention, Working Memory, and Executive Function as Potential Independent Sources of Cognitive Dysfunction in Schizophrenia.

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Gold, James M; Robinson, Benjamin; Leonard, Carly J; Hahn, Britta; Chen, Shuo; McMahon, Robert P; Luck, Steven J

2017-11-11

People with schizophrenia demonstrate impairments in selective attention, working memory, and executive function. Given the overlap in these constructs, it is unclear if these represent distinct impairments or different manifestations of one higher-order impairment. To examine this question, we administered tasks from the basic cognitive neuroscience literature to measure visual selective attention, working memory capacity, and executive function in 126 people with schizophrenia and 122 healthy volunteers. Patients demonstrated deficits on all tasks with the exception of selective attention guided by strong bottom-up inputs. Although the measures of top-down control of selective attention, working memory, and executive function were all intercorrelated, several sources of evidence indicate that working memory and executive function are separate sources of variance. Specifically, both working memory and executive function independently contributed to the discrimination of group status and independently accounted for variance in overall general cognitive ability as assessed by the MATRICS battery. These two cognitive functions appear to be separable features of the cognitive impairments observed in schizophrenia. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Temporal dynamics of attentional selection in adult male carriers of the fragile X premutation allele and adult controls

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Ling Mei Wong

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Carriers of the fragile X premutation allele (fXPCs have an expanded CGG trinucleotide repeat size within the emph{FMR1} gene and are at increased risk of developing Fragile X-associated Tremor Ataxia Syndrome (FXTAS. Previous research has shown that male fXPCs with FXTAS exhibit cognitive decline, predominantly in executive functions such as inhibitory control and working memory. Recent evidence suggests fXPCs may also exhibit impairments in processing temporal information. The attentional blink (AB task is often used to examine the dynamics of attentional selection, but disagreements exist as to whether the AB is due to excessive or insufficient attentional control. In this study, we used a variant of the AB task and neuropsychological testing to explore the dynamics of attentional selection, relate AB performance to attentional control, and determine whether fXPCs exhibited temporal and/or attentional control impairments. Participants were adult male fXPCs, aged 18--48 years and asymptomatic for FXTAS (emph{n} = 19 and age-matched male controls (emph{n} = 20. We found that fXPCs did not differ from controls in the AB task, indicating that the temporal dynamics of attentional selection were intact. However, they were impaired in the letter-number sequencing task, a test of attentional control. In the combined fXPC and control group, letter-number sequencing performance correlated positively with AB magnitude. This finding supports models that posit the AB is due to excess attentional control. In our two-pronged analysis approach, we contribute to the theoretical literature in controls by extending the AB literature, and we enhance our understanding of fXPCs by demonstrating that at least some aspects of temporal processing may be spared.

Is Visual Selective Attention in Deaf Individuals Enhanced or Deficient? The Case of the Useful Field of View

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Dye, Matthew W. G.; Hauser, Peter C.; Bavelier, Daphne

2009-01-01

Background Early deafness leads to enhanced attention in the visual periphery. Yet, whether this enhancement confers advantages in everyday life remains unknown, as deaf individuals have been shown to be more distracted by irrelevant information in the periphery than their hearing peers. Here, we show that, in a complex attentional task, a performance advantage results for deaf individuals. Methodology/Principal Findings We employed the Useful Field of View (UFOV) which requires central target identification concurrent with peripheral target localization in the presence of distractors – a divided, selective attention task. First, the comparison of deaf and hearing adults with or without sign language skills establishes that deafness and not sign language use drives UFOV enhancement. Second, UFOV performance was enhanced in deaf children, but only after 11 years of age. Conclusions/Significance This work demonstrates that, following early auditory deprivation, visual attention resources toward the periphery slowly get augmented to eventually result in a clear behavioral advantage by pre-adolescence on a selective visual attention task. PMID:19462009

Selective Attention to Emotional Stimuli: What IQ and Openness Do, and Emotional Intelligence Does Not

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Fiori, Marina; Antonakis, John

2012-01-01

We examined how general intelligence, personality, and emotional intelligence--measured as an ability using the MSCEIT--predicted performance on a selective-attention task requiring participants to ignore distracting emotion information. We used a visual prime in which participants saw a pair of faces depicting emotions; their task was to focus on…

Different cortical mechanisms for spatial vs. feature-based attentional selection in visual working memory

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Anna Heuer

2016-08-01

Full Text Available The limited capacity of visual working memory necessitates attentional mechanisms that selectively update and maintain only the most task-relevant content. Psychophysical experiments have shown that the retroactive selection of memory content can be based on visual properties such as location or shape, but the neural basis for such differential selection is unknown. For example, it is not known if there are different cortical modules specialized for spatial versus feature-based mnemonic attention, in the same way that has been demonstrated for attention to perceptual input. Here, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS to identify areas in human parietal and occipital cortex involved in the selection of objects from memory based on cues to their location (spatial information or their shape (featural information. We found that TMS over the supramarginal gyrus (SMG selectively facilitated spatial selection, whereas TMS over the lateral occipital cortex selectively enhanced feature-based selection for remembered objects in the contralateral visual field. Thus, different cortical regions are responsible for spatial vs. feature-based selection of working memory representations. Since the same regions are involved in attention to external events, these new findings indicate overlapping mechanisms for attentional control over perceptual input and mnemonic representations.

Game-based training of flexibility and attention improves task-switch performance: near and far transfer of cognitive training in an EEG study.

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Olfers, Kerwin J F; Band, Guido P H

2018-01-01

There is a demand for ways to enhance cognitive flexibility, as it can be a limiting factor for performance in daily life. Video game training has been linked to advantages in cognitive functioning, raising the question if training with video games can promote cognitive flexibility. In the current study, we investigated if game-based computerized cognitive training (GCCT) could enhance cognitive flexibility in a healthy young adult sample (N = 72), as measured by task-switch performance. Three GCCT schedules were contrasted, which targeted: (1) cognitive flexibility and task switching, (2) attention and working memory, or (3) an active control involving basic math games, in twenty 45-min sessions across 4-6 weeks. Performance on an alternating-runs task-switch paradigm during pretest and posttest sessions indicated greater overall reaction time improvements after both flexibility and attention training as compared to control, although not related to local switch cost. Flexibility training enhanced performance in the presence of distractor-related interference. In contrast, attention training was beneficial when low task difficulty undermined sustained selective attention. Furthermore, flexibility training improved response selection as indicated by a larger N2 amplitude after training as compared to control, and more efficient conflict monitoring as indicated by reduced Nc/CRN and larger Pe amplitude after training. These results provide tentative support for the efficacy of GCCT and suggest that an ideal training might include both task switching and attention components, with maximal task diversity both within and between training games.

The role of metacognition in prospective memory: anticipated task demands influence attention allocation strategies.

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Rummel, Jan; Meiser, Thorsten

2013-09-01

The present study investigates how individuals distribute their attentional resources between a prospective memory task and an ongoing task. Therefore, metacognitive expectations about the attentional demands of the prospective-memory task were manipulated while the factual demands were held constant. In Experiments 1a and 1b, we found attentional costs from a prospective-memory task with low factual demands to be significantly reduced when information about the low to-be-expected demands were provided, while prospective-memory performance remained largely unaffected. In Experiment 2, attentional monitoring in a more demanding prospective-memory task also varied with information about the to-be-expected demands (high vs. low) and again there were no equivalent changes in prospective-memory performance. These findings suggest that attention-allocation strategies of prospective memory rely on metacognitive expectations about prospective-memory task demands. Furthermore, the results suggest that attentional monitoring is only functional for prospective memory to the extent to which anticipated task demands reflect objective task demands. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Selective attention to sound location or pitch studied with fMRI.

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Degerman, Alexander; Rinne, Teemu; Salmi, Juha; Salonen, Oili; Alho, Kimmo

2006-03-10

We used 3-T functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the brain mechanisms underlying selective attention to sound location and pitch. In different tasks, the subjects (N = 10) attended to a designated sound location or pitch or to pictures presented on the screen. In the Attend Location conditions, the sound location varied randomly (left or right), while the pitch was kept constant (high or low). In the Attend Pitch conditions, sounds of randomly varying pitch (high or low) were presented at a constant location (left or right). Both attention to location and attention to pitch produced enhanced activity (in comparison with activation caused by the same sounds when attention was focused on the pictures) in widespread areas of the superior temporal cortex. Attention to either sound feature also activated prefrontal and inferior parietal cortical regions. These activations were stronger during attention to location than during attention to pitch. Attention to location but not to pitch produced a significant increase of activation in the premotor/supplementary motor cortices of both hemispheres and in the right prefrontal cortex, while no area showed activity specifically related to attention to pitch. The present results suggest some differences in the attentional selection of sounds on the basis of their location and pitch consistent with the suggested auditory "what" and "where" processing streams.

Selective attention to emotional cues and emotion recognition in healthy subjects: the role of mineralocorticoid receptor stimulation.

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Schultebraucks, Katharina; Deuter, Christian E; Duesenberg, Moritz; Schulze, Lars; Hellmann-Regen, Julian; Domke, Antonia; Lockenvitz, Lisa; Kuehl, Linn K; Otte, Christian; Wingenfeld, Katja

2016-09-01

Selective attention toward emotional cues and emotion recognition of facial expressions are important aspects of social cognition. Stress modulates social cognition through cortisol, which acts on glucocorticoid (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) in the brain. We examined the role of MR activation on attentional bias toward emotional cues and on emotion recognition. We included 40 healthy young women and 40 healthy young men (mean age 23.9 ± 3.3), who either received 0.4 mg of the MR agonist fludrocortisone or placebo. A dot-probe paradigm was used to test for attentional biases toward emotional cues (happy and sad faces). Moreover, we used a facial emotion recognition task to investigate the ability to recognize emotional valence (anger and sadness) from facial expression in four graded categories of emotional intensity (20, 30, 40, and 80 %). In the emotional dot-probe task, we found a main effect of treatment and a treatment × valence interaction. Post hoc analyses revealed an attentional bias away from sad faces after placebo intake and a shift in selective attention toward sad faces compared to placebo. We found no attentional bias toward happy faces after fludrocortisone or placebo intake. In the facial emotion recognition task, there was no main effect of treatment. MR stimulation seems to be important in modulating quick, automatic emotional processing, i.e., a shift in selective attention toward negative emotional cues. Our results confirm and extend previous findings of MR function. However, we did not find an effect of MR stimulation on emotion recognition.

Functional Imaging of Audio–Visual Selective Attention in Monkeys and Humans: How do Lapses in Monkey Performance Affect Cross-Species Correspondences?

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Muers, Ross S.; Salo, Emma; Slater, Heather; Petkov, Christopher I.

2017-01-01

Abstract The cross-species correspondences and differences in how attention modulates brain responses in humans and animal models are poorly understood. We trained 2 monkeys to perform an audio–visual selective attention task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), rewarding them to attend to stimuli in one modality while ignoring those in the other. Monkey fMRI identified regions strongly modulated by auditory or visual attention. Surprisingly, auditory attention-related modulations were much more restricted in monkeys than humans performing the same tasks during fMRI. Further analyses ruled out trivial explanations, suggesting that labile selective-attention performance was associated with inhomogeneous modulations in wide cortical regions in the monkeys. The findings provide initial insights into how audio–visual selective attention modulates the primate brain, identify sources for “lost” attention effects in monkeys, and carry implications for modeling the neurobiology of human cognition with nonhuman animals. PMID:28419201

Effects of chewing gum and time-on-task on alertness and attention.

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Allen, A P; Smith, A P

2012-07-01

Chewing gum has been shown to reliably increase subjective alertness whereas the effects on attention are more variable. It has been suggested that chewing gum only enhances attention when the person has been performing a task for some time. The current research aimed to investigate if time-on-task trends enhancing effects of chewing gum could be observed in alertness and attention during and following chewing. Study 1 used tests of reported mood, including reported mood, and tests of attention (categoric search, focussed attention, simple reaction time, and vigilance). These tasks were performed shortly after the start of chewing. Study 2 examined effects of previous and current chewing on reported alertness and the attention tests. Study 1 showed that chewing gum increased reported alertness and hedonic tone and improved performance on the categoric search task. Chewing gum maintained reported alertness across sessions in study 2. In the first experimental session of study 2 gum improved categoric search performance, and during the second session gum broadened focus of attention and quickened vigilance reaction time. This effect on vigilance reaction time was moderated by time-on-task, with an initial negative effect being replaced by a positive effect. The results confirm the robust effect of chewing gum on reported alertness and show that changes in the effects of chewing gum on attention require further investigation. Future research may also determine underlying mechanisms for an alerting effect.

The development of children's knowledge of attention and resource allocation in single and dual tasks.

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Dossett, D; Burns, B

2000-06-01

Developmental changes in kindergarten, 1st-, and 4th-grade children's knowledge about the variables that affect attention sharing and resource allocation were examined. Findings from the 2 experiments showed that kindergartners understood that person and strategy variables affect performance in attention-sharing tasks. However, knowledge of how task variables affect performance was not evident to them and was inconsistent for 1st and 4th graders. Children's knowledge about resource allocation revealed a different pattern and varied according to the dissimilarity of task demands in the attention-sharing task. In Experiment 1, in which the dual attention tasks were similar (i.e., visual detection), kindergarten and 1st-grade children did not differentiate performance in single and dual tasks. Fourth graders demonstrated knowledge that performance on a single task would be better than performance on the dual tasks for only 2 of the variables examined. In Experiment 2, in which the dual attention tasks were dissimilar (i.e., visual and auditory detection), kindergarten and 1st-grade children demonstrated knowledge that performance in the single task would be better than in the dual tasks for 1 of the task variables examined. However, 4th-grade children consistently gave higher ratings for performance on the single than on the dual attention tasks for all variables examined. These findings (a) underscore that children's meta-attention is not unitary and (b) demonstrate that children's knowledge about variables affecting attention sharing and resource allocation have different developmental pathways. Results show that knowledge about attention sharing and about the factors that influence the control of attention develops slowly and undergoes reorganization in middle childhood.

Modality-specificity of Selective Attention Networks

OpenAIRE

Stewart, Hannah J.; Amitay, Sygal

2015-01-01

Objective: To establish the modality specificity and generality of selective attention networks. Method: Forty-eight young adults completed a battery of four auditory and visual selective attention tests based upon the Attention Network framework: the visual and auditory Attention Network Tests (vANT, aANT), the Test of Everyday Attention (TEA), and the Test of Attention in Listening (TAiL). These provided independent measures for auditory and visual alerting, orienting, and conflict resoluti...

Can task-switching training enhance executive control functioning in children with attention deficit/-hyperactivity disorder?

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Kray, Jutta; Karbach, Julia; Haenig, Susann; Freitag, Christine

2011-01-01

The key cognitive impairments of children with attention deficit/-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) include executive control functions such as inhibitory control, task-switching, and working memory (WM). In this training study we examined whether task-switching training leads to improvements in these functions. Twenty children with combined type ADHD and stable methylphenidate medication performed a single-task and a task-switching training in a crossover training design. The children were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group started with the single-task training and then performed the task-switching training and the other group vice versa. The effectiveness of the task-switching training was measured as performance improvements (relative to the single-task training) on a structurally similar but new switching task and on other executive control tasks measuring inhibitory control and verbal WM as well as on fluid intelligence (reasoning). The children in both groups showed improvements in task-switching, that is, a reduction of switching costs, but not in performing the single-tasks across four training sessions. Moreover, the task-switching training lead to selective enhancements in task-switching performance, that is, the reduction of task-switching costs was found to be larger after task-switching than after single-task training. Similar selective improvements were observed for inhibitory control and verbal WM, but not for reasoning. Results of this study suggest that task-switching training is an effective cognitive intervention that helps to enhance executive control functioning in children with ADHD.

Mental Fatigue Affects Visual Selective Attention

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Faber, Leon G.; Maurits, Natasha M.; Lorist, Monicque M.

2012-01-01

Mental fatigue is a form of fatigue, induced by continuous task performance. Mentally fatigued people often report having a hard time keeping their attention focussed and being easily distracted. In this study, we examined the relation between mental fatigue, as induced by time on task, and

The effect of divided attention on novices and experts in laparoscopic task performance.

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Ghazanfar, Mudassar Ali; Cook, Malcolm; Tang, Benjie; Tait, Iain; Alijani, Afshin

2015-03-01

Attention is important for the skilful execution of surgery. The surgeon's attention during surgery is divided between surgery and outside distractions. The effect of this divided attention has not been well studied previously. We aimed to compare the effect of dividing attention of novices and experts on a laparoscopic task performance. Following ethical approval, 25 novices and 9 expert surgeons performed a standardised peg transfer task in a laboratory setup under three randomly assigned conditions: silent as control condition and two standardised auditory distracting tasks requiring response (easy and difficult) as study conditions. Human reliability assessment was used for surgical task analysis. Primary outcome measures were correct auditory responses, task time, number of surgical errors and instrument movements. Secondary outcome measures included error rate, error probability and hand specific differences. Non-parametric statistics were used for data analysis. 21109 movements and 9036 total errors were analysed. Novices had increased mean task completion time (seconds) (171 ± 44SD vs. 149 ± 34, p 0.05). Divided attention conditions in theatre environment require careful consideration during surgical training as the junior surgeons are less able to focus their attention during these conditions.

Classification of EEG signals to identify variations in attention during motor task execution.

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Aliakbaryhosseinabadi, Susan; Kamavuako, Ernest Nlandu; Jiang, Ning; Farina, Dario; Mrachacz-Kersting, Natalie

2017-06-01

Brain-computer interface (BCI) systems in neuro-rehabilitation use brain signals to control external devices. User status such as attention affects BCI performance; thus detecting the user's attention drift due to internal or external factors is essential for high detection accuracy. An auditory oddball task was applied to divert the users' attention during a simple ankle dorsiflexion movement. Electroencephalogram signals were recorded from eighteen channels. Temporal and time-frequency features were projected to a lower dimension space and used to analyze the effect of two attention levels on motor tasks in each participant. Then, a global feature distribution was constructed with the projected time-frequency features of all participants from all channels and applied for attention classification during motor movement execution. Time-frequency features led to significantly better classification results with respect to the temporal features, particularly for electrodes located over the motor cortex. Motor cortex channels had a higher accuracy in comparison to other channels in the global discrimination of attention level. Previous methods have used the attention to a task to drive external devices, such as the P300 speller. However, here we focus for the first time on the effect of attention drift while performing a motor task. It is possible to explore user's attention variation when performing motor tasks in synchronous BCI systems with time-frequency features. This is the first step towards an adaptive real-time BCI with an integrated function to reveal attention shifts from the motor task. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Visual selective attention with virtual barriers.

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Schneider, Darryl W

2017-07-01

Previous studies have shown that interference effects in the flanker task are reduced when physical barriers (e.g., hands) are placed around rather than below a target flanked by distractors. One explanation of this finding is the referential coding hypothesis, whereby the barriers serve as reference objects for allocating attention. In five experiments, the generality of the referential coding hypothesis was tested by investigating whether interference effects are modulated by the placement of virtual barriers (e.g., parentheses). Modulation of flanker interference was found only when target and distractors differed in size and the virtual barriers were beveled wood-grain objects. Under these conditions and those of previous studies, the author conjectures that an impression of depth was produced when the barriers were around the target, such that the target was perceived to be on a different depth plane than the distractors. Perception of depth in the stimulus display might have led to referential coding of the stimuli in three-dimensional (3-D) space, influencing the allocation of attention beyond the horizontal and vertical dimensions. This 3-D referential coding hypothesis is consistent with research on selective attention in 3-D space that shows flanker interference is reduced when target and distractors are separated in depth.

Functional localization and effective connectivity of cortical theta and alpha oscillatory activity during an attention task

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yuichi Kitaura

Full Text Available Objectives: The aim of this paper is to investigate cortical electric neuronal activity as an indicator of brain function, in a mental arithmetic task that requires sustained attention, as compared to the resting state condition. The two questions of interest are the cortical localization of different oscillatory activities, and the directional effective flow of oscillatory activity between regions of interest, in the task condition compared to resting state. In particular, theta and alpha activity are of interest here, due to their important role in attention processing. Methods: We adapted mental arithmetic as an attention ask in this study. Eyes closed 61-channel EEG was recorded in 14 participants during resting and in a mental arithmetic task (“serial sevens subtraction”. Functional localization and connectivity analyses were based on cortical signals of electric neuronal activity estimated with sLORETA (standardized low resolution electromagnetic tomography. Functional localization was based on the comparison of the cortical distributions of the generators of oscillatory activity between task and resting conditions. Assessment of effective connectivity was based on the iCoh (isolated effective coherence method, which provides an appropriate frequency decomposition of the directional flow of oscillatory activity between brain regions. Nine regions of interest comprising nodes from the dorsal and ventral attention networks were selected for the connectivity analysis. Results: Cortical spectral density distribution comparing task minus rest showed significant activity increase in medial prefrontal areas and decreased activity in left parietal lobe for the theta band, and decreased activity in parietal-occipital regions for the alpha1 band. At a global level, connections among right hemispheric nodes were predominantly decreased during the task condition, while connections among left hemispheric nodes were predominantly increased. At more

The influence of caffeine on spatial-selective attention : an event-related potential study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Ruiter, MB; Snel, J; Lorist, MM; Ruijter, J

2000-01-01

Objectives: Following the indications of previous studies that caffeine might have a specific effect on the processing of spatial information compared with other types of information, the present study investigated the influence of caffeine on an often used spatial-selective attention task. Methods:

Different underlying mechanisms for face emotion and gender processing during feature-selective attention: Evidence from event-related potential studies.

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Wang, Hailing; Ip, Chengteng; Fu, Shimin; Sun, Pei

2017-05-01

Face recognition theories suggest that our brains process invariant (e.g., gender) and changeable (e.g., emotion) facial dimensions separately. To investigate whether these two dimensions are processed in different time courses, we analyzed the selection negativity (SN, an event-related potential component reflecting attentional modulation) elicited by face gender and emotion during a feature selective attention task. Participants were instructed to attend to a combination of face emotion and gender attributes in Experiment 1 (bi-dimensional task) and to either face emotion or gender in Experiment 2 (uni-dimensional task). The results revealed that face emotion did not elicit a substantial SN, whereas face gender consistently generated a substantial SN in both experiments. These results suggest that face gender is more sensitive to feature-selective attention and that face emotion is encoded relatively automatically on SN, implying the existence of different underlying processing mechanisms for invariant and changeable facial dimensions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A three-component, hierarchical model of executive attention

OpenAIRE

Whittle, Sarah; Pantelis, Christos; Testa, Renee; Tiego, Jeggan; Bellgrove, Mark

2017-01-01

Executive attention refers to the goal-directed control of attention. Existing models of executive attention distinguish between three correlated, but empirically dissociable, factors related to selectively attending to task-relevant stimuli (Selective Attention), inhibiting task-irrelevant responses (Response Inhibition), and actively maintaining goal-relevant information (Working Memory Capacity). In these models, Selective Attention and Response Inhibition are moderately strongly correlate...

Selective attention and recognition: effects of congruency on episodic learning.

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Rosner, Tamara M; D'Angelo, Maria C; MacLellan, Ellen; Milliken, Bruce

2015-05-01

Recent research on cognitive control has focused on the learning consequences of high selective attention demands in selective attention tasks (e.g., Botvinick, Cognit Affect Behav Neurosci 7(4):356-366, 2007; Verguts and Notebaert, Psychol Rev 115(2):518-525, 2008). The current study extends these ideas by examining the influence of selective attention demands on remembering. In Experiment 1, participants read aloud the red word in a pair of red and green spatially interleaved words. Half of the items were congruent (the interleaved words had the same identity), and the other half were incongruent (the interleaved words had different identities). Following the naming phase, participants completed a surprise recognition memory test. In this test phase, recognition memory was better for incongruent than for congruent items. In Experiment 2, context was only partially reinstated at test, and again recognition memory was better for incongruent than for congruent items. In Experiment 3, all of the items contained two different words, but in one condition the words were presented close together and interleaved, while in the other condition the two words were spatially separated. Recognition memory was better for the interleaved than for the separated items. This result rules out an interpretation of the congruency effects on recognition in Experiments 1 and 2 that hinges on stronger relational encoding for items that have two different words. Together, the results support the view that selective attention demands for incongruent items lead to encoding that improves recognition.

Rumination impairs the control of stimulus-induced retrieval of irrelevant information, but not attention, control, or response selection in general.

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Colzato, Lorenza S; Steenbergen, Laura; Hommel, Bernhard

2018-01-23

The aim of the study was to throw more light on the relationship between rumination and cognitive-control processes. Seventy-eight adults were assessed with respect to rumination tendencies by means of the LEIDS-r before performing a Stroop task, an event-file task assessing the automatic retrieval of irrelevant information, an attentional set-shifting task, and the Attentional Network Task, which provided scores for alerting, orienting, and executive control functioning. The size of the Stroop effect and irrelevant retrieval in the event-five task were positively correlated with the tendency to ruminate, while all other scores did not correlate with any rumination scale. Controlling for depressive tendencies eliminated the Stroop-related finding (an observation that may account for previous failures to replicate), but not the event-file finding. Taken altogether, our results suggest that rumination does not affect attention, executive control, or response selection in general, but rather selectively impairs the control of stimulus-induced retrieval of irrelevant information.

The role of attention during retrieval in working-memory span: a dual-task study.

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Healey, M Karl; Miyake, Akira

2009-04-01

We tested the hypothesis that retrieving target words in operation span (OSpan) involves attention-demanding processes. Participants completed the standard OSpan task and a modified version in which all equations preceded all target words. Recall took place under either full attention or easy versus hard divided-attention conditions. Recall suffered under divided attention with the recall decrement being greater for the hard secondary task. Moreover, secondary-task performance was disrupted more by the standard OSpan task than by the modified version with the hard secondary task showing the larger decrement. Finally, the time taken to start recalling the first word was considerably longer for the standard version than for the modified version. These results are consistent with the proposal that successful OSpan task performance in part involves the attention-demanding retrieval of targets from long-term memory.

Early auditory evoked potential is modulated by selective attention and related to individual differences in visual working memory capacity.

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Giuliano, Ryan J; Karns, Christina M; Neville, Helen J; Hillyard, Steven A

2014-12-01

A growing body of research suggests that the predictive power of working memory (WM) capacity for measures of intellectual aptitude is due to the ability to control attention and select relevant information. Crucially, attentional mechanisms implicated in controlling access to WM are assumed to be domain-general, yet reports of enhanced attentional abilities in individuals with larger WM capacities are primarily within the visual domain. Here, we directly test the link between WM capacity and early attentional gating across sensory domains, hypothesizing that measures of visual WM capacity should predict an individual's capacity to allocate auditory selective attention. To address this question, auditory ERPs were recorded in a linguistic dichotic listening task, and individual differences in ERP modulations by attention were correlated with estimates of WM capacity obtained in a separate visual change detection task. Auditory selective attention enhanced ERP amplitudes at an early latency (ca. 70-90 msec), with larger P1 components elicited by linguistic probes embedded in an attended narrative. Moreover, this effect was associated with greater individual estimates of visual WM capacity. These findings support the view that domain-general attentional control mechanisms underlie the wide variation of WM capacity across individuals.

Developmental changes in children's abilities to share and allocate attention in a dual task.

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Irwin-Chase, H; Burns, B

2000-09-01

Characterizing developmental changes in children's dual-task performance has been problematic because differences in divided attention abilities are easily confounded with differences in overall capacity. Two experiments showed that after individual differences in children's capacity for single-task performance were controlled for, age differences between second- (M = 8.1 years) and fifth-grade (M = 11.1 years) children did not exist in dual-task performance when tasks were of equal priority. However, when tasks had different priorities, only fifth-grade children could differentially allocate attention in the dual task. Results are discussed within the coordination hypothesis framework (see A. F. Kramer & J. L. Larish, 1996), which suggests that changes in dual-task performance with aging are due to changes in the ability to coordinate and control the allocation of attention. It is argued that linking the investigations of children's attention with research on attention and aging provides both methodological and theoretical benefits. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

Functional Imaging of Audio-Visual Selective Attention in Monkeys and Humans: How do Lapses in Monkey Performance Affect Cross-Species Correspondences?

Science.gov (United States)

Rinne, Teemu; Muers, Ross S; Salo, Emma; Slater, Heather; Petkov, Christopher I

2017-06-01

The cross-species correspondences and differences in how attention modulates brain responses in humans and animal models are poorly understood. We trained 2 monkeys to perform an audio-visual selective attention task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), rewarding them to attend to stimuli in one modality while ignoring those in the other. Monkey fMRI identified regions strongly modulated by auditory or visual attention. Surprisingly, auditory attention-related modulations were much more restricted in monkeys than humans performing the same tasks during fMRI. Further analyses ruled out trivial explanations, suggesting that labile selective-attention performance was associated with inhomogeneous modulations in wide cortical regions in the monkeys. The findings provide initial insights into how audio-visual selective attention modulates the primate brain, identify sources for "lost" attention effects in monkeys, and carry implications for modeling the neurobiology of human cognition with nonhuman animals. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

Weak surround suppression of the attentional focus characterizes visual selection in the ventral stream in autism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luca Ronconi

Full Text Available Neurophysiological findings in the typical population demonstrate that spatial scrutiny for visual selection determines a center-surround profile of the attentional focus, which is the result of recurrent processing in the visual system. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD manifest several anomalies in their visual selection, with strengths in detail-oriented tasks, but also difficulties in distractor inhibition tasks. Here, we asked whether contradictory aspects of perception in ASD might be due to a different center-surround profile of their attentional focus. In two experiments, we tested two independent samples of children with ASD, comparing them with typically developing (TD peers. In Experiment 1, we used a psychophysical task that mapped the entire spatial profile of the attentional focus. In Experiment 2, we used dense-array electroencephalography (EEG to explore its neurophysiological underpinnings. Experiment 1 results showed that the suppression, surrounding the attentional focus, was markedly reduced in children with ASD. Experiment 2 showed that the center-surround profile in TD children resulted in a modulation of the posterior N2 ERP component, with cortical sources in the lateral-occipital and medial/inferior temporal areas. In contrast, children with ASD did not show modulation of the N2 and related activations in the ventral visual stream. Furthermore, behavioural and neurophysiological measures of weaker suppression predicted more severe autistic symptomatology. The present findings, showing an altered center-surround profile during attentional selection, give an important insight to understand superior visual processing in autism as well as the experiencing of sensory overload. Keywords: EEG, Source analysis, Ventral visual stream, Perception, Rehabilitation

Active listening impairs visual perception and selectivity: an ERP study of auditory dual-task costs on visual attention.

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Gherri, Elena; Eimer, Martin

2011-04-01

The ability to drive safely is disrupted by cell phone conversations, and this has been attributed to a diversion of attention from the visual environment. We employed behavioral and ERP measures to study whether the attentive processing of spoken messages is, in itself, sufficient to produce visual-attentional deficits. Participants searched for visual targets defined by a unique feature (Experiment 1) or feature conjunction (Experiment 2), and simultaneously listened to narrated text passages that had to be recalled later (encoding condition), or heard backward-played speech sounds that could be ignored (control condition). Responses to targets were slower in the encoding condition, and ERPs revealed that the visual processing of search arrays and the attentional selection of target stimuli were less efficient in the encoding relative to the control condition. Results demonstrate that the attentional processing of visual information is impaired when concurrent spoken messages are encoded and maintained, in line with cross-modal links in selective attention, but inconsistent with the view that attentional resources are modality-specific. The distraction of visual attention by active listening could contribute to the adverse effects of cell phone use on driving performance.

Frontal and parietal cortical interactions with distributed visual representations during selective attention and action selection.

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Nelissen, Natalie; Stokes, Mark; Nobre, Anna C; Rushworth, Matthew F S

2013-10-16

Using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA), we studied how distributed visual representations in human occipitotemporal cortex are modulated by attention and link their modulation to concurrent activity in frontal and parietal cortex. We detected similar occipitotemporal patterns during a simple visuoperceptual task and an attention-to-working-memory task in which one or two stimuli were cued before being presented among other pictures. Pattern strength varied from highest to lowest when the stimulus was the exclusive focus of attention, a conjoint focus, and when it was potentially distracting. Although qualitatively similar effects were seen inside regions relatively specialized for the stimulus category and outside, the former were quantitatively stronger. By regressing occipitotemporal pattern strength against activity elsewhere in the brain, we identified frontal and parietal areas exerting top-down control over, or reading information out from, distributed patterns in occipitotemporal cortex. Their interactions with patterns inside regions relatively specialized for that stimulus category were higher than those with patterns outside those regions and varied in strength as a function of the attentional condition. One area, the frontal operculum, was distinguished by selectively interacting with occipitotemporal patterns only when they were the focus of attention. There was no evidence that any frontal or parietal area actively inhibited occipitotemporal representations even when they should be ignored and were suppressed. Using MVPA to decode information within these frontal and parietal areas showed that they contained information about attentional context and/or readout information from occipitotemporal cortex to guide behavior but that frontal regions lacked information about category identity.

Frontal and Parietal Cortical Interactions with Distributed Visual Representations during Selective Attention and Action Selection

Science.gov (United States)

Stokes, Mark; Nobre, Anna C.; Rushworth, Matthew F. S.

2013-01-01

Using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA), we studied how distributed visual representations in human occipitotemporal cortex are modulated by attention and link their modulation to concurrent activity in frontal and parietal cortex. We detected similar occipitotemporal patterns during a simple visuoperceptual task and an attention-to-working-memory task in which one or two stimuli were cued before being presented among other pictures. Pattern strength varied from highest to lowest when the stimulus was the exclusive focus of attention, a conjoint focus, and when it was potentially distracting. Although qualitatively similar effects were seen inside regions relatively specialized for the stimulus category and outside, the former were quantitatively stronger. By regressing occipitotemporal pattern strength against activity elsewhere in the brain, we identified frontal and parietal areas exerting top-down control over, or reading information out from, distributed patterns in occipitotemporal cortex. Their interactions with patterns inside regions relatively specialized for that stimulus category were higher than those with patterns outside those regions and varied in strength as a function of the attentional condition. One area, the frontal operculum, was distinguished by selectively interacting with occipitotemporal patterns only when they were the focus of attention. There was no evidence that any frontal or parietal area actively inhibited occipitotemporal representations even when they should be ignored and were suppressed. Using MVPA to decode information within these frontal and parietal areas showed that they contained information about attentional context and/or readout information from occipitotemporal cortex to guide behavior but that frontal regions lacked information about category identity. PMID:24133250

Task-irrelevant expectation violations in sequential manual actions: Evidence for a “check-after-surprise” mode of visual attention and eye-hand decoupling

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Rebecca Martina Foerster

2016-11-01

Full Text Available When performing sequential manual actions (e.g., cooking, visual information is prioritized according to the task determining where and when to attend, look, and act. In well-practiced sequential actions, long-term memory (LTM-based expectations specify which action targets might be found where and when. We have previously demonstrated (Foerster and Schneider, 2015b that violations of such expectations that are task-relevant (e.g., target location change cause a regression from a memory-based mode of attentional selection to visual search. How might task-irrelevant expectation violations in such well-practiced sequential manual actions modify attentional selection? This question was investigated by a computerized version of the number-connection test. Participants clicked on nine spatially-distributed numbered target circles in ascending order while eye movements were recorded as proxy for covert attention. Target’s visual features and locations stayed constant for 65 prechange-trials, allowing practicing the manual action sequence. Consecutively, a task-irrelevant expectation violation occurred and stayed for 20 change-trials. Specifically, action target number 4 appeared in a different font. In 15 reversion-trials, number 4 returned to the original font. During the first task-irrelevant change trial, manual clicking was slower and eye scanpaths were larger and contained more fixations. The additional fixations were mainly checking fixations on the changed target while acting on later targets. Whereas the eyes repeatedly revisited the task-irrelevant change, cursor-paths remained completely unaffected. Effects lasted for 2-3 change trials and did not reappear during reversion. In conclusion, an unexpected task-irrelevant change on a task-defining feature of a well-practiced manual sequence leads to eye-hand decoupling and a check-after-surprise mode of attentional selection.

Can task-switching training enhance executive control functioning in children with attention deficit/-hyperactivity disorder?

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Jutta eKray

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The key cognitive impairments of children with attention deficit/-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD include executive control functions such as inhibitory control, task switching, and working memory. In this training study we examined whether task-switching training leads to improvements in these functions. Twenty children with combined type ADHD and stable methylphenidate medication performed a single-task and a task-switching training in a crossover training design. The children were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group started with the single-task training and then performed the task-switching training and the other group vice versa. The effectiveness of the task-switching training was measured as performance improvements (relative to the single-task training on a structurally similar but new switching task and on other executive control tasks measuring inhibitory control and verbal working memory as well as on fluid intelligence (reasoning. The children in both groups showed improvements in task switching, that is, a reduction of switching costs, but not in performing the single tasks across four training sessions. Moreover, the task-switching training lead to selective enhancements in task-switching performance, that is, the reduction of task-switching costs was found to be larger after task-switching than after single-task training. Similar selective improvements were observed for inhibitory control and verbal working memory, but not for reasoning. Results of this study suggest that task-switching training is an effective cognitive intervention that helps to enhance executive control functioning in children with ADHD.

Neural Mechanisms of Selective Visual Attention.

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Moore, Tirin; Zirnsak, Marc

2017-01-03

Selective visual attention describes the tendency of visual processing to be confined largely to stimuli that are relevant to behavior. It is among the most fundamental of cognitive functions, particularly in humans and other primates for whom vision is the dominant sense. We review recent progress in identifying the neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. We discuss evidence from studies of different varieties of selective attention and examine how these varieties alter the processing of stimuli by neurons within the visual system, current knowledge of their causal basis, and methods for assessing attentional dysfunctions. In addition, we identify some key questions that remain in identifying the neural mechanisms that give rise to the selective processing of visual information.

Disentangling the adult attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder endophenotype: parametric measurement of attention.

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Finke, Kathrin; Schwarzkopf, Wolfgang; Müller, Ulrich; Frodl, Thomas; Müller, Hermann J; Schneider, Werner X; Engel, Rolf R; Riedel, Michael; Möller, Hans-Jürgen; Hennig-Fast, Kristina

2011-11-01

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) persists frequently into adulthood. The decomposition of endophenotypes by means of experimental neuro-cognitive assessment has the potential to improve diagnostic assessment, evaluation of treatment response, and disentanglement of genetic and environmental influences. We assessed four parameters of attentional capacity and selectivity derived from simple psychophysical tasks (verbal report of briefly presented letter displays) and based on a "theory of visual attention." These parameters are mathematically independent, quantitative measures, and previous studies have shown that they are highly sensitive for subtle attention deficits. Potential reductions of attentional capacity, that is, of perceptual processing speed and working memory storage capacity, were assessed with a whole report paradigm. Furthermore, possible pathologies of attentional selectivity, that is, selection of task-relevant information and bias in the spatial distribution of attention, were measured with a partial report paradigm. A group of 30 unmedicated adult ADHD patients and a group of 30 demographically matched healthy controls were tested. ADHD patients showed significant reductions of working memory storage capacity of a moderate to large effect size. Perceptual processing speed, task-based, and spatial selection were unaffected. The results imply a working memory deficit as an important source of behavioral impairments. The theory of visual attention parameter working memory storage capacity might constitute a quantifiable and testable endophenotype of ADHD.

Narcissism dimensions differentially moderate selective attention to evaluative stimuli in incarcerated offenders.

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Krusemark, Elizabeth A; Lee, Christopher; Newman, Joseph P

2015-01-01

Narcissistic personality disorder is associated with distinguishing traits including self-enhancement, arrogance, and intense reactivity to ego threat. Theoretical accounts of narcissism suggest these heterogeneous behaviors reflect a defensive motivational style that functions to both uphold and protect the self-concept. However, the notion that narcissism can be characterized by grandiose and vulnerable dimensions raises the possibility that these diverse behaviors represent distinct expressions of narcissistic defensiveness. The present study examined whether both dimensions exhibit a general defensive style marked by selective attention to evaluative stimuli or are differentially associated with selective attention to positive and negative information, respectively. Using a dot probe task consisting of valenced and neutral trait adjectives, we evaluated these hypotheses in a group of male offenders. Results indicated that vulnerable narcissism was associated with attention biases for both positive and negative stimuli, though the dimension was further distinguished by disengagement difficulties and a greater recognition memory bias in response to negative words. Conversely, grandiose narcissism was associated with increased accuracy when attending to positive stimuli and directing attention away from negative stimuli. Overall, these findings suggest narcissistic individuals share motivated selective attention in response to evaluative stimuli, while simultaneously highlighting important phenotypic differences between grandiose and vulnerable dimensions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

The Speed of Feature-Based Attention: Attentional Advantage Is Slow, but Selection Is Fast

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Huang, Liqiang

2010-01-01

When paying attention to a feature (e.g., red), no attentional advantage is gained in perceiving items with this feature in very brief displays. Therefore, feature-based attention seems to be slow. In previous feature-based attention studies, attention has often been measured as the difference in performance in a secondary task. In our recent work…

Auditory Stream Segregation Improves Infants' Selective Attention to Target Tones Amid Distracters

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Smith, Nicholas A.; Trainor, Laurel J.

2011-01-01

This study examined the role of auditory stream segregation in the selective attention to target tones in infancy. Using a task adapted from Bregman and Rudnicky's 1975 study and implemented in a conditioned head-turn procedure, infant and adult listeners had to discriminate the temporal order of 2,200 and 2,400 Hz target tones presented alone,…

Selective Attention in Inattentional Blindness: Selection is Specific but Suppression is Not

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Katherine Wood

2017-08-01

Full Text Available When we selectively attend to one set of objects and ignore another, we often fail to notice unexpected events. The likelihood of noticing varies depending on the similarity of an unexpected object to other items in the display, a process thought to be controlled by the attention set that we create for the attended and ignored objects. It remains unclear, though, how attention sets are formed and structured. Do they enhance features of attended objects (“white” and suppress features of ignored objects (“black”, or do they distinguish objects based on relations or categories (“darker” versus “lighter,” or “dark objects” versus “light objects”? In previous work, these explanations are confounded; the objects would be partitioned into the same groups regardless the structure of the attention set. In the present three experiments, the attended or ignored set of objects was a constant color while the other set was variable. When people attended white and ignored a multicolored set of objects (Experiment 1, novel colors were suppressed just as much as display colors, suggesting nonselective filtering of nonwhite objects. When the color of one set of objects varied across displays but was constant within them (Experiments 2 and 3, we again found as much suppression for task-irrelevant and novel colors as for actively ignored ones. Whenever people ignored a set of objects that varied in color, they suppressed unexpected objects that matched the ignored colors and that differed from the actively ignored items on the critical trial. In contrast, when people attended a varying set, noticing was enhanced only for unexpected objects that matched the currently attended color. In this task, attentional filtering is category-based and did not depend on the features of the individual objects.

Object-based selection from spatially-invariant representations: evidence from a feature-report task.

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Matsukura, Michi; Vecera, Shaun P

2011-02-01

Attention selects objects as well as locations. When attention selects an object's features, observers identify two features from a single object more accurately than two features from two different objects (object-based effect of attention; e.g., Duncan, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 501-517, 1984). Several studies have demonstrated that object-based attention can operate at a late visual processing stage that is independent of objects' spatial information (Awh, Dhaliwal, Christensen, & Matsukura, Psychological Science, 12, 329-334, 2001; Matsukura & Vecera, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16, 529-536, 2009; Vecera, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 126, 14-18, 1997; Vecera & Farah, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 146-160, 1994). In the present study, we asked two questions regarding this late object-based selection mechanism. In Part I, we investigated how observers' foreknowledge of to-be-reported features allows attention to select objects, as opposed to individual features. Using a feature-report task, a significant object-based effect was observed when to-be-reported features were known in advance but not when this advance knowledge was absent. In Part II, we examined what drives attention to select objects rather than individual features in the absence of observers' foreknowledge of to-be-reported features. Results suggested that, when there was no opportunity for observers to direct their attention to objects that possess to-be-reported features at the time of stimulus presentation, these stimuli must retain strong perceptual cues to establish themselves as separate objects.

Early Auditory Evoked Potential Is Modulated by Selective Attention and Related to Individual Differences in Visual Working Memory Capacity

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Giuliano, Ryan J.; Karns, Christina M.; Neville, Helen J.; Hillyard, Steven A.

2015-01-01

A growing body of research suggests that the predictive power of working memory (WM) capacity for measures of intellectual aptitude is due to the ability to control attention and select relevant information. Crucially, attentional mechanisms implicated in controlling access to WM are assumed to be domain-general, yet reports of enhanced attentional abilities in individuals with larger WM capacities are primarily within the visual domain. Here, we directly test the link between WM capacity and early attentional gating across sensory domains, hypothesizing that measures of visual WM capacity should predict an individual’s capacity to allocate auditory selective attention. To address this question, auditory ERPs were recorded in a linguistic dichotic listening task, and individual differences in ERP modulations by attention were correlated with estimates of WM capacity obtained in a separate visual change detection task. Auditory selective attention enhanced ERP amplitudes at an early latency (ca. 70–90 msec), with larger P1 components elicited by linguistic probes embedded in an attended narrative. Moreover, this effect was associated with greater individual estimates of visual WM capacity. These findings support the view that domain-general attentional control mechanisms underlie the wide variation of WM capacity across individuals. PMID:25000526

Force control tasks with pure haptic feedback promote short-term focused attention.

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Wang, Dangxiao; Zhang, Yuru; Yang, Xiaoxiao; Yang, Gaofeng; Yang, Yi

2014-01-01

Focused attention has great impact on our quality of life. Our learning, social skills and even happiness are closely intertwined with our capacity for focused attention. Attention promotion is replete with examples of training-induced increases in attention capability, most of which rely on visual and auditory stimulation. Pure haptic stimulation to increase attention capability is rarely found. We show that accurate force control tasks with pure haptic feedback enhance short-term focused attention. Participants were trained by a force control task in which information from visual and auditory channels was blocked, and only haptic feedback was provided. The trainees were asked to exert a target force within a pre-defined force tolerance for a specific duration. The tolerance was adaptively modified to different levels of difficulty to elicit full participant engagement. Three attention tests showed significant changes in different aspects of focused attention in participants who had been trained as compared with those who had not, thereby illustrating the role of haptic-based sensory-motor tasks in the promotion of short-term focused attention. The findings highlight the potential value of haptic stimuli in brain plasticity and serve as a new tool to extend existing computer games for cognitive enhancement.

Development of selective attention in preschool-age children from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds

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Amanda Hampton Wray

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Although differences in selective attention skills have been identified in children from lower compared to higher socioeconomic status (SES backgrounds, little is known about these differences in early childhood, a time of rapid attention development. The current study evaluated the development of neural systems for selective attention in children from lower SES backgrounds. Event-related potentials (ERPs were acquired from 33 children from lower SES and 14 children from higher SES backgrounds during a dichotic listening task. The lower SES group was followed longitudinally for one year. At age four, the higher SES group exhibited a significant attention effect (larger ERP response to attended compared to unattended condition, an effect not observed in the lower SES group. At age five, the lower SES group exhibited a significant attention effect comparable in overall magnitude to that observed in the 4-year-old higher SES group, but with poorer distractor suppression (larger response to the unattended condition. Together, these findings suggest both a maturational delay and divergent developmental pattern in neural mechanisms for selective attention in young children from lower compared to higher SES backgrounds. Furthermore, these findings highlight the importance of studying neurodevelopment within narrow age ranges and in children from diverse backgrounds.

Development of selective attention in preschool-age children from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds.

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Hampton Wray, Amanda; Stevens, Courtney; Pakulak, Eric; Isbell, Elif; Bell, Theodore; Neville, Helen

2017-08-01

Although differences in selective attention skills have been identified in children from lower compared to higher socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds, little is known about these differences in early childhood, a time of rapid attention development. The current study evaluated the development of neural systems for selective attention in children from lower SES backgrounds. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were acquired from 33 children from lower SES and 14 children from higher SES backgrounds during a dichotic listening task. The lower SES group was followed longitudinally for one year. At age four, the higher SES group exhibited a significant attention effect (larger ERP response to attended compared to unattended condition), an effect not observed in the lower SES group. At age five, the lower SES group exhibited a significant attention effect comparable in overall magnitude to that observed in the 4-year-old higher SES group, but with poorer distractor suppression (larger response to the unattended condition). Together, these findings suggest both a maturational delay and divergent developmental pattern in neural mechanisms for selective attention in young children from lower compared to higher SES backgrounds. Furthermore, these findings highlight the importance of studying neurodevelopment within narrow age ranges and in children from diverse backgrounds. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Can attentional control settings be maintained for two color-location conjunctions? Evidence from an RSVP task.

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Irons, Jessica L; Remington, Roger W

2013-07-01

Previous investigations of the ability to maintain separate attentional control settings for different spatial locations have relied principally on a go/no-go spatial-cueing paradigm. The results have suggested that control of attention is accomplished only late in processing. However, the go/no-go task does not provide strong incentives to withhold attention from irrelevant color-location conjunctions. We used a modified version of the task in which failing to adopt multiple control settings would be detrimental to performance. Two RSVP streams of colored letters appeared to the left and right of fixation. Participants searched for targets that were a conjunction of color and location, so that the target color for one stream acted as a distractor when presented in the opposite stream. Distractors that did not match the target conjunctions nevertheless captured attention and interfered with performance. This was the case even when the target conjunctions were previewed early in the trial prior to the target (Exp. 2). However, distractor interference was reduced when the upcoming distractor was previewed early on in the trial (Exp. 3). Attentional selection of targets by color-location conjunctions may be effective if facilitative attentional sets are accompanied by the top-down inhibition of irrelevant items.

Individual Differences in Temporal Selective Attention as Reflected in Pupil Dilation.

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Charlotte Willems

Full Text Available Attention is restricted for the second of two targets when it is presented within 200-500 ms of the first target. This attentional blink (AB phenomenon allows one to study the dynamics of temporal selective attention by varying the interval between the two targets (T1 and T2. Whereas the AB has long been considered as a robust and universal cognitive limitation, several studies have demonstrated that AB task performance greatly differs between individuals, with some individuals showing no AB whatsoever.Here, we studied these individual differences in AB task performance in relation to differences in attentional timing. Furthermore, we investigated whether AB magnitude is predictive for the amount of attention allocated to T1. For both these purposes pupil dilation was measured, and analyzed with our recently developed deconvolution method. We found that the dynamics of temporal attention in small versus large blinkers differ in a number of ways. Individuals with a relatively small AB magnitude seem better able to preserve temporal order information. In addition, they are quicker to allocate attention to both T1 and T2 than large blinkers. Although a popular explanation of the AB is that it is caused by an unnecessary overinvestment of attention allocated to T1, a more complex picture emerged from our data, suggesting that this may depend on whether one is a small or a large blinker.The use of pupil dilation deconvolution seems to be a powerful approach to study the temporal dynamics of attention, bringing us a step closer to understanding the elusive nature of the AB. We conclude that the timing of attention to targets may be more important than the amount of allocated attention in accounting for individual differences.

Individual Differences in Temporal Selective Attention as Reflected in Pupil Dilation.

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Willems, Charlotte; Herdzin, Johannes; Martens, Sander

2015-01-01

Attention is restricted for the second of two targets when it is presented within 200-500 ms of the first target. This attentional blink (AB) phenomenon allows one to study the dynamics of temporal selective attention by varying the interval between the two targets (T1 and T2). Whereas the AB has long been considered as a robust and universal cognitive limitation, several studies have demonstrated that AB task performance greatly differs between individuals, with some individuals showing no AB whatsoever. Here, we studied these individual differences in AB task performance in relation to differences in attentional timing. Furthermore, we investigated whether AB magnitude is predictive for the amount of attention allocated to T1. For both these purposes pupil dilation was measured, and analyzed with our recently developed deconvolution method. We found that the dynamics of temporal attention in small versus large blinkers differ in a number of ways. Individuals with a relatively small AB magnitude seem better able to preserve temporal order information. In addition, they are quicker to allocate attention to both T1 and T2 than large blinkers. Although a popular explanation of the AB is that it is caused by an unnecessary overinvestment of attention allocated to T1, a more complex picture emerged from our data, suggesting that this may depend on whether one is a small or a large blinker. The use of pupil dilation deconvolution seems to be a powerful approach to study the temporal dynamics of attention, bringing us a step closer to understanding the elusive nature of the AB. We conclude that the timing of attention to targets may be more important than the amount of allocated attention in accounting for individual differences.

Attentional Demand of a Virtual Reality-Based Reaching Task in Nondisabled Older Adults

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Chen, Yi-An; Chung, Yu-Chen; Proffitt, Rachel; Wade, Eric; Winstein, Carolee

2015-01-01

Attention during exercise is known to affect performance; however, the attentional demand inherent to virtual reality (VR)-based exercise is not well understood. We used a dual-task paradigm to compare the attentional demands of VR-based and non-VR-based (conventional, real-world) exercise: 22 non-disabled older adults performed a primary reaching task to virtual and real targets in a counterbalanced block order while verbally responding to an unanticipated auditory tone in one third of the trials. The attentional demand of the primary reaching task was inferred from the voice response time (VRT) to the auditory tone. Participants' engagement level and task experience were also obtained using questionnaires. The virtual target condition was more attention demanding (significantly longer VRT) than the real target condition. Secondary analyses revealed a significant interaction between engagement level and target condition on attentional demand. For participants who were highly engaged, attentional demand was high and independent of target condition. However, for those who were less engaged, attentional demand was low and depended on target condition (i.e., virtual > real). These findings add important knowledge to the growing body of research pertaining to the development and application of technology-enhanced exercise for elders and for rehabilitation purposes. PMID:27004233

Attentional Demand of a Virtual Reality-Based Reaching Task in Nondisabled Older Adults.

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Chen, Yi-An; Chung, Yu-Chen; Proffitt, Rachel; Wade, Eric; Winstein, Carolee

2015-12-01

Attention during exercise is known to affect performance; however, the attentional demand inherent to virtual reality (VR)-based exercise is not well understood. We used a dual-task paradigm to compare the attentional demands of VR-based and non-VR-based (conventional, real-world) exercise: 22 non-disabled older adults performed a primary reaching task to virtual and real targets in a counterbalanced block order while verbally responding to an unanticipated auditory tone in one third of the trials. The attentional demand of the primary reaching task was inferred from the voice response time (VRT) to the auditory tone. Participants' engagement level and task experience were also obtained using questionnaires. The virtual target condition was more attention demanding (significantly longer VRT) than the real target condition. Secondary analyses revealed a significant interaction between engagement level and target condition on attentional demand. For participants who were highly engaged, attentional demand was high and independent of target condition. However, for those who were less engaged, attentional demand was low and depended on target condition (i.e., virtual > real). These findings add important knowledge to the growing body of research pertaining to the development and application of technology-enhanced exercise for elders and for rehabilitation purposes.

Lesion Neuroanatomy of the Sustained Attention to Response Task

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Molenberghs, Pascal; Gillebert, Celine R.; Schoofs, Hanne; Dupont, Patrick; Peeters, Ronald; Vandenberghe, Rik

2009-01-01

The Sustained Attention to Response task is a classical neuropsychological test that has been used by many centres to characterize the attentional deficits in traumatic brain injury, ADHD, autism and other disorders. During the SART a random series of digits 1-9 is presented repeatedly and subjects have to respond to each digit (go trial) except…

Selective attention to phonology dynamically modulates initial encoding of auditory words within the left hemisphere.

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Yoncheva, Yuliya; Maurer, Urs; Zevin, Jason D; McCandliss, Bruce D

2014-08-15

Selective attention to phonology, i.e., the ability to attend to sub-syllabic units within spoken words, is a critical precursor to literacy acquisition. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence has demonstrated that a left-lateralized network of frontal, temporal, and posterior language regions, including the visual word form area, supports this skill. The current event-related potential (ERP) study investigated the temporal dynamics of selective attention to phonology during spoken word perception. We tested the hypothesis that selective attention to phonology dynamically modulates stimulus encoding by recruiting left-lateralized processes specifically while the information critical for performance is unfolding. Selective attention to phonology was captured by manipulating listening goals: skilled adult readers attended to either rhyme or melody within auditory stimulus pairs. Each pair superimposed rhyming and melodic information ensuring identical sensory stimulation. Selective attention to phonology produced distinct early and late topographic ERP effects during stimulus encoding. Data-driven source localization analyses revealed that selective attention to phonology led to significantly greater recruitment of left-lateralized posterior and extensive temporal regions, which was notably concurrent with the rhyme-relevant information within the word. Furthermore, selective attention effects were specific to auditory stimulus encoding and not observed in response to cues, arguing against the notion that they reflect sustained task setting. Collectively, these results demonstrate that selective attention to phonology dynamically engages a left-lateralized network during the critical time-period of perception for achieving phonological analysis goals. These findings suggest a key role for selective attention in on-line phonological computations. Furthermore, these findings motivate future research on the role that neural mechanisms of attention may

Attention Deficit ِDuring Dual-Task Performance in Alzheimer’s Disease Patients

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Hamid Salehi

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Objectives: The aims of the present investigation was the evaluation of divided attention deficits in Alzheimer's disease (AD patients by using dual-task paradigm in order to ascertain whether this method can be useful in the early diagnosis of AD or not.  Methods & Materials: A total of 23 elderly individuals (11 females and 12 males voluntarily participated in the investigation: 13 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD and 10 healthy elderly individuals. The experimental setup consisted of (a single -task and (b dual-task trials at two levels of difficulty. In singletask condition, the participants were asked to recite the months of the year continuously with normal order (easy and backward (difficult. They also performed a computerized visuospatial/motor tracking task. The participants then performed the tracking task in conjunction with each of the months reciting tasks as dual-task condition. Results: The results showed a significant interaction (disease×level of difficulty effect. So that, the performance impairment on combine performance in two simultaneous tasks was related to task difficulty, but the elderly control group did not differ in the easy and difficult conditions. Conclusion: These findings not only increase our understanding of the attention deficits in AD patients, but also have implications for the mediating effect of cognitive load in using dual-task paradigm for studying attention mechanisms of cognitively suffered individuals.

Attention impairment in childhood absence epilepsy: an impulsivity problem?

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Cerminara, Caterina; D'Agati, Elisa; Casarelli, Livia; Kaunzinger, Ivo; Lange, Klaus W; Pitzianti, Mariabernarda; Parisi, Pasquale; Tucha, Oliver; Curatolo, Paolo

2013-05-01

Although attention problems have often been described in children with childhood absence epilepsy (CAE), the use of different methodological approaches, neuropsychological tests, and heterogeneous experimental groups has prevented identification of the selective areas of attention deficit in this population. In this study, we investigated several components of attention in children with CAE using a unique computerized test battery for attention performance. Participants included 24 patients with CAE and 24 controls matched for age and sex. They were tested with a computerized test battery, which included the following tasks: selective attention, impulsivity, focused attention, divided attention, alertness, and vigilance. Compared with healthy controls, patients with CAE made more commission errors in the Go/No-Go task and more omission errors in the divided attention task. Childhood absence epilepsy patients also showed decreased reaction times in measures of selective attention and a great variability of reaction times in alertness and Go/No-Go tasks. Our findings suggest that patients with CAE were impaired in tonic and phasic alertness, divided attention, selective attention, and impulsivity. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The deployment of intersensory selective attention: a high-density electrical mapping study of the effects of theanine.

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Gomez-Ramirez, Manuel; Higgins, Beth A; Rycroft, Jane A; Owen, Gail N; Mahoney, Jeannette; Shpaner, Marina; Foxe, John J

2007-01-01

: Ingestion of the nonproteinic amino acid theanine (5-N-ethylglutamine) has been shown to increase oscillatory brain activity in the so-called alpha band (8-14 Hz) during resting electroencephalographic recordings in humans. Independently, alpha band activity has been shown to be a key component in selective attentional processes. Here, we set out to assess whether theanine would cause modulation of anticipatory alpha activity during selective attentional deployments to stimuli in different sensory modalities, a paradigm in which robust alpha attention effects have previously been established. : Electrophysiological data from 168 scalp electrode channels were recorded while participants performed a standard intersensory attentional cuing task. : As in previous studies, significantly greater alpha band activity was measured over parieto-occipital scalp for attentional deployments to the auditory modality than to the visual modality. Theanine ingestion resulted in a substantial overall decrease in background alpha levels relative to placebo while subjects were actively performing this demanding attention task. Despite this decrease in background alpha activity, attention-related alpha effects were significantly greater for the theanine condition. : This increase of attention-related anticipatory alpha over the right parieto-occipital scalp suggests that theanine may have a specific effect on the brain's attention circuitry. We conclude that theanine has clear psychoactive properties, and that it represents a potentially interesting, naturally occurring compound for further study, as it relates to the brain's attentional system.

Modulation of human extrastriate visual processing by selective attention to colours and words.

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Nobre, A C; Allison, T; McCarthy, G

1998-07-01

The present study investigated the effect of visual selective attention upon neural processing within functionally specialized regions of the human extrastriate visual cortex. Field potentials were recorded directly from the inferior surface of the temporal lobes in subjects with epilepsy. The experimental task required subjects to focus attention on words from one of two competing texts. Words were presented individually and foveally. Texts were interleaved randomly and were distinguishable on the basis of word colour. Focal field potentials were evoked by words in the posterior part of the fusiform gyrus. Selective attention strongly modulated long-latency potentials evoked by words. The attention effect co-localized with word-related potentials in the posterior fusiform gyrus, and was independent of stimulus colour. The results demonstrated that stimuli receive differential processing within specialized regions of the extrastriate cortex as a function of attention. The late onset of the attention effect and its co-localization with letter string-related potentials but not with colour-related potentials recorded from nearby regions of the fusiform gyrus suggest that the attention effect is due to top-down influences from downstream regions involved in word processing.

Investigation of attention via the counting Stroop task in patients with functional constipation.

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Sun, Yi; Li, Xiao-Yi; Yao, Lin-Yan; Zhao, Lan; Dai, Ning; Wu, Hao

2012-02-01

The etiology and pathology of functional constipation (FC) is unclear. Some researches suggest that psychological factors may be related to this common problem. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between attention processing and emotional status in FC patients compared with healthy controls. We investigated selective attention and emotional status in patients with FC using the counting Stroop task. Thirty-five FC patients (FCP group) and 24 healthy controls (HCs) underwent an event-related potential (ERP) study while performing the task. Response time, latency and amplitude of P300 were collected and compared between the two groups. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-17), Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA), Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) and Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) were administered prior to the counting Stroop task. Scores for the FCP group differed significantly from those for the HCs on the HAMD-17, HAMA, SCL-90 (Global Severity Index, Positive Symptoms Total, dimensions of somatization, obsessive-compulsive, depression, anxiety, and psychosis), as well as extraversion and neurosis dimensions of the EPQ (P 0.05). ERP results showed prolonged latency at F4, additionally found enhanced activation at F3, FC1 and T8, and decreased activation at sites FC6 and P7 in the patients with FC. Statistically, significant differences of P300 latency at site F4 (P well as somatization, obsessive-compulsive tendencies and other neurotic personality characteristics. Patients may employ psychological defense mechanisms to avoid the pain of depression and anxiety. ERP results imply there may be some brain dysfunction and attention deficits in patients with FC.

Development of Auditory Selective Attention: Why Children Struggle to Hear in Noisy Environments

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Jones, Pete R.; Moore, David R.; Amitay, Sygal

2015-01-01

Children's hearing deteriorates markedly in the presence of unpredictable noise. To explore why, 187 school-age children (4-11 years) and 15 adults performed a tone-in-noise detection task, in which the masking noise varied randomly between every presentation. Selective attention was evaluated by measuring the degree to which listeners were…

Selective attention and control of action: comparative psychology of an artificial, evolved agent and people.

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Ward, Robert; Ward, Ronnie

2008-10-01

This study examined the selective attention abilities of a simple, artificial, evolved agent and considered implications of the agent's performance for theories of selective attention and action. The agent processed two targets in continuous time, catching one and then the other. This task required many cognitive operations, including prioritizing the first target (T1) over the second (T2); selectively focusing responses on T1, while preventing T2 from interfering with responses; creating a memory for the unselected T2 item, so that it could be efficiently processed later; and reallocating processing towards T2 after catching T1. The evolved agent demonstrated all these abilities. Analysis shows that the agent used reactive inhibition to selectively focus behavior. That is, the more salient T2, the more strongly responses towards T2 were inhibited and the slower the agent was to subsequently reallocate processing towards T2. Reactive inhibition was also suggested in two experiments with people, performing a virtually identical catch task. The presence of reactive inhibition in the simple agent and in people suggests that it is an important mechanism for selective processing.

Subjective cognitive impairment: functional MRI during a divided attention task.

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Rodda, J; Dannhauser, T; Cutinha, D J; Shergill, S S; Walker, Z

2011-10-01

Individuals with subjective cognitive impairment (SCI) have persistent memory complaints but normal neurocognitive performance. For some, this may represent a pre-mild cognitive impairment (MCI) stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Given that attentional deficits and associated brain activation changes are present early in the course of AD, we aimed to determine whether SCI is associated with brain activation changes during attentional processing. Eleven SCI subjects and 10 controls completed a divided attention task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. SCI and control groups did not differ in sociodemographic, neurocognitive or behavioural measures. When group activation during the divided attention task was compared, the SCI group demonstrated increased activation in left medial temporal lobe, bilateral thalamus, posterior cingulate and caudate. This pattern of increased activation is similar to the pattern of decreased activation reported during divided attention in AD and may indicate compensatory changes. These findings suggest the presence of early functional changes in SCI; longitudinal studies will help to further elucidate the relationship between SCI and AD. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Neuro-Oscillatory Mechanisms of Intersensory Selective Attention and Task Switching in School-Aged Children, Adolescents and Young Adults

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Murphy, Jeremy W.; Foxe, John J.; Molholm, Sophie

2016-01-01

The ability to attend to one among multiple sources of information is central to everyday functioning. Just as central is the ability to switch attention among competing inputs as the task at hand changes. Such processes develop surprisingly slowly, such that even into adolescence, we remain slower and more error prone at switching among tasks…

Goal-driven selective attention in patients with right hemisphere lesions: how intact is the ipsilesional field?

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Snow, Jacqueline C; Mattingley, Jason B

2006-01-01

Patients with right hemisphere (RH) lesions often display a spatial bias in attention towards the ipsilesional hemifield. The behavioural manifestations of this spatial bias are typically interpreted as reflecting increased or enhanced attention for stimuli within the 'intact' ipsilesional field, and impaired attentional functioning within the contralesional field. In the healthy brain, goal-driven and stimulus-driven attentional processes interact to determine which stimuli should be prioritized for selection. Although unilateral brain damage increases the relative attentional salience of stimuli within the ipsilesional field, it might also cause problems in filtering or attenuating task-irrelevant information. We examined whether goal-driven attention modulates the processing of ipsilesional and contralesional information in 6 patients with unilateral brain damage following RH stroke (5 male, 1 female; mean age 60.8 years) and a group of age and sex-matched controls. We used a flanker task in which participants made speeded judgements on a central target item (a coloured letter). On each trial the target was flanked by a coloured letter in the left and right hemifields. In separate blocks, participants were instructed to judge either the identity or the colour of the central target and to ignore the flankers. The flanker on one side could be congruent, incongruent or neutral with respect to the target, on either the letter or the colour dimension, whereas the flanker on the other side was always neutral on both dimensions. Healthy controls showed significant interference from incongruent flankers on either side. Crucially, however, this effect only occurred for the task-relevant dimension [F(2,10) = 24.60; P attention leads to unselective prioritization of all feature-based attributes of stimuli appearing within the ipsilesional hemifield, whether or not they are relevant to performance. Attentional selection for ipsilesional stimuli in disorders such as spatial

Effects of selective attention on the electrophysiological representation of concurrent sounds in the human auditory cortex.

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Bidet-Caulet, Aurélie; Fischer, Catherine; Besle, Julien; Aguera, Pierre-Emmanuel; Giard, Marie-Helene; Bertrand, Olivier

2007-08-29

In noisy environments, we use auditory selective attention to actively ignore distracting sounds and select relevant information, as during a cocktail party to follow one particular conversation. The present electrophysiological study aims at deciphering the spatiotemporal organization of the effect of selective attention on the representation of concurrent sounds in the human auditory cortex. Sound onset asynchrony was manipulated to induce the segregation of two concurrent auditory streams. Each stream consisted of amplitude modulated tones at different carrier and modulation frequencies. Electrophysiological recordings were performed in epileptic patients with pharmacologically resistant partial epilepsy, implanted with depth electrodes in the temporal cortex. Patients were presented with the stimuli while they either performed an auditory distracting task or actively selected one of the two concurrent streams. Selective attention was found to affect steady-state responses in the primary auditory cortex, and transient and sustained evoked responses in secondary auditory areas. The results provide new insights on the neural mechanisms of auditory selective attention: stream selection during sound rivalry would be facilitated not only by enhancing the neural representation of relevant sounds, but also by reducing the representation of irrelevant information in the auditory cortex. Finally, they suggest a specialization of the left hemisphere in the attentional selection of fine-grained acoustic information.

Neural correlates of endogenous attention, exogenous attention and inhibition of return in touch.

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Jones, Alexander; Forster, Bettina

2014-07-01

Selective attention helps process the myriad of information constantly touching our body. Both endogenous and exogenous mechanisms are relied upon to effectively process this information; however, it is unclear how they relate in the sense of touch. In three tasks we contrasted endogenous and exogenous event-related potential (ERP) and behavioural effects. Unilateral tactile cues were followed by a tactile target at the same or opposite hand. Clear behavioural effects showed facilitation of expected targets both when the cue predicted targets at the same (endogenous predictive task) and opposite hand (endogenous counter-predictive task), and these effects also correlated with ERP effects of endogenous attention. In an exogenous task, where the cue was non-informative, inhibition of return (IOR) was observed. The electrophysiological results demonstrated early effects of exogenous attention followed by later endogenous attention modulations. These effects were independent in both the endogenous predictive and exogenous tasks. However, voluntarily directing attention away from a cued body part influenced the early exogenous marker (N80). This suggests that the two mechanisms are interdependent, at least when the task requires more demanding shifts of attention. The early marker of exogenous tactile attention, the N80, was not directly related to IOR, which may suggest that exogenous attention and IOR are not necessarily two sides of the same coin. This study adds valuable new insight into how we process and select information presented to our body, showing both independent and interdependent effects of endogenous and exogenous attention in touch. © 2014 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Simulating the Role of Visual Selective Attention during the Development of Perceptual Completion

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Schlesinger, Matthew; Amso, Dima; Johnson, Scott P.

2012-01-01

We recently proposed a multi-channel, image-filtering model for simulating the development of visual selective attention in young infants (Schlesinger, Amso & Johnson, 2007). The model not only captures the performance of 3-month-olds on a visual search task, but also implicates two cortical regions that may play a role in the development of…

Visual selective attention biases contribute to the other-race effect among 9-month-old infants.

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Markant, Julie; Oakes, Lisa M; Amso, Dima

2016-04-01

During the first year of life, infants maintain their ability to discriminate faces from their own race but become less able to differentiate other-race faces. Though this is likely due to daily experience with own-race faces, the mechanisms linking repeated exposure to optimal face processing remain unclear. One possibility is that frequent experience with own-race faces generates a selective attention bias to these faces. Selective attention elicits enhancement of attended information and suppression of distraction to improve visual processing of attended objects. Thus attention biases to own-race faces may boost processing and discrimination of these faces relative to other-race faces. We used a spatial cueing task to bias attention to own- or other-race faces among Caucasian 9-month-old infants. Infants discriminated faces in the focus of the attention bias, regardless of race, indicating that infants remained sensitive to differences among other-race faces. Instead, efficacy of face discrimination reflected the extent of attention engagement. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Computerized assessment of sustained attention: interactive effects of task demand, noise, and anxiety.

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Ballard, J C

1996-12-01

In a sample of 163 college undergraduates, the effects of task demand, noise, and anxiety on Continuous Performance Test (CPT) errors were evaluated with multiple regression and multivariate analysis of variance. Results indicated significantly more omission errors on the difficult task. Complex interaction effects of noise and self-reported anxiety yielded more omissions in quiet intermittent white noise, particularly for high-anxious subjects performing the difficult task. Anxiety levels tended to increase from pretest to posttest, particularly for low-anxious subjects in the quiet, difficult-task condition, while a decrease was seen for high-anxious subjects in the loud, easy-task condition. Commission errors were unrelated to any predictor variables, suggesting that "attention" cannot be considered a unitary phenomenon. The variety of direct and interactive effects on vigilance performance underscore the need for clinicians to use a variety of measures to assess attentional skills, to avoid diagnosis of attention deficits on the basis of a single computerized task performance, and to rule out anxiety and other contributors to poor vigilance task performance.

A dissociation between selective attention and conscious awareness in the representation of temporal order information.

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Eimer, Martin; Grubert, Anna

2015-09-01

Previous electrophysiological studies have shown that attentional selection processes are highly sensitive to the temporal order of task-relevant visual events. When two successively presented colour-defined target stimuli are separated by a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of only 10 ms, the onset latencies of N2pc components to these stimuli (which reflect their attentional selection) precisely match their objective temporal separation. We tested whether such small onset differences are accessible to conscious awareness by instructing participants to report the category (letter or digit) of the first of two target-colour items that were separated by an SOA of 10, 20, or 30 ms. Performance was at chance level for the 10 ms SOA, demonstrating that temporal order information which is available to attentional control processes cannot be utilized for conscious temporal order judgments. These results provide new evidence that selective attention and conscious awareness are functionally separable, and support the hypothesis that attention and awareness operate at different stages of cognitive processing. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Emotion has no impact on attention in a change detection flicker task

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Robert Colin Alan Bendall

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Past research provides conflicting findings regarding the influence of emotion on visual attention. Early studies suggested a broadening of attentional resources in relation to positive mood. However, more recent evidence indicates that positive emotions may not have a beneficial impact on attention, and that the relationship between emotion and attention may be mitigated by factors such as task demand or stimulus valence. The current study explored the effect of emotion on attention using the change detection flicker paradigm. Participants were induced into positive, neutral, and negative mood states and then completed a change detection task. A series of neutral scenes were presented and participants had to identify the location of a disappearing item in each scene. The change was made to the centre or the periphery of each scene and it was predicted that peripheral changes would be detected quicker in the positive mood condition and slower in the negative mood condition, compared to the neutral condition. In contrast to previous findings emotion had no influence on attention and whilst central changes were detected faster than peripheral changes, change blindness was not affected by mood. The findings suggest that the relationship between emotion and visual attention is influenced by the characteristics of a task, and any beneficial impact of positive emotion may be related to processing style rather than a broadening of attentional resources.

Reconceptualizing perceptual load as a rate problem: The role of time in the allocation of selective attention.

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Li, Zhi; Xin, Keyun; Li, Wei; Li, Yanzhe

2018-04-30

In the literature about allocation of selective attention, a widely studied question is when will attention be allocated to information that is clearly irrelevant to the task at hand. The present study, by using convergent evidence, demonstrated that there is a trade-off between quantity of information present in a display and the time allowed to process it. Specifically, whether or not there is interference from irrelevant distractors depends not only on the amount of information present, but also on the amount of time allowed to process that information. When processing time is calibrated to the amount of information present, irrelevant distractors can be selectively ignored successfully. These results suggest that the perceptual load in the load theory of selective attention (i.e., Lavie, 2005) should be thought about as a dynamic rate problem rather than a static capacity limitation. The authors thus propose that rather than conceiving of perceptual load as a quantity of information, they should consider it as a quantity of information per unit of time. In other words, it is the relationship between the quantity of information in the task and the time for processing the information that determines the allocation of selective attention. Thus, the present findings extended load theory, allowing it to explain findings that were previously considered as counter evidence of load theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Selective attention to phonology dynamically modulates initial encoding of auditory words within the left hemisphere

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Yoncheva; Maurer, Urs; Zevin, Jason; McCandliss, Bruce

2015-01-01

Selective attention to phonology, i.e., the ability to attend to sub-syllabic units within spoken words, is a critical precursor to literacy acquisition. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence has demonstrated that a left-lateralized network of frontal, temporal, and posterior language regions, including the visual word form area, supports this skill. The current event-related potential (ERP) study investigated the temporal dynamics of selective attention to phonology during spoken word perception. We tested the hypothesis that selective atten tion to phonology dynamically modulates stimulus encoding by recruiting left-lateralized processes specifically while the information critical for performance is unfolding. Selective attention to phonology was captured by ma nipulating listening goals: skilled adult readers attended to either rhyme or melody within auditory stimulus pairs. Each pair superimposed rhyming and melodic information ensuring identical sensory stimulation. Selective attention to phonology produced distinct early and late topographic ERP effects during stimulus encoding. Data- driven source localization analyses revealed that selective attention to phonology led to significantly greater re cruitment of left-lateralized posterior and extensive temporal regions, which was notably concurrent with the rhyme-relevant information within the word. Furthermore, selective attention effects were specific to auditory stimulus encoding and not observed in response to cues, arguing against the notion that they reflect sustained task setting. Collectively, these results demonstrate that selective attention to phonology dynamically engages a left-lateralized network during the critical time-period of perception for achieving phonological analysis goals. These findings support the key role of selective attention to phonology in the development of literacy and motivate future research on the neural bases of the interaction between phonological

Common region wins the competition between extrinsic grouping cues: Evidence from a task without explicit attention to grouping.

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Montoro, Pedro R; Villalba-García, Cristina; Luna, Dolores; Hinojosa, José A

2017-12-01

The competition between perceptual grouping factors is a relatively ignored topic, especially in the case of extrinsic grouping cues (e.g., common region or connectedness). Recent studies have examined the integration of extrinsic cues using tasks that induce selective attention to groups based on different grouping cues. However, this procedure could generate alternative strategies for task performance, which are non-related to the perceptual grouping operations. In the current work, we used an indirect task, i.e. repetition discrimination task, without explicit attention to grouping cues to further examine the rules that govern dominance between competing extrinsic grouping factors. This procedure allowed us to obtain an unbiased measure of the competition between common region and connectedness cues acting within the same display. The results corroborate previous data showing that grouping by common region dominated the perceived organization of the display, even though the phenomenological strength of the grouping cues was equated for each participant by means of a preliminary scaling task. Our results highlight the relevance of using indirect tasks as an essential tool for the systematic study of the integration of extrinsic grouping cues.

How attention can create synaptic tags for the learning of working memories in sequential tasks.

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Jaldert O Rombouts

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Intelligence is our ability to learn appropriate responses to new stimuli and situations. Neurons in association cortex are thought to be essential for this ability. During learning these neurons become tuned to relevant features and start to represent them with persistent activity during memory delays. This learning process is not well understood. Here we develop a biologically plausible learning scheme that explains how trial-and-error learning induces neuronal selectivity and working memory representations for task-relevant information. We propose that the response selection stage sends attentional feedback signals to earlier processing levels, forming synaptic tags at those connections responsible for the stimulus-response mapping. Globally released neuromodulators then interact with tagged synapses to determine their plasticity. The resulting learning rule endows neural networks with the capacity to create new working memory representations of task relevant information as persistent activity. It is remarkably generic: it explains how association neurons learn to store task-relevant information for linear as well as non-linear stimulus-response mappings, how they become tuned to category boundaries or analog variables, depending on the task demands, and how they learn to integrate probabilistic evidence for perceptual decisions.

Sustained-Paced Finger Tapping: A Novel Approach to Measure Internal Sustained Attention

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Marco A. Petilli

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Sustained attention is a fundamental prerequisite for all cognitive functions and its impairment is a common aftermath of both developmental and acquired neurological disorders. To date, all the sustained attention tasks rely heavily on selective attention to external stimuli. The interaction between selective and sustained attention represents a limit in the field of assessment and may mislead researchers or distort conclusions. The aim of the present perspective study was to propose a sustained version of the Paced Finger Tapping (S-PFT test as a novel approach to measure sustained attention that does not leverage external stimuli. Here, we administered S-PFT and other attentional tasks (visual sustained attention, visuospatial attention capacity, selective attention, and divided attention tasks to 85 adolescents. Thus, we provide evidence suggesting that S-PFT is effective in causing performance decrement over time, an important trademark of sustained attention tasks. We also present descriptive statistics showing the relationship between S-PFT and the other attentional tasks. These analyses show that, unlike visual sustained attention tests, performances to our task of internal sustained attention were not correlated to measures of selective attention and visuospatial attention capacity. Our results suggest that S-PFT could represent a promising and alternative tool both for empirical research and clinical assessment of sustained attention.

Perceptual Load Influences Selective Attention across Development

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Couperus, Jane W.

2011-01-01

Research suggests that visual selective attention develops across childhood. However, there is relatively little understanding of the neurological changes that accompany this development, particularly in the context of adult theories of selective attention, such as N. Lavie's (1995) perceptual load theory of attention. This study examined visual…

More attentional focusing through binaural beats: evidence from the global-local task.

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Colzato, Lorenza S; Barone, Hayley; Sellaro, Roberta; Hommel, Bernhard

2017-01-01

A recent study showed that binaural beats have an impact on the efficiency of allocating attention over time. We were interested to see whether this impact affects attentional focusing or, even further, the top-down control over irrelevant information. Healthy adults listened to gamma-frequency (40 Hz) binaural beats, which are assumed to increase attentional concentration, or a constant tone of 340 Hz (control condition) for 3 min before and during a global-local task. While the size of the congruency effect (indicating the failure to suppress task-irrelevant information) was unaffected by the binaural beats, the global-precedence effect (reflecting attentional focusing) was considerably smaller after gamma-frequency binaural beats than after the control condition. Our findings suggest that high-frequency binaural beats bias the individual attentional processing style towards a reduced spotlight of attention.

The relationship between visual working memory and attention: retention of precise colour information in the absence of effects on perceptual selection.

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Hollingworth, Andrew; Hwang, Seongmin

2013-10-19

We examined the conditions under which a feature value in visual working memory (VWM) recruits visual attention to matching stimuli. Previous work has suggested that VWM supports two qualitatively different states of representation: an active state that interacts with perceptual selection and a passive (or accessory) state that does not. An alternative hypothesis is that VWM supports a single form of representation, with the precision of feature memory controlling whether or not the representation interacts with perceptual selection. The results of three experiments supported the dual-state hypothesis. We established conditions under which participants retained a relatively precise representation of a parcticular colour. If the colour was immediately task relevant, it reliably recruited attention to matching stimuli. However, if the colour was not immediately task relevant, it failed to interact with perceptual selection. Feature maintenance in VWM is not necessarily equivalent with feature-based attentional selection.

The deployment of attention in short-term memory tasks: trade-offs between immediate and delayed deployment.

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Bunting, Michael F; Cowan, Nelson; Colflesh, Greg H

2008-06-01

Memory at times depends on attention, as when attention is used to encode incoming, serial verbal information. When encoding and rehearsal are difficult or when attention is divided during list presentation, more attention is needed in the time following the presentation and just preceding the response. Across 12 experimental conditions observed in several experiments, we demonstrated this by introducing a nonverbal task with three levels of effort (no task, a natural nonverbal task, or an unnatural version of the task) during a brief retention interval in a short-term digit recall task. Interference from the task during the retention interval was greater when resources were drawn away from the encoding of the stimuli by other factors, including unpredictability of the end point of the list, rapid presentation, and a secondary task during list presentation. When those conditions complicate encoding of the list, we argue, attention is needed after the list so that the contents of passive memory (i.e., postcategorical phonological storage and/or precategorical sensory memory) may be retrieved and become the focus of attention for recall.

Sustaining attention to simple visual tasks: a central deficit in schizophrenia? A systematic review.

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Hoonakker, Marc; Doignon-Camus, Nadège; Bonnefond, Anne

2017-11-01

Impairments in sustained attention, that is, the ability to achieve and maintain the focus of cognitive activity on a given stimulation source or task, have been described as central to schizophrenia. Today, sustained attention deficit is still considered as a hallmark of schizophrenia. Nevertheless, current findings on this topic are not consistent. To clarify these findings, we attempt to put these results into perspective according to the type of assessment (i.e., overall and over time assessment), the participants' characteristics (i.e., clinical and demographic characteristics), and the paradigms (i.e., traditionally formatted tasks, go/no-go tasks, and the sustained attention task) and measures used. Two types of assessment lead to opposite findings; they do not evaluate sustained attention the same way. Studies using overall assessments of sustained attention ability tend to reveal a deficit, whereas studies using over time assessments do not. Therefore, further research is needed to investigate the underlying cognitive control mechanisms of changes in sustained attention in schizophrenia. © 2017 New York Academy of Sciences.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Correlates of First-Episode Psychoses during Attentional and Memory Task Performance.

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Del Casale, Antonio; Kotzalidis, Georgios D; Rapinesi, Chiara; Sorice, Serena; Girardi, Nicoletta; Ferracuti, Stefano; Girardi, Paolo

2016-01-01

The nature of the alteration of the response to cognitive tasks in first-episode psychosis (FEP) still awaits clarification. We used activation likelihood estimation, an increasingly used method in evaluating normal and pathological brain function, to identify activation changes in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of FEP during attentional and memory tasks. We included 11 peer-reviewed fMRI studies assessing FEP patients versus healthy controls (HCs) during performance of attentional and memory tasks. Our database comprised 290 patients with FEP, matched with 316 HCs. Between-group analyses showed that HCs, compared to FEP patients, exhibited hyperactivation of the right middle frontal gyrus (Brodmann area, BA, 9), right inferior parietal lobule (BA 40), and right insula (BA 13) during attentional task performances and hyperactivation of the left insula (BA 13) during memory task performances. Right frontal, parietal, and insular dysfunction during attentional task performance and left insular dysfunction during memory task performance are significant neural functional FEP correlates. © 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Countering the Consequences of Ego Depletion: The Effects of Self-Talk on Selective Attention.

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Gregersen, Jón; Hatzigeorgiadis, Antonis; Galanis, Evangelos; Comoutos, Nikos; Papaioannou, Athanasios

2017-06-01

This study examined the effects of a self-talk intervention on selective attention in a state of ego depletion. Participants were 62 undergraduate students with a mean age of 20.02 years (SD = 1.17). The experiment was conducted in four consecutive sessions. Following baseline assessment, participants were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. A two-session training was conducted for the two groups, with the experimental group using self-talk. In the final assessment, participants performed a selective attention test, including visual and auditory components, following a task inducing a state of ego depletion. The analysis showed that participants of the experimental group achieved a higher percentage of correct responses on the visual test and produced faster reaction times in both the visual and the auditory test compared with participants of the control group. The results of this study suggest that the use of self-talk can benefit selective attention for participants in states of ego depletion.

Deficient attention is hard to find: applying the perceptual load model of selective attention to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder subtypes.

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Huang-Pollock, Cynthia L; Nigg, Joel T; Carr, Thomas H

2005-11-01

Whether selective attention is a primary deficit in childhood Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) remains in active debate. We used the perceptual load paradigm to examine both early and late selective attention in children with the Primarily Inattentive (ADHD-I) and Combined subtypes (ADHD-C) of ADHD. No evidence emerged for selective attention deficits in either of the subtypes, but sluggish cognitive tempo was associated with abnormal early selection. At least some, and possibly most, children with DSM-IV ADHD have normal selective attention. Results support the move away from theories of attention dysfunction as primary in ADHD-C. In ADHD-I, this was one of the first formal tests of posterior attention network dysfunction, and results did not support that theory. However, ADHD children with sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) warrant more study for possible early selective attention deficits.

Household Task Participation of Children with and without Attentional Problems

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Dunn, Louise; Coster, Wendy J.; Orsmond, Gael I.; Cohn, Ellen S.

2009-01-01

Children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often demonstrate problems in their participation in family occupations, such as household tasks, due to their needs for assistance and their behavior. Because participation in household tasks is part of family life and may be one way that families prepare children for adult roles, it…

Effects of task-irrelevant grouping on visual selection in partial report

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lunau, Rasmus; Habekost, Thomas

2017-01-01

and the selection criterion was luminance. This effect was accompanied by impaired selectivity in unsorted-color trials. Overall, the results suggest that the benefit of task-irrelevant color grouping of targets is contingent on the processing locus of the selection criterion....... the color of the elements in these trials. In the sorted-color condition, the color of the display elements was arranged according to the selection criterion, and in the unsorted-color condition, colors were randomly assigned. The distractor cost was inferred by subtracting performance in partial......-report trials from performance in a control condition that had no distractors in the display. Across five experiments, we manipulated trial order, selection criterion, and exposure duration, and found that attentional selectivity was improved in sorted-color trials when the exposure duration was 200 ms...

Selective Attention to Visual Stimuli Using Auditory Distractors Is Altered in Alpha-9 Nicotinic Receptor Subunit Knock-Out Mice.

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Terreros, Gonzalo; Jorratt, Pascal; Aedo, Cristian; Elgoyhen, Ana Belén; Delano, Paul H

2016-07-06

During selective attention, subjects voluntarily focus their cognitive resources on a specific stimulus while ignoring others. Top-down filtering of peripheral sensory responses by higher structures of the brain has been proposed as one of the mechanisms responsible for selective attention. A prerequisite to accomplish top-down modulation of the activity of peripheral structures is the presence of corticofugal pathways. The mammalian auditory efferent system is a unique neural network that originates in the auditory cortex and projects to the cochlear receptor through the olivocochlear bundle, and it has been proposed to function as a top-down filter of peripheral auditory responses during attention to cross-modal stimuli. However, to date, there is no conclusive evidence of the involvement of olivocochlear neurons in selective attention paradigms. Here, we trained wild-type and α-9 nicotinic receptor subunit knock-out (KO) mice, which lack cholinergic transmission between medial olivocochlear neurons and outer hair cells, in a two-choice visual discrimination task and studied the behavioral consequences of adding different types of auditory distractors. In addition, we evaluated the effects of contralateral noise on auditory nerve responses as a measure of the individual strength of the olivocochlear reflex. We demonstrate that KO mice have a reduced olivocochlear reflex strength and perform poorly in a visual selective attention paradigm. These results confirm that an intact medial olivocochlear transmission aids in ignoring auditory distraction during selective attention to visual stimuli. The auditory efferent system is a neural network that originates in the auditory cortex and projects to the cochlear receptor through the olivocochlear system. It has been proposed to function as a top-down filter of peripheral auditory responses during attention to cross-modal stimuli. However, to date, there is no conclusive evidence of the involvement of olivocochlear

Attentional selection within and across hemispheres: implications for the perceptual load theory.