scholarly journals Sustaining attention for a prolonged period of time increases temporal variability in cortical responses

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leon C. Reteig ◽  
Ruud L. van den Brink ◽  
Sam Prinssen ◽  
Michael X Cohen ◽  
Heleen A. Slagter
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Temporal Variability ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Initial Level ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Time On Task ◽  
Vigilance Decrement ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Related Potentials

AbstractOur ability to stay focused is limited: prolonged performance of a task typically results in mental fatigue and decrements in performance over time. This so-called vigilance decrement has been attributed to depletion of attentional resources, though other factors such as reductions in motivation likely also play a role. In this study, we examined three EEG markers of attentional control, to elucidate which stage of attentional processing is most affected by time-on-task and motivation. To elicit the vigilance decrement, participants performed a sustained attention task for 80 minutes without breaks. After 60 minutes, participants were motivated by an unexpected monetary incentive to increase performance in the final 20 minutes. We found that task performance and self-reported motivation declined rapidly, reaching a stable levels well before the motivation manipulation was introduced. Thereafter, motivation increased back up to the initial level, and remained there for the final 20 minutes. While task performance also increased, it did not return to the initial level, and fell to the lowest level overall during the final 10 minutes. This pattern of performance changes was mirrored by the trial-to-trial consistency of the phase of theta (3–7 Hz) oscillations, an index of the variability in timing of the neural response to the stimulus. As task performance decreased, temporal variability increased, suggesting that attentional stability is crucial for sustained attention performance. The effects of attention on our two other EEG measures—early P1/N1 event-related potentials and pre-stimulus alpha (9–14 Hz) power—did not change with time-on-task or motivation. In sum, these findings show that the vigilance decrement is accompanied by a decline in only some facets of attentional control, which cannot be fully brought back online by increases in motivation. The vigilance decrement might thus not occur due to a single cause, but is likely multifactorial in origin.

scholarly journals Modulation of Event-related Potentials of Visual Discrimination by Meditation Training and Sustained Attention

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 1184-1204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony P. Zanesco ◽  
Brandon G. King ◽  
Chivon Powers ◽  
Rosanna De Meo ◽  
Kezia Wineberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Continuous Performance ◽  
Perceptual Discrimination ◽  
Continuous Performance Task ◽  
Performance Task ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Discrimination Capacity

The ability to discriminate among goal-relevant stimuli tends to diminish when detections must be made continuously over time. Previously, we reported that intensive training in shamatha (focused-attention) meditation can improve perceptual discrimination of difficult-to-detect visual stimuli [MacLean, K. A., Ferrer, E., Aichele, S. R., Bridwell, D. A., Zanesco, A. P., Jacobs, T. L., et al. Intensive meditation training improves perceptual discrimination and sustained attention. Psychological Science, 21, 829–839, 2010]. Here we extend these findings to examine how discrimination difficulty and meditation training interact to modulate event-related potentials of attention and perceptual processing during vigilance. Training and wait-list participants completed a continuous performance task at the beginning, middle, and end of two 3-month meditation interventions. In the first intervention (Retreat 1), the continuous performance task target was adjusted across assessments to match training-related changes in participants' perceptual capacity. In the second intervention (Retreat 2), the target was held constant across training, irrespective of changes in discrimination capacity. No training effects were observed in Retreat 1, whereas Retreat 2 was associated with changes in the onset of early sensory signals and an attenuation of within-task decrements at early latencies. In addition, changes at later stimulus processing stages were directly correlated with improvements in perceptual threshold across the second intervention. Overall, these findings demonstrate that improvements in perceptual discrimination can modulate electrophysiological markers of perceptual processing and attentional control during sustained attention, but likely only under conditions where an individual's discrimination capacity is allowed to exceed the demand imposed by the difficulty of a visual target. These results contribute to basic understanding of the dependence of perceptual processing and attentional control to contextual demands and their susceptibility to directed mental training.

scholarly journals Effects of mid-frontal brain stimulation on sustained attention

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martine R. van Schouwenburg ◽  
Ilja G. Sligte ◽  
Michael R. Giffin ◽  
Franziska Günther ◽  
Dirk Koster ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Electrical Current ◽  
Time On Task ◽  
Vigilance Decrement ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Frontal Brain ◽  
Subject Design ◽  
Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation ◽  
Over Time

AbstractSustained attention is defined as the ability to maintain attention over longer periods of time, which typically declines with time on task (i.e., the vigilance decrement). Previous studies have suggested an important role for the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in sustained attention. In two experiments, we aimed to enhance sustained attention by applying transcranial electrical current stimulation over the mPFC during a sustained attention task. In the first experiment, we applied transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in a between-subject design (n=97): participants received either anodal, cathodal, or sham stimulation. Contrary to our prediction, we found no effect of stimulation on the vigilance decrement. In the second experiment, participants received theta and alpha transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) in two separate sessions (n=47, within-subject design). Here, we found a frequency-dependent effect on the vigilance decrement, such that contrary to our expectation, participants’ performance over time became worse after theta compared to alpha stimulation. However, this result needs to be interpreted with caution given that this effect could be driven by differential side effects between the two stimulation frequencies. To conclude, across two studies, we were not able to reduce the vigilant decrement using tDCS or theta tACS.

scholarly journals Modulation of event-related potentials of visual discrimination by meditation training and sustained attention

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Paul Zanesco ◽  
Brandon King ◽  
Chivon Powers ◽  
Rosanna De Meo ◽  
Kezia Wineberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Perceptual Discrimination ◽  
Continuous Performance Task ◽  
Intensive Training ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Discrimination Capacity ◽  
Perceptual Threshold

The ability to discriminate among goal-relevant stimuli tends to diminish when detections must be made continuously over time. Previously, we reported that intensive training in shamatha (focused-attention) meditation can improve perceptual discrimination of difficult-to-detect visual stimuli (MacLean et al., 2010). Here we extend these findings to examine how discrimination difficulty and meditation training interact to modulate event-related potentials of attention and perceptual processing during vigilance. Training and wait-list participants completed a continuous performance task (CPT) at the beginning, middle, and end of two 3-month meditation interventions. In the first intervention (Retreat 1), the CPT target was adjusted across assessments to match training-related changes in participants’ perceptual capacity. In the second intervention (Retreat 2), the target was held constant across training, irrespective of changes in discrimination capacity. No training effects were observed in Retreat 1, whereas Retreat 2 was associated with changes in the onset of early sensory signals and an attenuation of within-task decrements at early latencies. In addition, changes at later stimulus processing stages were directly correlated with improvements in perceptual threshold across the second intervention. Overall, these findings demonstrate that improvements in perceptual discrimination can modulate electrophysiological markers of perceptual processing and attentional control during sustained attention, but likely only under conditions where an individuals’ discrimination capacity is allowed to exceed the demand imposed by the difficulty of a visual target. These results contribute to basic understanding of the dependence of perceptual processing and attentional control to contextual demands, and their susceptibility to directed mental training.

scholarly journals Expectancy of Stress-Reducing Aromatherapy Effect and Performance on a Stress-Sensitive Cognitive Task

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Chamine ◽  
Barry S. Oken
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Stress Reduction ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Specific Effects ◽  
N200 Amplitude ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
And Performance

Objective. Stress-reducing therapies help maintain cognitive performance during stress. Aromatherapy is popular for stress reduction, but its effectiveness and mechanism are unclear. This study examined stress-reducing effects of aromatherapy on cognitive function using the go/no-go (GNG) task performance and event related potentials (ERP) components sensitive to stress. The study also assessed the importance of expectancy in aromatherapy actions.Methods. 81 adults were randomized to 3 aroma groups (active experimental, detectable, and undetectable placebo) and 2 prime subgroups (prime suggesting stress-reducing aroma effects or no-prime). GNG performance, ERPs, subjective expected aroma effects, and stress ratings were assessed at baseline and poststress.Results. No specific aroma effects on stress or cognition were observed. However, regardless of experienced aroma, people receiving a prime displayed faster poststress median reaction times than those receiving no prime. A significant interaction for N200 amplitude indicated divergent ERP patterns between baseline and poststress for go and no-go stimuli depending on the prime subgroup. Furthermore, trends for beneficial prime effects were shown on poststress no-go N200/P300 latencies and N200 amplitude.Conclusion. While there were no aroma-specific effects on stress or cognition, these results highlight the role of expectancy for poststress response inhibition and attention.

scholarly journals Two Types of Action Error: Electrophysiological Evidence for Separable Inhibitory and Sustained Attention Neural Mechanisms Producing Error on Go/No-go Tasks

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Redmond G. O'Connell ◽  
Paul M. Dockree ◽  
Mark A. Bellgrove ◽  
Alessandra Turin ◽  
Seamus Ward ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Response Inhibition ◽  
Response Competition ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Random Order ◽  
Goal Maintenance ◽  
Error Related Negativity ◽  
Electrophysiological Evidence ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Fixed Condition

Disentangling the component processes that contribute to human executive control is a key challenge for cognitive neuroscience. Here, we employ event-related potentials to provide electrophysiological evidence that action errors during a go/no-go task can result either from sustained attention failures or from failures of response inhibition, and that these two processes are temporally and physiologically dissociable, although the behavioral error—a nonintended response—is the same. Thirteen right-handed participants performed a version of a go/no-go task in which stimuli were presented in a fixed and predictable order, thus encouraging attentional drift, and a second version in which an identical set of stimuli was presented in a random order, thus placing greater emphasis on response inhibition. Electrocortical markers associated with goal maintenance (late positivity, alpha synchronization) distinguished correct and incorrect performance in the fixed condition, whereas errors in the random condition were linked to a diminished N2–P3 inhibitory complex. In addition, the amplitude of the error-related negativity did not differ between correct and incorrect responses in the fixed condition, consistent with the view that errors in this condition do not arise from a failure to resolve response competition. Our data provide an electrophysiological dissociation of sustained attention and response inhibition.

scholarly journals Fear not! Anxiety biases attentional enhancement of threat without impairing working memory filtering

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Salahub ◽  
Stephen Emrich
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
State Anxiety ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Memory Storage ◽  
Attentional Biases ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Filtering Efficiency ◽  
Memory Resources

Individuals with anxiety have attentional biases toward threat-related distractors. This deficit in attentional control has been shown to impact visual working memory (VWM) filtering efficiency, as anxious individuals inappropriately store threatening distractors in VWM. It remains unclear, however, whether this mis-allocation of memory resources is due to inappropriate attentional enhancement of threatening distractors, or to a failure in suppression. Here, we used a systematically lateralized VWM task with fearful and neutral faces to examine event-related potentials related to attentional selection (N2pc), suppression (PD), and working memory maintenance (CDA). We found that state anxiety correlated with attentional enhancement of threat-related distractors, such that more anxious individuals had larger N2pc amplitudes toward fearful distractors than neutral distractors. However, there was no correlation between anxiety and memory storage of fearful distractors (CDA). These findings demonstrate that anxiety biases attention toward fearful distractors, but that this bias does not always guarantee increased memory storage of threat-related distractors.

scholarly journals Auditory attention alterations in migraine: a behavioral and MEG/EEG study

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rémy Masson ◽  
Yohana Lévêque ◽  
Geneviève Demarquay ◽  
Hesham ElShafei ◽  
Lesly Fornoni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Orienting Response ◽  
List Type ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Attentional Processes ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
The Right ◽  
Task Irrelevant

AbstractObjectivesTo evaluate alterations of top-down and/or bottom-up attention in migraine and their cortical underpinnings.Methods19 migraineurs between attacks and 19 matched control participants performed a task evaluating jointly top-down and bottom-up attention, using visually-cued target sounds and unexpected task-irrelevant distracting sounds. Behavioral responses and MEG/EEG were recorded. Event-related potentials and fields (ERPs/ERFs) were processed and source reconstruction was applied to ERFs.ResultsAt the behavioral level, neither top-down nor bottom-up attentional processes appeared to be altered in migraine. However, migraineurs presented heightened evoked responses following distracting sounds (orienting component of the N1 and Re-Orienting Negativity, RON) and following target sounds (orienting component of the N1), concomitant to an increased recruitment of the right temporo-parietal junction. They also displayed an increased effect of the cue informational value on target processing resulting in the elicitation of a negative difference (Nd).ConclusionsMigraineurs appear to display increased bottom-up orienting response to all incoming sounds, and an enhanced recruitment of top-down attention.SignificanceThe interictal state in migraine is characterized by an exacerbation of the orienting response to attended and unattended sounds. These attentional alterations might participate to the peculiar vulnerability of the migraine brain to all incoming stimuli.HighlightsMigraineurs performed as well as healthy participants in an attention task.However, EEG markers of both bottom-up and top-down attention are increased.Migraine is also associated with a facilitated recruitment of the right temporo-parietal junction.

Assessment of Reactive Motor Performance with Event-Related Brain Potentials: Attention Processes in Elite Table Tennis Players

2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsung-Min Hung ◽  
Thomas W. Spalding ◽  
D. Laine Santa Maria ◽  
Bradley D. Hatfield
Keyword(s):  
Visual Attention ◽  
Hand Movement ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Lower Probability ◽  
Table Tennis ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Tennis Players ◽  
Readiness Potentials ◽  
Related Potentials

Motor readiness, visual attention, and reaction time (RT) were assessed in 15 elite table tennis players (TTP) and 15 controls (C) during Posner’s cued attention task. Lateralized readiness potentials (LRP) were derived from contingent negative variation (CNV) at Sites C3 and C4, elicited between presentation of directional cueing (S1) and the appearance of the imperative stimulus (S2), to assess preparation for hand movement while P1 and N1 component amplitudes were derived from occipital event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to S2 to assess visual attention. Both groups had faster RT to validly cued stimuli and slower RT to invalidly cued stimuli relative to the RT to neutral stimuli that were not preceded by directional cueing, but the groups did not differ in attention benefit or cost. However, TTP did have faster RT to all imperative stimuli; they maintained superior reactivity to S2 whether preceded by valid, invalid, or neutral warning cues. Although both groups generated LRP in response to the directional cues, TTP generated larger LRP to prepare the corresponding hand for movement to the side of the cued location. TTP also had an inverse cueing effect for N1 amplitude (i.e., amplitude of N1 to the invalid cue > amplitude of N1 to the valid cue) while C visually attended to the expected and unexpected locations equally. It appears that TTP preserve superior reactivity to stimuli of uncertain location by employing a compensatory strategy to prepare their motor response to an event associated with high probability, while simultaneously devoting more visual attention to an upcoming event of lower probability.

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