scholarly journals Anticipatory distractor suppression elicited by statistical regularities in visual search

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benchi Wang ◽  
Joram van Driel ◽  
Eduard Ort ◽  
Jan Theeuwes
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Cortical Activity ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Distractor Location ◽  
Alpha Oscillations ◽  
Statistical Regularities ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Human Participants

AbstractSalient yet irrelevant objects often capture our attention and interfere with our daily tasks. Distraction by salient objects can be reduced by suppressing the location where they are likely to appear. The question we addressed here was whether suppression of frequent distractors is already implemented beforehand, in anticipation of the stimulus. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we recorded cortical activity of human participants searching for a target while ignoring a salient distractor. The distractor was presented more often at one location than at any other location. We found reduced capture for distractors at frequent locations, indicating that participants learned to avoid distraction. Critically, we found evidence for proactive suppression as already prior to display onset, there was enhanced power in parieto-occipital alpha oscillations contralateral to the frequent distractor location – a signal known to occur in anticipation of irrelevant information. Locked to display onset, event-related potentials analysis showed a distractor-suppression-related PD component for this location. Importantly, this PD was found regardless of whether distracting information was presented at the frequent location. In addition, there was an early PD component representing an early attentional index of the frequent distractor location. Our results are show anticipatory (proactive) suppression of frequent distractor locations in visual search already starting prior to display onset.

scholarly journals Anticipatory Distractor Suppression Elicited by Statistical Regularities in Visual Search

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (10) ◽  
pp. 1535-1548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benchi Wang ◽  
Joram van Driel ◽  
Eduard Ort ◽  
Jan Theeuwes
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Cortical Activity ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Distractor Location ◽  
Alpha Oscillations ◽  
Statistical Regularities ◽  
Human Participants

Salient yet irrelevant objects often capture our attention and interfere with our daily tasks. Distraction by salient objects can be reduced by suppressing the location where they are likely to appear. The question we addressed here was whether suppression of frequent distractor locations is already implemented beforehand, in anticipation of the stimulus. Using EEG, we recorded cortical activity of human participants searching for a target while ignoring a salient distractor. The distractor was presented more often at one location than at any other location. We found reduced capture for distractors at frequent locations, indicating that participants learned to avoid distraction. Critically, we found evidence for “proactive suppression” as already “prior to display onset,” there was enhanced power in parieto-occipital alpha oscillations contralateral to the frequent distractor location—a signal known to occur in anticipation of irrelevant information. Locked to display onset, ERP analysis showed a distractor suppression-related distractor positivity (PD) component for this location. Importantly, this PD was found regardless of whether distracting information was presented at the frequent location. In addition, there was an early PD component representing an early attentional index of the frequent distractor location. Our results show anticipatory (proactive) suppression of frequent distractor locations in visual search already starting prior to display onset.

Age-related differences in processing irrelevant information: Evidence from event-related potentials

2009 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 577-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonino Vallesi ◽  
Donald T. Stuss ◽  
Anthony R. McIntosh ◽  
Terence W. Picton
Keyword(s):  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Related Potentials

Movement-Related Potentials and Event-Related Potentials

2016 ◽  
pp. 693-699
Author(s):  
Rene L. Utianski ◽  
John N. Caviness
Keyword(s):  
Neurological Disease ◽  
Rare Event ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Cortical Activity ◽  
Auditory Stimulation ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
The Subject ◽  
P Movement ◽  
Electrophysiological Correlate ◽  
Semantic Comprehension

Movement-related cortical potentials (MRCPs) are EEG potentials that occur with movement and are recorded using surface scalp electrodes. A technique termed “EEG-EMG back-averaging” is used to obtain MRCPs. The earliest recordable MRCP is the Bereitschaftspotential or readiness potential. Special EEG averaging techniques may also be used to study the cortical processes underlying cognition. Event-related potentials (ERPs) record the cortical activity evoked by a stimulus charged with cognitive significance. The P300 is the most commonly recorded ERP, elicited in an oddball technique of auditory stimulation; the subject is instructed to attend to a rare stimulus presented among a string of frequent stimuli. Only trials triggered by this rare event are averaged. The P300 may be the electrophysiological correlate of selected attention. The N400, another ERP, is assessed during semantic comprehension of language. The chapter discusses normal variants of MRCPs and ERPs, as well as disruptions secondary to neurological disease.

Intermodal Compensatory Effects in a Visual Search Task with Congenitally Deaf Adults

Perception ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 25 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 147-147
Author(s):  
P Stivalet ◽  
Y Moreno ◽  
C Cian ◽  
J Richard ◽  
P-A Barraud
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Search Task ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Normal Subjects ◽  
Stimulus Onset ◽  
Search Pattern ◽  
York Academy ◽  
Related Potentials

In a visual search paradigm we measured the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between a stimulus and a mask that was required to reach 90% correct responses. This procedure has the advantage of taking into account the real processing time and excluding the time for the generation of the motor response. Twelve congenitally deaf adult subjects and twelve normal subjects were given a visual search task for a target letter O among a varying number of distractor letters Q and vice-versa. In both groups we found the asymmetrical visual search pattern classically observed with parallel processing for the search for the target Q and with serial processing for the search for the target O (Treisman, 1985 Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image Processing31 156 – 177). The difference between the mean search slopes for an O target was not statistically significant between the groups; this might be due to the variability within the groups. The visual search amidst the congenitally deaf does not seem to benefit from a compensatory effect in relation to the acoustic deprivation. Our results seem to confirm data reported by Neville (1990 Annals of the New York Academy of Science 71 – 91) obtained by an electrophysiological technique based on event-related potentials. Nevertheless, the deaf subjects were 2.5 times faster at the visual search task.

Electrophysiological Correlates of Key and Harmony Processing in 3-year-old Children

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 435-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen A. Corrigall ◽  
Laurel J. Trainor
Keyword(s):  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Implicit Knowledge ◽  
Musical Pitch ◽  
Very Young Children ◽  
Pitch Structure ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Statistical Regularities ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Anterior Negativity ◽  
Structural Aspects

Infants and children are able to track statistical regularities in perceptual input, which allows them to acquire structural aspects of language and music, such as syntax. However, much more is known about the development of linguistic compared to musical syntax. In the present study, we examined 3.5-year-olds’ implicit knowledge of Western musical pitch structure using electroencephalography (EEG). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured while children listened to chord sequences that either 1) followed Western harmony rules, 2) ended on a chord that went outside the key, or 3) ended on an in-key but less expected chord harmonically. Whereas adults tend to show an early right anterior negativity (ERAN) in response to unexpected chords (Koelsch, 2009), 3.5-year-olds in our study showed an immature response that was positive rather than negative in polarity. Our results suggest that very young children exhibit implicit knowledge of the pitch structure of Western music years before they have been shown to demonstrate that knowledge in behavioral tasks.

Event-related potentials dissociate perceptual from response-related age effects in visual search

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 973-985 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Wiegand ◽  
Kathrin Finke ◽  
Hermann J. Müller ◽  
Thomas Töllner
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Age Effects ◽  
Related Potentials

scholarly journals Pre-Stimulus Alpha-Band Phase Gates Afferent Visual Cortex Responses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Dou ◽  
Audrey Morrow ◽  
Luca Iemi ◽  
Jason Samaha
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Alpha Phase ◽  
Alpha Activity ◽  
Alpha Band ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Alpha Oscillations ◽  
Related Potentials

The neurogenesis of alpha-band (8-13 Hz) activity has been characterized across many different animal experiments. However, the functional role that alpha oscillations play in perception and behavior has largely been attributed to two contrasting hypotheses, with human evidence in favor of either (or both or neither) remaining sparse. On the one hand, alpha generators have been observed in relay sectors of the visual thalamus and are postulated to phasically inhibit afferent visual input in a feedforward manner 1-4. On the other hand, evidence also suggests that the direction of influence of alpha activity propagates backwards along the visual hierarchy, reflecting a feedback influence upon the visual cortex 5-9. The primary source of human evidence regarding the role of alpha phase in visual processing has been on perceptual reports 10-16, which could be modulated either by feedforward or feedback alpha activity. Thus, although these two hypotheses are not mutually exclusive, human evidence clearly supporting either one is lacking. Here, we present human subjects with large, high-contrast visual stimuli that elicit robust C1 event-related potentials (ERP), which peak between 70-80 milliseconds post-stimulus and are thought to reflect afferent primary visual cortex (V1) input 17-20. We find that the phase of ongoing alpha oscillations modulates the global field power (GFP) of the EEG during this first volley of stimulus processing (the C1 time-window). On the standard assumption 21-23 that this early activity reflects postsynaptic potentials being relayed to visual cortex from the thalamus, our results suggest that alpha phase gates visual responses during the first feed-forward sweep of processing.

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