Abstract
Attention capacities, alerting responses, orienting to sensory stimulation, and executive monitoring of performance are considered independent yet interrelated systems. These operations play integral roles in regulating the behavior of diverse species along the evolutionary ladder. Each of the primary attention constructs—alerting, orienting, and executive monitoring—involves salient autonomic correlates as evidenced by changes in reactive pupil dilation (PD), heart rate, and skin conductance. Recent technological advances that use remote high-resolution recording may allow the discernment of temporo-spatial attributes of autonomic responses that characterize the alerting, orienting, and executive monitoring networks during free viewing, irrespective of voluntary performance. This may deepen the understanding of the roles of autonomic regulation in these mental operations and may deepen our understanding of behavioral changes in verbal as well as in non-verbal species. The aim of this study was to explore differences between psychosensory PD responses in alerting, orienting, and executive conflict monitoring tasks to generate estimates of concurrent locus coeruleus (LC) noradrenergic input trajectories in healthy human adults using the attention networks test (ANT). The analysis revealed a construct-specific pattern of pupil responses: alerting is characterized by an early component (Pa), its acceleration enables covert orienting, and executive control is evidenced by a prominent late component (Pe). PD characteristics seem to be task-sensitive, allowing exploration of mental operations irrespective of conscious voluntary responses. These data may facilitate development of studies designed to assess mental operations in diverse species using autonomic responses.
Highlights
Alerting responses; orienting to sensory stimulation; and monitoring of thoughts, actions, and emotions play integral roles in multiple psychological and psychopathological processes, including target detection in complex environments and in monitoring processes
Pa and prominent late component (Pe) amplitudes were calculated as the difference in pupil dilation (PD) in Pa and Pe, respectively, relative to PD at the time of the cue onset, which marks the beginning of the active phase of the trial
The current study contributes to existing attention regulation literature in three ways: (1) Highlighting specific PD activity in all attention networks: Using the attention network framework, it was evident that PD is evoked in each attention network in a constructspecific manner
Summary
Alerting responses; orienting to sensory stimulation; and monitoring of thoughts, actions, and emotions play integral roles in multiple psychological and psychopathological processes, including target detection in complex environments and in monitoring processes These operations are important in regulating the behavior of multiple species along the evolutionary ladder (Romberg et al, 2013). Each of the primary attention constructs—alerting, orienting, and executive control monitoring—involves salient autonomic correlates as evidenced by changes in reactive pupil dilation (PD, Gilzenrat et al, 2010; Gabay et al, 2011; Nassar et al, 2012), heart rate (Richards and Casey, 1991), and skin conductance (Frith and Allen, 1983). Recent technological advances in recording PD at high resolution introduces the potential to examine autonomic temporo-spatial differences in order to tell alerting, orienting, and executive control apart by reading PD patterns
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