Abstract
Selective attention refers to the selecting and preferential processing of specific information while simultaneously suppressing irrelevant distractors, activities linked to various cognitive skills and academic achievements. The influence of essential oils on the cognition of humans has been extensively explored. However, the effects of essential oils on human selective attention and the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. In the present study, participants were divided into a “blended essential oil” group and a “no essential oil” group and enrolled on a negative priming task, including a control condition and a negative priming condition. The event-related potential technique was used to examine the brain mechanisms underlying the blended essential oil effects on human selective attention. Behavioral results showed that individuals responded more quickly in the negative priming condition when exposed to the blended essential oil. In addition, the blended essential oil eliminated the differences in the P300 amplitude in the postcentral area of the brain between the negative priming condition and the control condition. Moreover, the blended essential oil led to stronger functional connectivity during the task. The present study thus suggests that blended essential oil can significantly change brain activity and functional connections in human beings, which may improve human selective attention.
Highlights
In daily life, we are presented with large amounts of information, but the capacity of the cognitive system is limited [1]
The response time in the negative priming condition was significantly longer compared with the control condition
The blended essential oil group showed a shorter response time compared to the no essential oil group
Summary
We are presented with large amounts of information, but the capacity of the cognitive system is limited [1]. It is essential for us to attend selectively to goal-relevant information while inhibiting distracting or irrelevant information. The mental process through which this is done is called selective attention. Many studies have demonstrated that performance on selective attention tasks is closely correlated with academic skills in general [2,3,4] and with specific cognitive abilities, including working memory [5], speech processing [6], and nonverbal intelligence [7]. Selective attention deficiency may be partially involved in certain neural disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder [8] and attention deficit disorder [9]. It is important to take suitable measures to improve human selective attention
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