Abstract
The AB refers to the performance impairment that occurs when visual selective attention is overloaded through the very rapid succession of two targets (T1 and T2) among distractors by using the rapid serial visual presentation task (RSVP). Under these conditions, performance is typically impaired when T2 is presented within 200–500 ms from T1 (AB). Based on neuroimaging studies suggesting a role of top-down attention and working memory brain hubs in the AB, here we potentiated via anodal or sham tDCS the activity of the right DLPFC (F4) and of the right PPC (P4) during an AB task. The findings showed that anodal tDCS over the F4 and over P4 had similar effects on the AB. Importantly, potentiating the activity of the right frontoparietal network via anodal tDCS only benefitted poor performers, reducing the AB, whereas in good performers it accentuated the AB. The contribution of the present findings is twofold: it shows both top-down and bottom-up contributions of the right frontoparietal network in the AB, and it indicates that there is an optimal level of excitability of this network, resulting from the individual level of activation and the intensity of current stimulation.
Highlights
Our visual attention is limited in the amount of information that can be processed at any given moment; selection is essential to guarantee that relevant stimuli are not missed
Via anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), the neural activity of the rDLPFC may improve temporal selective attention and reduce the attentional blink (AB) as the rDLPFC is the area of converging afferences from the dorsal attention stream involved in top-down modulation of attention as well as from the ventral attention stream, involved in distractor inhibition and visual short-term memory
Results with tDCS session and stimulation site (P4, F4) as between-subject factors showed no significant differences between the two tDCS sessions, F (1, 38) = 2.56, p = 0.118 and between stimulation site, F (1, 38) = 0.247, p = 0.622
Summary
Our visual attention is limited in the amount of information that can be processed at any given moment; selection is essential to guarantee that relevant stimuli are not missed. In the RSVP, stimuli are presented in foveal vision, at a rate of about ten items per second, and participants’ task is to detect and report two targets appearing among distractors. The temporal distance (lag) between the first (T1) and the second target (T2) is manipulated. Under these conditions, our ability to report T2 is severely compromised when it follows T1 within a time window of 200–500 milliseconds: a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB); [1,2]. Performance for T2 is spared when the two targets are presented in immediate succession (lag 1 sparing) or when T2 appears at later lags
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