Evidence on the ssvep account of pre-target differences in EEG alpha activity in the attentional blink

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Evidence on the ssvep account of pre-target differences in EEG alpha activity in the attentional blink Jolanda Janson1*, Jeremy D. Thorne1 and Cornelia Kranczioch1 1 Carl von Ossietzky University, Germany The attentional blink (AB) is a deficit in detecting the second of two targets (T1, T2) if T1 and T2 are presented in a rapid stream of distractors within 200-500 ms of one another. Previous research suggests that missing T2 is related to an increase in EEG alpha activity well before the presentation of T1, yet the design of these studies does not allow differentiating whether this is related to a modulation of intrinsically generated alpha activity or a modulation of the steady state visual evoked potential (ssVEP) induced by the rapid stimulus stream. The latter would be indicative of too much attention being paid to the distractor stream in T2 miss trials. This interpretation would be supported if experimentally manipulating the attentional resources drawn by the distractor stream affects the AB. This was tested in the present study. The first experiment (n = 14) consisted of three conditions: a skeletal AB paradigm (only T1, T2, T1+1, T2+1 stimuli; no distactors), various meaningless stimuli as distractors, and numbers as distractors. Targets were letters. As expected, the AB deficit was significantly smallest in the skeletal condition. However, the two other conditions did not differ from one another. A second experiment (n = 10) was run in which instead of various meaningless stimuli the same meaningless stimulus was used repeatedly in the meaningless distractor condition. T2 performance was similar now to the skeletal condition and significantly different from the number distractor condition. This suggests that if distractors capture attention the AB increases, even if distractors are highly dissimilar to the targets and supports the idea that enhanced pre-target alpha activity in the AB reflects an overinvestment of attentional resources to the distractor stream. Funding: This research was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to CK (KR 3433/2-1). Keywords: Attention, Awareness Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Sessions: Consciousness and Awareness Citation: Janson J, Thorne JD and Kranczioch C (2011). Evidence on the ssvep account of pre-target differences in EEG alpha activity in the attentional blink. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00548 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 15 Nov 2011; Published Online: 28 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Jolanda Janson, Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg, Germany, jolanda.janson@uni-oldenburg.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Jolanda Janson Jeremy D Thorne Cornelia Kranczioch Google Jolanda Janson Jeremy D Thorne Cornelia Kranczioch Google Scholar Jolanda Janson Jeremy D Thorne Cornelia Kranczioch PubMed Jolanda Janson Jeremy D Thorne Cornelia Kranczioch Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.