Target detection increases pupil diameter and enhances memory for background scenes during multi-tasking

Khena M Swallow,Yuhong V Jiang,Elizabeth B Riley

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-41658-4

Khena M Swallow, Yuhong V Jiang + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-41658-4

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Journal: Scientific Reports	Publication Date: Mar 27, 2019
Citations: 14	License type: open-access

Affiliation: Cornell University, University of Minnesota

Abstract

Attending to targets in a detection task can facilitate memory for concurrently presented information, a phenomenon known as the attentional boost effect. One account of the attentional boost suggests that it reflects the temporal selection of behaviorally relevant moments, broadly facilitating the processing of information encountered at these times. Because pupil diameter increases when orienting to behaviorally relevant events and is positively correlated with increases in gain and activity in the locus coeruleus (a purported neurophysiological mechanism for temporal selection), we tested whether the attentional boost effect is accompanied by an increase in pupil diameter. Participants memorized a series of individually presented scenes. Whenever a scene appeared, a high or low pitched tone was played, and participants counted (and later reported) the number of tones in the pre-specified, target pitch. Target detection enhanced later memory for concurrently presented scenes. It was accompanied by a larger pupil response than was distractor rejection, and this effect was more pronounced for subsequently remembered rather than forgotten scenes. Thus, conditions that produce the attentional boost effect may also elicit phasic changes in neural gain and locus coeruleus activity.

Highlights

Dividing attention across multiple tasks and stimuli typically results in poorer task performance[1]
In the attentional boost effect images that appear at the same time as an unrelated target for one task are later better remembered than images that coincide with other, nontarget, items[3,4,5]
The dual-task interaction account of the attentional boost effect proposes that the categorization of an item as a target triggers a temporal selection mechanism that briefly, but broadly enhances the processing of information present during behaviorally relevant moments[14]

Summary

Introduction

Dividing attention across multiple tasks and stimuli typically results in poorer task performance[1]. Because the attentional boost effect does not occur when the target precedes or trails the image by 100 ms[18], it is unlikely to result from the fact that some images predict the presence of the target, or vice versa Based on these data, the dual-task interaction account of the attentional boost effect proposes that the categorization of an item as a target triggers a temporal selection mechanism that briefly, but broadly enhances the processing of information present during behaviorally relevant moments[14]. Salient, surprising, or goal-relevant task events, such as a target or auditory tone, often elicit transient increases in pupil diameter (phasic pupil response[30,41,42,43,44])

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