Attention To Conditions Research Articles

The Role of Attention, Language Ability, and Language Experience in Children's Artificial Grammar Learning.

The current study examined the role of attention and language ability in nonverbal rule induction performance in a demographically diverse sample of school-age children. The participants included 43 English-speaking monolingual and 65 Spanish-English bilingual children between the ages of 5 and 9 years. Core Language Index standard scores from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition indexed children's language skills. Rule induction was measured via a visual artificial grammar learning task. Two equally complex finite-state artificial grammars were used. Children learned one grammar in a low attention condition (where children were exposed to symbol sequences with no distractors) and another grammar in a high attention condition (where distractor symbols were presented around the perimeter of the target symbol sequences). Overall, performance in the high attention condition was significantly worse than performance in the low attention condition. Children with robust language skills performed significantly better in the high attention condition than children with weaker language skills. Despite group differences in socioeconomic status, English language skills, and nonverbal intelligence, monolingual and bilingual children performed similarly to each other in both conditions. The results suggest that the ability to extract rules from visual input is attenuated by the presence of competing visual information and that language ability, but not bilingualism, may influence rule induction.

Neurocognition in the reading of Chinese characters

Chinese characters, which form an ideographic writing system, have shown distinctive features in the neurocognition of their reading. This paper gives a comprehensive review of five main issues of Chinese reading, which are (1) the relationship across written forms, sounds, and meanings during the neurocognitive processing of Chinese reading, (2) the involvement of structural and linguistic units, such as strokes (笔画), radicles (部件), components (偏旁), whole characters (整字), and words (词), in character reading, (3) the influence of attentional conditions on character reading, (4) the activation of Chinese characters from non-character input, and (5) the influences of readers’ linguistic experiences on character reading. We summarize that the reading of Chinese characters involves dynamic integration of multi-channel information and multiple levels of processing units, which, as compared with alphabetic writing systems, rely more on form-to-meaning semantic processing, while its form-to-phonology non-semantic processing is greatly influenced by para-linguistic context.

Attention Modulates the Ensemble Coding of Facial Expressions.

Ensemble coding and attention are two mechanisms utilized by our visual system to overcome the limitation of visual processing when confronted with the overwhelming visual information. Recent evidence in ensemble coding of size suggests that the attended items contributed more to the averaging. On the other hand, some new evidence also indicates that reduced attention jeopardies the perceptual averaging of stimuli. What is the relationship between attention and ensemble coding? To answer this question, in the current study, we tested whether an exogenous attentional cue would influence the reported mean emotion of a crowd. We showed participants a group of four faces with different emotions. Participants' attention was guided to the happiest or saddest face (attention conditions), or not to any specific face (baseline condition). The results supported the notion that the attention alters the ensemble perception of the facial expression by elevating the weight of that face in the ensemble representation. This opens the question for the neural mechanisms of ensemble coding and its connection to visual attention.

Establish a Digital Real-Time Learning System With Push Notifications

This study proposes a push notification system that combines digital real-time learning, roll-call, and feedback collection functions. With the gradually flourishing online real-time learning systems, this research further builds roll-call and feedback functions for students to enhance concentration and provide opinions. Additionally, the lecturers can do a roll call irregularly and randomly through the push notification function, avoiding students logging in but away from the keyboard. Lecturers can also send questions to a specific student or invite all students to answer; the replies can show students' learning performance. The system will store each notification in a database and analyse messages automatically to record roll calls. Moreover, the system can record the time and intervals of student feedback, enabling lecturers to check students' attention and learning conditions. Currently, most online digital systems depend on the lecturer to be responsible for the entire system; taking a roll call and asking questions will consume the lecturer's teaching time and strength. The system developed in this article can do roll calls and feedback by push notifications, reducing lecturers' workload. Furthermore, the roll-call and automatic record functions can save the time of paperwork after a course.

Influence of the Location of a Decision Cue on the Dynamics of Pupillary Light Response.

The pupils of the eyes reflexively constrict in light and dilate in dark to optimize retinal illumination. Non-visual cognitive factors, like attention, arousal, decision-making, etc., also influence pupillary light response (PLR). During passive viewing, the eccentricity of a stimulus modulates the pupillary aperture size driven by spatially weighted corneal flux density (CFD), which is the product of luminance and the area of the stimulus. Whether the scope of attention also influences PLR remains unclear. In this study, we contrasted the pupil dynamics between diffused and focused attentional conditions during decision-making, while the global CFD remained the same in the two conditions. A population of 20 healthy humans participated in a pair of forced choice tasks. They distributed attention to the peripheral decision cue in one task, and concentrated at the center in the other to select the target from four alternatives for gaze orientation. The location of this cue did not influence participants’ reaction time (RT). However, the magnitude of constriction was significantly less in the task that warranted attention to be deployed at the center than on the periphery. We observed similar pupil dynamics when participants either elicited or canceled a saccadic eye movement, which ruled out pre-saccadic obligatory attentional orientation contributing to PLR. We further addressed how the location of attentional deployment might have influenced PLR. We simulated a biomechanical model of PLR with visual stimulation of different strengths as inputs corresponding to the two attentional conditions. In this homeomorphic model, the computational characteristic of each element was derived from the physiological and/or mechanical properties of the corresponding biological element. The simulation of this model successfully mimicked the observed data. In contrast to common belief that the global ambient luminosity drives pupillary response, the results of our study suggest that the effective CFD (eCFD) determined via the luminance multiplied by the size of the stimulus at the location of deployed attention in the visual space is critical for the magnitude of pupillary constriction.

Functional analysis patterns of automatic reinforcement: A review and component analysis of treatment effects.

Functional analysis (FA) conditions include different antecedent or consequent events that may disrupt responding. Thus, varying patterns of FA differentiation may predict treatment outcomes of problem behavior maintained by automatic reinforcement. These patterns could be used to inform the development of individualized interventions. An approach to classifying these patterns is to categorize FA outcomes as attention condition lowest, demand condition lowest, and play condition lowest, according to the condition in which problem behavior is most disrupted. In Study 1, we applied this criterion to 120 datasets finding that 60% could be classified using this method, whereas 89% of datasets showed a disruption of 50% or higher. In Study 2, we conducted a treatment component analyses for 3 individuals whose FAs each exhibited one of the 3 distinct patterns. The results indicated that specific elements of the FA conditions could reduce problem behavior. The predictive utility of these disruption patterns is discussed.

Strength of Attentional Modulation on Cortical Auditory Evoked Responses Correlates with Speech-in-Noise Performance in Bimodal Cochlear Implant Users.

Auditory selective attention is a crucial top-down cognitive mechanism for understanding speech in noise. Cochlear implant (CI) users display great variability in speech-in-noise performance that is not easily explained by peripheral auditory profile or demographic factors. Thus, it is imperative to understand if auditory cognitive processes such as selective attention explain such variability. The presented study directly addressed this question by quantifying attentional modulation of cortical auditory responses during an attention task and comparing its individual differences with speech-in-noise performance. In our attention experiment, participants with CI were given a pre-stimulus visual cue that directed their attention to either of two speech streams and were asked to select a deviant syllable in the target stream. The two speech streams consisted of the female voice saying "Up" five times every 800 ms and the male voice saying "Down" four times every 1 s. The onset of each syllable elicited distinct event-related potentials (ERPs). At each syllable onset, the difference in the amplitudes of ERPs between the two attentional conditions (attended - ignored) was computed. This ERP amplitude difference served as a proxy for attentional modulation strength. Our group-level analysis showed that the amplitude of ERPs was greater when the syllable was attended than ignored, exhibiting that attention modulated cortical auditory responses. Moreover, the strength of attentional modulation showed a significant correlation with speech-in-noise performance. These results suggest that the attentional modulation of cortical auditory responses may provide a neural marker for predicting CI users' success in clinical tests of speech-in-noise listening.

Mind the attention gap: how does digital advertising impact choice under low attention?

PurposeThis study aims to investigate whether digital advertising can be effective despite consumer inattention and how certain common combinations of ad characteristics increase or decrease ad effectiveness under conditions of low attention.Design/methodology/approachUsing two online experiments in naturalistic environment, the authors compare ad effects under focussed, divided and incidental attention, for certain ad characteristics, namely, appeal type and (mis)matching between appeal and brand type. The results are analysed using logistic regression.FindingsAd exposure under low attention does increase brand consideration and choice. The greatest uplift in impact occurs when moving from non-exposure to incidental attention. Under incidental attention, emotive advertising was more effective than rational advertising, as was matching rather than mismatching an emotional appeal to a hedonic brand. Conversely, under divided attention, rational advertising and mismatching a rational appeal to a hedonic brand were more effective.Research limitations/implicationsThis research explores the effectiveness of Twitter ads with an emotional or a rational appeal and the (mis)matching between appeal and utilitarian or hedonic brand type. Future research can examine other formats and creative elements of digital advertising that can affect the low-attention processing and the effects that occur.Practical implicationsIntrusive, attention-getting advertising strategies may not be necessary. Certain common creative devices can increase advertising effectiveness despite low attention, so marketers can ensure consumer-centric marketing communication.Originality/valueThere has previously been limited understanding of low-attention mechanisms in advertising and little evidence of ad effectiveness under conditions of low attention. The research also demonstrates that certain ad characteristics, linked to common creative devices, enhance the impact of advertising despite low attention.

Modal-based attention modulates attentional blink.

In the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm, response accuracy for the target decreases when it appears within a short time window (200~500 ms) after the previous target. This phenomenon is termed the attentional blink (AB). Although mechanisms of cross-modal processing that reduce the AB have been documented, researchers have not explored the differences across modal attentional conditions. In the present study, we used the RSVP paradigm to investigate the effect of auditory-driven visual target perceptual enhancement on the AB under modality-specific selective attention (Experiment 1) and bimodal-divided attention (Experiment 2). The results showed that cross-modal attentional enhancement was not moderated by stimulus salience. Moreover, the results also showed that accuracy was higher when the attended sound appeared simultaneously with the target. These results indicated that audiovisual enhancement reduced AB and that stronger attentional enhancement in the bimodal-divided attentional condition led to the disappearance of AB.

Short-Term Consolidation of Information for Episodic Memory: The Role of Attention

Pieces of evidence from rapid serial visual presentation, attentional blink, and dual-task interference phenomena propose that human beings have a significant limitation on the short-term consolidation process. Short-term consolidation is transferring perceptual representations to a more durable form of memory. Although previous research has shown that masks presented after targets interrupt the consolidation process of information, there is not enough evidence for the role of attention in consolidation for episodic memory. Three experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of attention and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between targets and masks on episodic memory. Masks were presented after targets with varying SOAs. The participants in the divided attention condition performed the attention-demanding secondary task after the presentation of the masks, whereas participants in the full attention condition were not requested to perform the secondary task after the presentation of masks. The results showed that reducing SOA between targets and masks caused an impairment in memory performance for divided attention but not for full attention, providing evidence for the necessity of attention for the short-term consolidation process.

Alpha oscillations predict paroxetine response to low sexual desire in depression

• Low sexual desire in depression has QEEG markers. • Greater frontal alpha power is related with libidinal unresponsiveness to paroxetine. • Impaired attention is also related with low sexual desire in depression. Decreased sexual desire (libido) is one of the most common sexual complaints in patients with depression. It is known that antidepressants have certain effects on sexual life. Paroxetine is one of those antidepressants. However, the sexual adverse effects of paroxetine are unpredictable. This retrospective study aimed at determining the electrophysiological markers of paroxetine treatment effect on sexual desire in patients with depression ( N = 56). Quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) spectral power across all frequency bands were examined in depressed patients with decreased or normal sexual desire. Analysis of covariance was conducted on baseline qEEG, taking attention condition and severity of depression (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale -HDRS) as covariates. Patients whose sexual desire did not improve had higher frontal alpha power and impaired attention function at baseline examination. The results could be taken as preliminary due to the modest sample size. Based on the present findings, it can be concluded that frontal alpha power can be a biomarker of lack of libido improvement after treatment with paroxetine.

A simulation of older adults' associative memory deficit using structural process interference in young adults.

Associative memory deficit underlies a part of older adults' deficient episodic memory due to the reduced ability to bind units of information. In this article we further assess the mechanism underlying this deficit, by assessing the degree to which we can model it in young adults under conditions of divided attention. We shall describe two experiments in this paper; these experiments investigate item and associative recognition in young adults under full- or divided-attention conditions. The secondary tasks employed were N-back like (NBL), which serves as a working memory updating task, and parity judgement and visuospatial (VS) tasks, which serve as non-working memory tasks. The results of both experiments show that only the NBL specifically affected associative recognition, while the other tasks affected item and associative memory to the same degree, indicating a general resource competition. These results presented a convergence of evidence for the associative deficit in older adults by modelling it in young adults.

Semantically Congruent Bimodal Presentation with Divided-Modality Attention Accelerates Unisensory Working Memory Retrieval.

Although previous studies have shown that semantic multisensory integration can be differentially modulated by attention focus, it remains unclear whether attentionally mediated multisensory perceptual facilitation could impact further cognitive performance. Using a delayed matching-to-sample paradigm, the present study investigated the effect of semantically congruent bimodal presentation on subsequent unisensory working memory (WM) performance by manipulating attention focus. The results showed that unisensory WM retrieval was faster in the semantically congruent condition than in the incongruent multisensory encoding condition. However, such a result was only found in the divided-modality attention condition. This result indicates that a robust multisensory representation was constructed during semantically congruent multisensory encoding with divided-modality attention; this representation then accelerated unisensory WM performance, especially auditory WM retrieval. Additionally, an overall faster unisensory WM retrieval was observed under the modality-specific selective attention condition compared with the divided-modality condition, indicating that the division of attention to address two modalities demanded more central executive resources to encode and integrate crossmodal information and to maintain a constructed multisensory representation, leaving few resources for WM retrieval. Additionally, the present finding may support the amodal view that WM has an amodal central storage component that is used to maintain modal-based attention-optimized multisensory representations.

A Study of Visual Search based Calibration Protocol for EEG Attention Detection.

Attention, a multi-faceted cognitive process, is essential in our daily lives. We can measure visual attention using an EEG Brain-Computer Interface for detecting different levels of attention in gaming, performance training, and clinical applications. In attention calibration, we use Flanker task to capture EEG data for attentive class. For EEG data belonging to inattentive class calibration, we instruct subject not focusing on a specific position on screen. We then classify attention levels using binary classifier trained with these surrogate ground-truth classes. However, subjects may not be in desirable attention conditions when performing repetitive boring activities over a long experiment duration. We propose attention calibration protocols in this paper that use simultaneous visual search with an audio directional change paradigm and static white noise as 'attentive' and 'inattentive' conditions, respectively. To compare the performance of proposed calibrations against baselines, we collected data from sixteen healthy subjects. For a fair comparison of classification performance; we used six basic EEG band-power features with a standard binary classifier. With the new calibration protocol, we achieved 74.37 ± 6.56% mean subject accuracy, which is about 3.73 ± 2.49% higher than the baseline, but there were no statistically significant differences. According to post-experiment survey results, new calibrations are more effective in inducing desired perceived attention levels. We will improve calibration protocols with reliable attention classifier modeling to enable better attention recognition based on these promising results.

External and global internal focus of attention on whole-body similarly increases the vertical jump performance: a randomised, controlled and crossover study

ABSTRACT This study aimed to compare the effects of three different foci of attention (external focus, global internal and specific internal focus) on vertical jump performance. Thirty-two recreationally active males participated in this study and performed the jumps at three different foci of attention conditions. The specific internal focus was based on the knee extension and the global internal focus was on whole-body extension. The external focus was conducted using an implement (plastic ball) attached to the laboratory ceiling. The analysis of variance for repeated measures with Bonferroni post hoc test was used to compare the performance variables among the conditions with the significance level set at p < 0.05. The main results demonstrated that the jump height was higher in the external focus condition compared to the control (p = 0.003) and the specific internal focus (p < 0.001); jump height was also higher in the global internal focus compared to specific internal focus (p = 0.012). The peak power and velocity were higher in the external compared to specific internal focus (p = 0.040 and 0.006, respectively). We concluded that external focus showed better performance for the peak power and velocity, while global internal focus showed higher performance for jump height compared to specific internal focus and a similar performance to the external focus.

The Grouping-Induced Numerosity Illusion Is Attention-Dependent.

Perceptual grouping and visual attention are two mechanisms that help to segregate visual input into meaningful objects. Here we report how perceptual grouping, which affects perceived numerosity, is reduced when visual attention is engaged in a concurrent visual task. We asked participants to judge the numerosity of clouds of dot-pairs connected by thin lines, known to cause underestimation of numerosity, while simultaneously performing a color conjunction task. Diverting attention to the concomitant visual distractor significantly reduced the grouping-induced numerosity biases. Moreover, while the magnitude of the illusion under free viewing covaried strongly with AQ-defined autistic traits, under conditions of divided attention the relationship was much reduced. These results suggest that divided attention modulates the perceptual grouping of elements by connectedness and that it is independent of the perceptual style of participants.

Feature dependence of neural mechanisms for divided auditory attention

Multi-talker social situations require the listener to focus attention on a single talker, as well as monitor and divide attention to additional talkers, as needed. The neural mechanisms behind how one can efficiently divide their attention has yet to be thoroughly explored. The current study investigates these neural mechanisms via electroencephalography when participants listen to competing speech and focus or divide attention. Participants were tasked either to focus and maintain attention on an initial target or to divide attention, listening to the initial target but monitoring for a potential, later “supertarget.” At the end of each trial, listeners recorded the target stimulus, defined either by location or talker identity (male or female), via a keypad. A pilot study found that focused, location-based attention modulates alpha oscillations in parietal cortex, thought to reflect inhibition of non-target locations. Here, we test the hypothesis that, during talker identity trials, attention enhances the neural representation of the target via talker identity features through enhanced beta oscillations in the frontal and middle temporal gyrus. Comparison of electroencephalography between divided and focused attention conditions suggests that using different acoustic features to focus or divide attention recruits completely different neural mechanisms.

Hemispheric lateralization during spectral envelope perception is dynamic and individualized

The spectral envelope is an important acoustic cue for vowel and consonant perception. Sensitivity to the spectral envelope is commonly studied with a spectral modulation detection task in which two co-occurring spectral cues (spectral modulation—SM, carrier frequency—CF) may be available. Neuroimaging studies indicate that spectral cues are often processed asymmetrically in the cortex, but it is unknown if such lateralization depends on perceptual weighting of the available cues. Here we simultaneously measured SM discrimination and electroencephalography (EEG) in young adult listeners in a single-interval, two-alternative task during passive and active attention conditions as well as in a separate perceptual decision-weights task. Using condition-on-a-single-stimulus (COSS) analyses, individual differences in perceptual weights of spectral cues (SM, CF) were obtained for each listener. EEG source localized results showed that hemispheric lateralization was dynamically modulated over time between left and right auditory cortices and that lateralization was dependent on individual perceptual weighting patterns for SM and CF. [Work supported by NIH/NIA P01-AG09524 (ACE) and NIH/NIDCD R01- DC001262 (RL, ACE).]

Investigation of the perceptual and cognitive asymmetry in the auditory system in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.

BackgroundStudies have shown that perceptual and cognitive asymmetries are present in the auditory system in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS). The Dichotic Listening (DL) paradigm was formerly performed in non-forced (NF) conditions only, and no study has examined the conditions of attention to one ear.ObjectiveTo investigate the perceptual and cognitive asymmetry in the auditory system in patients with AIS as well as the asymmetry changes according to the curvature characteristics of patients with AIS.MethodThe DL paradigm was performed on 38 patients with AIS and 10 healthy individuals in all conditions (NF, Forced Right [FR], Forced Left [FL]).ResultsIn the NF and FL conditions, the mean number of correct responses for the left ear was significantly lower in patients with AIS than in healthy individuals (p < 0.05). The correct responses for the right ear in the NF condition, right and left ear in the FR condition, and right ear in the FL condition did not show a significant difference between the groups (p > 0.05). Also, there was no difference between patients with AIS with both functional 3-curve and 4-curve (p > 0.05).ConclusionOur study indicates perceptual and cognitive asymmetry or lateralisation in the auditory system in patients with AIS. The asymmetry might be caused by the inability to direct their attention to the left ear, which is not affected by their curvature type. Further studies are needed to investigate perceptual and cognitive asymmetry behaviour models in the auditory system in patients with AIS.Clinical implicationsDetermination of perceptual and cognitive asymmetry in the auditory system may offer a new perspective on conservative treatment protocols for AIS patients. Besides, the DL paradigm can be easily used in patients with AIS as a non-invasive evaluation method in clinics.

Scalp-recorded N40 visual evoked potential: Sensory and attentional properties.

N40 is a well‐known component of evoked potentials with respect to the auditory and somatosensory modality but not much recognized with regard to the visual modality. To be detected with event‐related potentials (ERPs), it requires an optimal signal‐to‐noise ratio. To investigate the nature of visual N40, we recorded EEG/ERP signals from 20 participants. Each of them was presented with 1800 spatial frequency gratings of 0.75, 1.5, 3 and 6 c/deg. Data were collected from 128 sites while participants were engaged in both passive viewing and attention conditions. N40 (30–55 ms) was modulated by alertness and selective attention; in fact, it was larger to targets than irrelevant and passively viewed spatial frequency gratings. Its strongest intracranial sources were the bilateral thalamic nuclei of pulvinar, according to swLORETA. The active network included precuneus, insula and inferior parietal lobule. An N80 component (60–90 ms) was also identified, which was larger to targets than irrelevant/passive stimuli and more negative to high than low spatial frequencies. In contrast, N40 was not sensitive to spatial frequency per se, nor did it show a polarity inversion as a function of spatial frequency. Attention, alertness and spatial frequency effects were also found for the later components P1, N2 and P300. The attentional effects increased in magnitude over time. The data showed that ERPs can pick up the earliest synchronized activity, deriving in part from thalamic nuclei, before the visual information has actually reached the occipital cortex.