Attention To Stimuli Research Articles

Impact of a Neuro-Cognitive Intervention on Students’ Cognitive Functions: Assessments in a Government School Setting in South India

Evidence indicates that cognitive deficits can affect students’ performance in schools. An effort to enhance cognitive skills through integration of a neuro-cognitive training called ‘Brighter Minds’, was made in the government schools of South India during 2017-18. 110 students went through a pre and post training evaluation, using a mixed methods study design to assess changes in attention, observation and memory. Tools such as Make a Trail and Stroop test to assess attention, Word Recall and Visual stimulus tests for memory and acustomized tool to assess changes in observation were used. Focus group discussions were conducted to understand teachers’ experience and acceptance of the training. Paired t-tests demonstrated statistically significant gains in all the three cognitive traits. The average time taken to complete the trail tests significantly reduced after the training (Trail A: 59.3 s to 47.5 s; Trail B: 156 s to 120 s. p < 0.001). The average number of correct items read out in the Stroop test improved significantly. More students were able to observe deeper aspects of the test object (23 Vs 40, p < 0.001). On intuition tests, average score of correct observations went up significantly from 6.7 to 9.6 objects. Memory assessments revealed significant improvements in verbal recall (both immediate and delayed) and visual recognition, but marginal improvements in visual retention. The teachers reported changes in student’s motivation, discipline and participation. The training was seamlessly rolled out by the teachers during regular hours and led to improvements in students' cognitive abilities. The cognitive trainings offer promise to complement current efforts in enhance learning outcomes among students.

The Intensity of Early Attentional Processing, but Not Conflict Monitoring, Determines the Size of Subliminal Response Conflicts.

Response conflicts hamper goal-directed behavior and may be evoked by both consciously and subliminally (unconsciously) processed information. Yet, not much is known about the mechanisms and brain regions driving the size of subliminally induced conflicts. We hence combined a response conflict paradigm featuring subliminal primes and conscious flankers with in-depth neurophysiological (EEG) analyses, including source localization in a sample of N = 243 healthy subjects. Intra-individual differences in the size of subliminal conflicts were reflected both during early attentional stimulus processing (prime-associated N1 and target-associated P1 and N1 amplitudes) and conflict monitoring (N2 amplitudes). On the neuroanatomical level, this was reflected by activity modulations in the TPJ (BA39, BA40) and V2 (BA18), which are known to be involved in attentional stimulus processing and task set maintenance. In addition to a “standard” analysis of event-related potentials, we also conducted a purely data-driven machine learning approach using support vector machines (SVM) in order to identify neurophysiological features which do not only reflect the size of subliminal conflict, but actually allow to classify/predict it. This showed that only extremely early information processing (about 65 ms after the onset of the prime) was predictive of subliminal conflict size. Importantly, this predictive feature occurred before target information could even be processed and was reflected by activity in the left middle frontal gyrus (BA6) and insula (BA13). We conclude that differences in task set maintenance and potentially also in subliminal attentional processing of task-relevant features, but not conflict monitoring, determine the size of subliminally induced response conflicts.

Temporal Sequence of Hearing Impairment and Cognition in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging.

Hearing impairment (HI) could be a risk factor for cognitive decline, but cognition could plausibly also affect psychoacoustic assessment of hearing with audiometry. We examined the temporal sequence of hearing and cognitive function among nondemented, community-dwelling older adults. Hearing and cognition were assessed between 2012 and 2015 and 2 years thereafter in 313 nondemented participants aged ≥60 years in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Poorer hearing was defined by pure-tone average of 0.5-4 kHz tones in the better-hearing ear. Cognitive measures with either visual or auditory inputs were Trail-making Test Part B; Digit Symbol Substitution Test; California Verbal Learning Test immediate recall, short delay, and long delay; Digit Span Forward/Backward; Benton Visual Retention Test; and Mini-Mental State Examination. We used linear regression models for cross-sectional associations at each timepoint and autoregressive, cross-lagged models to evaluate whether baseline hearing impairment (Time 1) predicted cognitive performance 2 years after baseline (Time 2) and vice versa. Cross-sectionally, there were no associations between poorer hearing and cognitive performance. Longitudinally, poorer hearing was associated with declines in California Verbal Learning Test immediate (β = -0.073, SE = 0.032, p = .024), short-delayed (β = -0.134, SE = 0.043, p = .002), long-delayed (β = -0.080, SE = 0.032, p = .012) recall, and Digit Span Forward (β = -0.074, SE = 0.029, p = .011).) from Time 1 to Time 2. Cognitive performance at Time 1 did not predict change in hearing status at Time 2. Audiometric hearing impairment predicted short-term cognitive declines in both California Verbal Learning Test and auditory stimuli for attention.

Rhythmic fluctuations of saccadic reaction time arising from visual competition

Recent research indicates that attentional stimulus selection could be a rhythmic process. In monkey, neurons in V4 and IT exhibit rhythmic spiking activity in the theta range in response to a stimulus. When two stimuli are presented together, the rhythmic neuronal responses to each occur in anti-phase, a result indicative of competitive interactions. In addition, it was recently demonstrated that these alternating oscillations in monkey V4 modulate the speed of saccadic responses to a target flashed on one of the two competing stimuli. Here, we replicate a similar behavioral task in humans (7 participants, each performed 4000 trials) and report a pattern of results consistent with the monkey findings: saccadic response times fluctuate in the theta range (6 Hz), with opposite phase for targets flashed on distinct competing stimuli.

Hvordan øke bevisstheten om den førspråklige dimensjonen av det kroppslige nærværet i tegning?

I tillegg til dialogen som organismen fører med den ytre verden ved hjelp sansene, finnes det under tegneprosessen en uartikulert førspråklig kobling mot de stimuli, som kommer fra den «ikke synlige» indre fornemmende kroppen. Forskningsspørsmålet jeg har valgt å arbeide med i artikkelen er: Hvordan øke bevisstheten om den førspråklige dimensjonen av det kroppslige nærværet i tegning? Dette undersøkes gjennom Merleau Ponty sin tenkning rundt kroppsfenomenologi, Derrida sitt syn på tegneren som blind, psykolog Stern sin tenkning om vitalitetsaffekt. Likeledes inspirasjon fra forskere som Petitmengin med sin mikrofenomenologiske metode, Berger sin pedagogiske tenkning og studier av kroppens rolle i vitenskapelig forskning og ulike forfattere innen kroppskognisjon teori som fremhever betydningen av det førspråklig i tenkning. Forskningsspørsmålet vil også bli belyst ut fra min erfaring som kunstner og som tegnelærer på Institutt for landskapsarkitektur ved NMBU

Saliency Priority of Individual Bottom-Up Attributes in Designing Visual Attention Models

A key factor in designing saliency detection algorithms for videos is to understand how different visual cues affect the human perceptual and visual system. To this end, this article investigated the bottom-up features including color, texture, and motion in video sequences for a one-by-one scenario to provide a ranking system stating the most dominant circumstances for each feature. In this work, it is considered the individual features and various visual saliency attributes investigated under conditions in which the authors had no cognitive bias. Human cognition refers to a systematic pattern of perceptual and rational judgments and decision-making actions. First, this paper modeled the test data as 2D videos in a virtual environment to avoid any cognitive bias. Then, this paper performed an experiment using human subjects to determine which colors, textures, motion directions, and motion speeds attract human attention more. The proposed benchmark ranking system of salient visual attention stimuli was achieved using an eye tracking procedure.

Arrows don't look at you: Qualitatively different attentional mechanisms triggered by gaze and arrows.

Eye gaze conveys rich information concerning the states of mind of others, playing a critical role in social interactions, signaling internal states, and guiding others' attention. On the basis of its social significance, some researchers have proposed that eye gaze may represent a unique attentional stimulus. However, contrary to this notion, the majority of the literature has shown indistinguishable attentional effects when eye gaze and arrows have been used as cues. Taking a different approach, in this study we aimed at finding qualitative attentional differences between gazes and arrows when they were used as targets instead of as cues. We used a spatial Stroop task, in which participants were required to identify the direction of eyes or arrows presented to the left or the right of a fixation point. The results showed that the two types of stimuli led to opposite spatial interference effects, with arrows producing faster reaction times when the stimulus direction was congruent with the stimulus position (a typical spatial Stroop effect), and eye gaze producing faster reaction times when it was incongruent (a "reversed" spatial Stroop effect). This reversed Stroop is interpreted as an eye-contact effect, therefore revealing the unique nature of eyes as special social-attention stimuli.

Are you surprised to hear this? Longitudinal spectral speech exposure in older compared to middle-aged normal hearing adults.

Cognitive abilities such as attention or working memory can support older adults during speech perception. However, cognitive abilities as well as speech perception decline with age, leading to the expenditure of effort during speech processing. This longitudinal study therefore investigated age-related differences in electrophysiological processes during speech discrimination and assessed the extent of enhancement to such cognitive auditory processes through repeated auditory exposure. For that purpose, accuracy and reaction time were compared between 13 older adults (62-76years) and 15 middle-aged (28-52years) controls in an active oddball paradigm which was administered at three consecutive measurement time points at an interval of 2wk, while EEG was recorded. As a standard stimulus, the nonsense syllable /'a:ʃa/was used, while the nonsense syllable /'a:sa/ and a morphing between /'a:ʃa/ and /'a:sa/ served as deviants. N2b and P3b ERP responses were evaluated as a function of age, deviant, and measurement time point using a data-driven topographical microstate analysis. From middle age to old age, age-related decline in attentive perception (as reflected in the N2b-related microstates) and in memory updating and attentional processes (as reflected in the P3b-related microstates) was found, as indicated by both lower neural responses and later onsets of the respective cortical networks, and in age-related changes in frontal activation during attentional stimulus processing. Importantly, N2b- and P3b-related microstates changed as a function of repeated stimulus exposure in both groups. This research therefore suggests that experience with auditory stimuli can support auditory neurocognitive processes in normal hearing adults into advanced age.

Approaches for loss of vigilance in vehicle automation: a meta-analytical study

The phenomenon of behavioral adaptation induced by continuous use of vehicular automation is a very intriguing subject for researchers in the field of Human-Automation Interaction. Some authors believe that better tailoring of system design to driver needs and to the task requirements can improve human performance and mitigate the process of loss of vigilance. Nevertheless, the literature on this subject is far from reaching a consensus, so that the causal or aggravating factors for such process are not yet fully known. Based on this issue, the goal of this study was to list the most prevalent factors in the literature for the loss of driver’s vigilance capabilities during the use of autonomous vehicles (HAVs - Highly Automated Vehicles). To achieve the proposed goal, a meta-analytical study was conducted from a systematic literature review, followed by statistical significance tests. The results reinforce the idea that elements for communication and control of attention stimuli directed to the driver are of paramount importance for the occurrence of the studied phenomenon, so, we suggest further deeper studies on particular HMI application for HAVs.

Gait initiation and attention

Step initiation combines motor and cognitive processes involved in movement preparation and execution. Intracerebral recordings in the cat have shown that the pontomedullary reticular formation has a central role in: – postural preparation prior to movement execution; – the coupling between preparation and execution. Furthermore, cortical control of the pontomedullary reticular structures modulates the release of postural adjustments. Imaging studies in humans have also shown that the prefrontal cortex has a particular role in postural adjustments. Accordingly, it has been hypothesized that attentional processes [which involve cortical structures] can also modulate the step initiation program. Investigation of this motor modulation provides a better understanding of the interaction between attention on the one hand and motor preparation and execution on the other. Postural modulation can be investigated by recording anticipated postural adjustments (APAs). An APA is essential for step initiation because it unloads the swing leg and thus creates the conditions required for progression. Indeed, the amplitude and duration of APAs are predictive of the subsequent peak step velocity. Recent literature showed that this APA can be modulated by general attentional alert processes, orientation processes or even executive control processes. When the subject is conditioned for gait initiation, an attentional stimulus provokes an involuntary release of the gait initiation program (referred to as “early APAs” or “pre-APAs”). This elevated involuntary release of a motor program might reflect failure to inhibit distracter stimuli and are more frequent during pathological gait initiation (as seen in Parkinson's disease patients, who are known to have attention deficits). The occurrence of APA errors also perturbs the gait initiation program. This corresponds to the correction of a step initiation APA when the initial direction of postural adjustment is not appropriate. The APA error then indicates a motor program error, which is efficiently corrected and prevents incorrect step initiation from taking place. It is known that APA errors are modulated by attention suggesting a link with delayed stimulus integration. Further research investigates cortical mechanisms implied in this interaction between motor programming and attention using event related potentials and time frequency analysis. Step initiation's biomechanical processes are useful for precisely studying how well-known attentional cortical process can modulate the different steps of automatized motor program. They are of clinical significance to understand gait initiation failure in elderly and patients with various neurological diseases including Parkinson's disease.

ADHD patients fail to maintain task goals in face of subliminally and consciously induced cognitive conflicts.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) patients have been reported to display deficits in action control processes. While it is known that subliminally and consciously induced conflicts interact and conjointly modulate action control in healthy subjects, this has never been investigated for ADHD. We investigated the (potential) interaction of subliminally and consciously triggered response conflicts in children with ADHD and matched healthy controls using neuropsychological methods (event-related potentials; ERPs) to identify the involved cognitive sub-processes. Unlike healthy controls, ADHD patients showed no interaction of subliminally and consciously triggered response conflicts. Instead, they only showed additive effects as their behavioural performance (accuracy) was equally impaired by each conflict and they showed no signs of task-goal shielding even in cases of low conflict load. Of note, this difference between ADHD and controls was not rooted in early bottom-up attentional stimulus processing as reflected by the P1 and N1 ERPs. Instead, ADHD showed either no or reversed modulations of conflict-related processes and response selection as reflected by the N2 and P3 ERPs. There are fundamental differences in the architecture of cognitive control which might be of use for future diagnostic procedures. Unlike healthy controls, ADHD patients do not seem to be endowed with a threshold which allows them to maintain high behavioural performance in the face of low conflict load. ADHD patients seem to lack sufficient top-down attentional resources to maintain correct response selection in the face of conflicts by shielding the response selection process from response tendencies evoked by any kind of distractor.

Attentional Bias Toward Relevant Stimuli in Tendencies of Smartphone Addiction: A Focus on the Emotional Stroop Task and the Dot-Probe Task

Attentional Bias Toward Relevant Stimuli in Tendencies of Smartphone Addiction: A Focus on the Emotional Stroop Task and the Dot-Probe Task

Attention modulation during motor preparation in Parkinsonian freezers: A time-frequency EEG study.

To investigate the cortical integration of attentional stimuli during motor preparation in parkinsonian patients with freezing of gait (FoG, n=12) or without freezing of gait (n=13), and in aged-matched healthy controls (n=13). We hypothesized that interference between attention and action in freezers would be revealed by differences in cortical modulation during this dual task. Attention during step preparation was modulated by means of an auditory oddball discrimination task. EEG oscillations in different frequency bands were measured for the attentional stimulus and the motor stimulus. Over the 500ms following the sound, low-frequency power increased in all three groups. This was followed by a power decrease in mid-range frequencies after both target and standard sounds in the healthy controls and in the non-FoG group. In contrast, EEG oscillations in the beta band were impaired in the FoG group, who notably failed to display event-related desynchronization after perceiving the sound. An attentional stimulus was able to trigger event-related desynchronization before motor preparation in the non-FoG group but not in the FoG group. In the FoG group, stimulus discrimination was maintained but the coupling between attention and motor preparation was impaired.

The Role of Alpha Activity in Spatial and Feature-Based Attention.

Modulations in alpha oscillations (∼10 Hz) are typically studied in the context of anticipating upcoming stimuli. Alpha power decreases in sensory regions processing upcoming targets compared to regions processing distracting input, thereby likely facilitating processing of relevant information while suppressing irrelevant. In this electroencephalography study using healthy human volunteers, we examined whether modulations in alpha power also occur after the onset of a bilaterally presented target and distractor. Spatial attention was manipulated through spatial cues and feature-based attention through adjusting the color-similarity of distractors to the target. Consistent with previous studies, we found that informative spatial cues induced a relative decrease of pretarget alpha power at occipital electrodes contralateral to the expected target location. Interestingly, this pattern reemerged relatively late (300–750 ms) after stimulus onset, suggesting that lateralized alpha reflects not only preparatory attention, but also ongoing attentive stimulus processing. Uninformative cues (i.e., conveying no information about the spatial location of the target) resulted in an interaction between spatial attention and feature-based attention in post-target alpha lateralization. When the target was paired with a low-similarity distractor, post-target alpha was lateralized (500–900 ms). Crucially, the lateralization was absent when target selection was ambiguous because the distractor was highly similar to the target. Instead, during this condition, midfrontal theta was increased, indicative of reactive conflict resolution. Behaviorally, the degree of alpha lateralization was negatively correlated with the reaction time distraction cost induced by target–distractor similarity. These results suggest a pivotal role for poststimulus alpha lateralization in protecting sensory processing of target information.

Environment and development

2 The child is a being undergoing constant development, both somatic development, with the differentiation of various organs, as well as neuropsychomotor development, with psycho-emotional differentiation. Development and environment are closely related; currently, several epigenetic phenomena are known to result from the modification of gene expression due to environmental influence. The environment in the very early phases of life influences the child’s health. Recent evidence reinforces not only an environment rich in motor and global attention stimuli for the child, but, specifically, the continuous and early use of expressive language by parents with their children promote the achievement of better cognitive performance, especially in more vulnerable populations.1,2 The effect of nutritional quality on growth has been conceptually known for many years, but the influence of the intestinal environment on the brain and the mechanisms involving the new concept of neuronutrition are recent. The intrauterine environment, type of maternal diet, type of delivery, gestational age at birth, and the presence of breastfeeding modulate the intestinal microbiome and are determinants of health or disease.3--5

A Role of Phase-Resetting in Coordinating Large Scale Neural Networks During Attention and Goal-Directed Behavior.

Short periods of oscillatory activation are ubiquitous signatures of neural circuits. A broad range of studies documents not only their circuit origins, but also a fundamental role for oscillatory activity in coordinating information transfer during goal directed behavior. Recent studies suggest that resetting the phase of ongoing oscillatory activity to endogenous or exogenous cues facilitates coordinated information transfer within circuits and between distributed brain areas. Here, we review evidence that pinpoints phase resetting as a critical marker of dynamic state changes of functional networks. Phase resets: (1) set a “neural context” in terms of narrow band frequencies that uniquely characterizes the activated circuits; (2) impose coherent low frequency phases to which high frequency activations can synchronize, identifiable as cross-frequency correlations across large anatomical distances; (3) are critical for neural coding models that depend on phase, increasing the informational content of neural representations; and (4) likely originate from the dynamics of canonical E-I circuits that are anatomically ubiquitous. These multiple signatures of phase resets are directly linked to enhanced information transfer and behavioral success. We survey how phase resets re-organize oscillations in diverse task contexts, including sensory perception, attentional stimulus selection, cross-modal integration, Pavlovian conditioning, and spatial navigation. The evidence we consider suggests that phase-resets can drive changes in neural excitability, ensemble organization, functional networks, and ultimately, overt behavior.

Transcranial direct current stimulation over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex modulates auditory mismatch negativity.

To investigate the contribution of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) to attentive and pre-attentive stimulus discrimination via transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Novelty- and target-P3 as indexes of attentive stimulus discrimination and the mismatch negativities (MMNs) for duration, intensity, and frequency deviants as indexes of pre-attentive stimulus discrimination were recorded before and after delivering anodal and cathodal tDCS to the left DLPFC. MMN amplitudes for all kinds of deviants decreased from pre- to post-tDCS measurement. For duration and intensity deviants, this pre-post reduction was stronger after anodal tDCS, as compared to the decrease after sham stimulation. No such modulation was found for the MMN to frequency deviants. Neither the novelty-P3 nor the target-P3 was modulated by tDCS. The selective MMN decrease after anodal (excitatory) stimulation of the left DLPFC suggests that this region either inhibits the processing of specific auditory changes or modulates the habituation of the MMN to certain kinds of deviances. Our finding that left frontal anodal tDCS reduces the MMN to duration and intensity deviants further highlights the contribution of frontal brain regions to MMN generation and extends previous reports of reduced MMNs to frequency deviants after right frontal anodal tDCS.

ID 292 – Attention modulation during motor preparation in elderly subjects, freezers and non-freezers patients with Parkinson‘s disease: A time-frequency EEG study

Objective Freezing of gait in Parkinson’s disease seems to result from different factors including attention disorders. Our objective was to explore cortical integration of attentional stimulus during motor preparation. Methods Three groups were recruited: older people (n = 6) and parkinsonian patients with (n = 7) or without (n = 7) freezing of gait. Attention was modulated during postural preparation of the step by an auditory oddball discrimination task consisting in discriminating a target sound among a series of standard ones. The primary endpoint was quantification of EEG oscillations following the attentional stimulus. Results An increase of power in low frequencies (delta and theta bands) occurred during the 500 msec following the target stimulus, followed by a decrease in mild frequencies (alpha and beta bands). For freezers patients, early event-related synchronization after the attention stimulus was preserved, whereas EEG oscillations in alpha and beta band were impaired, with a specific impairment to generate an event-related desynchronization after the perception of an attentional stimulus. Conclusions Early attentional discrimination was efficient in freezers patients. At the opposite, further mechanisms reflecting post-discrimination processing were deficient in those patients. Key message Cortical modulations during the attention – motor preparation coupling are different in parkinsonian patients with freezing of gait.

Effects of music and video on perceived exertion during high-intensity exercise

BackgroundDissociative attentional stimuli (e.g., music, video) are effective in decreasing ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) during low-to-moderate intensity exercise, but have inconsistent results during exercise at higher intensity. The purpose of this study was to assess attentional focus and RPE during high-intensity exercise as a function of being exposed to music, video, both (music and video), or a no-treatment control condition. MethodsDuring the first session, healthy men (n = 15) completed a maximal fitness test to determine the workload necessary for high-intensity exercise (operationalized as 125% ventilatory threshold) to be performed during subsequent sessions. On 4 subsequent days, they completed 20 min of high-intensity exercise in a no-treatment control condition or while listening to music, watching a video, or both. Attentional focus, RPE, heart rate, and distance covered were measured every 4 min during the exercise. ResultsMusic and video in combination resulted in significantly lower RPE across time (partial η2 = 0.36) and the size of the effect increased over time (partial η2 = 0.14). Additionally, music and video in combination resulted in a significantly more dissociative focus than the other conditions (partial η2 = 0.29). ConclusionMusic and video in combination may result in lower perceived exertion during high-intensity exercise when compared to music or video in isolation. Future research will be necessary to test if reductions in perceived exertion in response to dissociative attentional stimuli have implications for exercise adherence.

Pondering the Pulvinar

While the function of the pulvinar remains one of the least explored among the thalamic nuclei despite occupying the most thalamic volume in primates, it has long been suspected to play a crucial role in attentive stimulus processing. In this issue of Neuron, Zhou etal. (2016) use simultaneous pulvinar-visual cortex recordings and pulvinar inactivation to provide evidence that the pulvinar is essential for intact stimulus processing, maintenance of neuronal oscillatory dynamics, and mediating the effects of attention.