Auditory Vigilance Research Articles

EMG levels in the occipitofrontalis muscles under an experimental stress condition

In view of the importance attached to the frontalis muscles by researchers into the etiology of head pain and its treatment by biofeedback techniques, it is surprising that no data have yet been reported on the functioning of the occipitalis muscles, which have a close physiological relationship to the frontales. This study explores the response of the frontalis and occipitalis muscles under a condition of experimental stress. Migraine and tension-headache sufferers were separately compared with a headache-free control group under four conditions: baseline, while listening to instructions, while carrying out an auditory vigilance task, and for a further resting period equivalent to baseline. Results showed that tension levels in the frontalis muscles were not elevated at rest in any of the experimental groups, nor were they significantly responsive to the experimental task. The occipitales however proved to have significantly higher levels in both the tension-headache and migraine groups during the task and recovery periods. The results for the tension group reached significance because of a drop in control group values. These results may have significance in determining the best site for electrode placement in biofeedback.

The physiological (EEG) nature of drowsiness and its relation to performance deficits in narcoleptics

Ten narcoleptics off medication were compared to matched controls to determine the pattern and level of electroencephalographic (EEG) vigilance, and its relation to performance ability on the 1 h Wilkinson auditory vigilance task. The narcoleptics performed significantly more poorly and spent significantly less time in wakefulness than controls. The EEG of the patients revealed continual fluctuations between wakefulness, stage 1A (slowed and diffusing alpha) and stage 1B (theta activity). Stage 2 sleep only occurred briefly in 4 patients. Stages 3, 4 and REM sleep were never encountered. Controls were continually awake aside from very brief appearances of stage 1A in 5 subjects. Narcoleptic performance during stages 1B and 2 was characterized by lapses (response omissions). Patients also demonstrated significantly more lapses as well as false positive responses than controls during wakefulness and stage 1A. Poorer performance even during wakefulness was demonstrated to be related to inability to sustain wakefulness over time. The results clarify the temporal pattern of physiological vigilance during performance in narcoleptics and also demonstrate the insufficiency of the lapse-microsleep formulation in explaining performance deterioration in these patients.

Effects on the polysomnogram and waking electrocorticogram of ad-libitum extended-delayed sleep.

The influence arising from an ad-libitum extended-delayed sleep regime on the temporal distribution of REM, slow-wave NREM (stage 2) cycle durations, and waking EEG concurrent with auditory vigilance performance, was evaluated. Subjects were 16 normal healthy young adult males aged 18–24 years who slept 7–8 hr nocturnally. The experiment included an imposed 12–8:00 a.m. control condition and ad-libitum treatment of electrographically recorded laboratory sleep. On the control night the time for retiring was scheduled for 12:00 a.m. and awakening at 8:00 a.m. During the ad libitum treatment the subject was allowed to retire and awaken largely at his own inclination. From a central (C4–A1) electrocorticogram continuously recorded 1 hr after awakening, during evaluations on auditory vigilance, 1.5-sec epochs of 8–13 Hz alpha rhythm following task-relevant (signal) stimuli were integrated and rectified. The accumulation of slow-wave sleep declined systematically across cycles during both treatments. This atten...

Auditory evoked potentials compared to performance measures and EEG in assessing excessive daytime sleepiness in narcolepsy-cataplexy

The AEP to the repetitive stimuli of the Wilkinson auditory vigilance task was compared between untreated patients with narcolepsy-cataplexy and matched controls for periods during which the tones were preceded by 13 sec or more of wakefulness (defined by EEG-polygraphic criteria). During these periods it had been found previously that narcoleptics did not perform worse than did controls. The AEP, nevertheless, showed significant differences for narcoleptics. These were similar to changes described for drowsiness in normals. The AEP, therefore, showed changes related to excessive daytime drowsiness in narcolepsy-cataplexy when a sensitive performance measure and visual analysis of EEG-polygraphic recordings did not.

Effects of ambient illumination over days on human vigilance performance.

Detection rates of 36 college students were measured for three days in an auditory vigilance task under one of three conditions of ambient illumination: dark (less than .33 lx), low (86 lx), and high (170 lx) intensity levels. Within-session performance decrements were seen in all conditions. Increasing the intensity of ambient illumination improved vigilance performance, an effect which became more potent over days. These results are discussed in terms of arousal theory and habituation.

The Effects of Open-Space versus Traditional, Self-Contained Classrooms on the Auditory Selective Attending Skills of Elementary School Children

No AccessLanguage, Speech, and Hearing Services in SchoolsResearch Article1 Jul 1982The Effects of Open-Space versus Traditional, Self-Contained Classrooms on the Auditory Selective Attending Skills of Elementary School Children Debra Louise Barnett, Alan C. Nichols, and Darlene Geer Gould Debra Louise Barnett Google Scholar More articles by this author , Alan C. Nichols Google Scholar More articles by this author and Darlene Geer Gould Google Scholar More articles by this author https://doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461.1303.138 SectionsAboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationTrack Citations ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In The effects of the open-space classroom and the traditional, self-contained classroom on the auditory selective attending skills of elementary school children were studied. Thirty-eight fourth-grade children, 19 from each setting, were given the Flowers Auditory Test of Selective Attention. The test required increasingly more sophisticated auditory watchkeeping skills over longer periods of time. Results indicated that children from the open-space classrooms achieved significantly higher scores on the FATSA than did children from the traditional classrooms. It was concluded, based upon the results of this study, that children who are exposed to varying and unpredictable auditory distractions in their classroom environments are better able to perform on a task requiring auditory vigilance skills in the presence of distracting background noise. Additional Resources FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 13Issue 3July 1982Pages: 138-143 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library HistoryReceived: Aug 22, 1980Accepted: Apr 7, 1981 Published in issue: Jul 1, 1982 Metrics Topicsasha-topicsasha-article-typesleader-topicsCopyright & PermissionsCopyright © 1982 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationPDF downloadLoading ...

Sustained visual attention in deaf and hearing adults

Benedetti and Loeb (1972) have established that loss of vision (blindness) can be associated with enhancement in the quality of auditory vigilance. The present study demonstrates that loss of hearing (deafness) can result in an analogous enhancement with regard to visual vigilance. Legally deaf and normal-hearing adults monitored a visual display continuously for 45 min. Critical signals for detection were occasional increments in the horizontal movements of a bar of light. The deaf observers detected significantly more signals with no higher false alarm rates than the normals. The superiority of the deaf is attributed to the transfer of practiced variables related to more efficient utilization of visual information.

Effects of irregular versus regular sleep schedules on performance, mood and body temperature

Twelve male college students slept for 38 consecutive nights in the sleep laboratory under strict control of bedtime and wake-up time. Sleep logs, body temperature and performance on an experimenter-paced auditory vigilance and subject-paced addition test were assessed before sleeping in the laboratory, following 38 consecutive nights, and one month afterward to examine the effects of rigidly controlling retiring and awakening times. While large changes in the regularity of sleep occurred during sleep in the laboratory as compared to the normal irregular schedules, no significant changes in EEG sleep stage, performance, or mood were found. Body temperature was found to be higher and, perhaps, more flattened in the initial irregular condition as compared to the regular sleep schedule condition. It was concluded, however, that careful control of sleep and waking times in relatively irregular sleeping college students had little influence on sleep or performance. This finding implies that previous differences reported between groups of regular and irregular sleepers may have been based on personality differences rather than sleep scheduling factors.

Phasic not tonic pupillary responses vary with auditory vigilance performance.

ABSTRACTPupillary movements were monitored as 11 university students listened to a series of 1K Hz 50‐msec tone bursts presented at 3.2‐sec intervals for a period of 48 min. Their task was to report target tones (‐3dB), which were presented randomly with a probability of 0.12. Under these conditions, monitoring performance deteriorated as a function of time on the task. This vigilance decrement was attributed to both a decrease in listener sensitivity and a conservative shift in decision criterion, as determined by a signal detection analysis. The amplitude of the phasic task‐evoked pupillary response reflected these changes in performance, decreasing significantly over time on the task. Tonic or baseline pupillary diameter exhibited no such relationship with performance. These results are interpreted in the context of an activation theory of attention that suggests that a common neurophysiological system mediates both intensive and sustained attentional processes.

Effects of scheduled afternoon naps and bedrest on daytime alertness

A forced-rest postulate and recuperative theory of sleep function were tested. Eighteen normal, healthy young adult males were studied in a balanced design which comprised single treatment replicates of polygraphically recorded 2:40-4:00 p.m. napping and bedrest. Under both conditions subjects were required to lie quietly in bed with eyes closed. During bedrest, stage 1 sleep episodes were allowed to intervene, but for no longer than 1.5 min simultaneously. Dependent variables of waking function were initially assessed at 12:30 p.m. for 1.2 hr and then again 20 min following the conditions from 4:20 until 5:30 p.m. Measurements were obtained from: (a) short-term memory, visual four-choice reaction time, and auditory vigilance tasks; (b) 4-7 Hz EEG theta rhythm; (c) sublingual temperature; (d) the Stanford Sleepiness Scale; and (e) mood subscales (activation, euphoria, fatigue) on an adjective check list. During bedrest compared with napping, subjects averaged significantly more: (a) stage 1 (in aggregate:...

The effects of cigarette smoking on vigilance performance.

Each of 24 Ss completed an auditory vigilance task after smoking either a "low" nicotine cigarette (12 Ss) or a "middle" nicotine cigarette (12 Ss) and served as his own control in an identical session one week before or after the test session. The smoking was followed by improved vigilance in both groups as compared with the control performance. The improvement came about in different ways for the two groups. The low nicotine group recorded improved detection, the middle nicotine group reduced false positive rate. These effects are attributed to the known differential, biphasic effects of nicotine on performance.

Daytime performance deficits and physiological vigilance in untreated patients with narcolepsy-cataplexy compared to controls

Ten patients, 7 female, 3 male, aged 17-65 years (mean 40) with narcolepsy-cataplexy were compared off treatment to matched controls on 4 performance tests. The tests were the 1 h Wilkinson auditory vigilance task, and 3 shorter tests including the 4-choice serial reaction time, the paced auditory serial addition task (PASAT) and digit span. Tests were counterbalanced and polygraphic recordings were done during all but the 4-choice serial RT. Subjective sleepiness was assessed by the 1-7 levels of the Stanford Sleepiness Scale and effort in the tests by a similar 1-7 scale. Practice sessions were held. Narcoleptics showed poorer performance on the more monotonous tests of auditory vigilance (fewer hits) and the 4-choice serial RT (longer reaction times, more 'gaps'). There were no significant differences between groups on the other performance tests. Narcoleptics were subjectively sleepier during all tests and over-all. But there was no good correlation between perceived degree of sleepiness and performance. They also expressed greater effort to perform the PASAT. The narcoleptics showed greater amounts of drowsiness and light sleep only during the 1 h vigilance test. For the detections of those signals (shorter times) occurring after 13 sec or more of polygraphic wakefulness, narcoleptics performed as well as controls.

Sensitivity of the stanford sleepiness scale to the effects of cumulative partial sleep deprivation and recovery oversleeping.

The sensitivity of the Stanford Sleepiness Scale (SSS) to short-term cumulative partial sleep deprivation (PSD) and subsequent recovery oversleeping was examined. A repeated-measures design included 7 paid healthy undergraduate volunteers, who were normal sleepers (mean sleep time 7.6 hr), and consisted of the following schedule: (a) pre-baseline; (b)sleep reduction of 40% of 1 night (mean, 4.6 hr) for 5 nights; (c) recovery oversleeping for night 1 (mean, 10.6 Hr) and night 2 (mean, 9.1 hr); (d) post-baseline. Daytime performance testing utilized a 1 hr auditory vigilance task and four short-duration (10 min) tests, two of which have been shown sensitive to total and partial sleep loss effects. Subjects completed SSS forms every min while awake and 1-9 scales of mood and energy upon awakening. Subjective measures were analyzed across conditions for mean all-day and task-related SSS values and mood and energy ratings. A correlational analysis investigated individual correspondences between ratings and performance. Results indicate that SSS is sensitive to deficits in alertness following PSD. However, it generally does not predict individual performance efficiency and therefore cannot act as a substitute for performance measures in studies involving chronic sleep loss.

Lack of effect on mental efficiency of extra vitamin C

Twenty men (mean age 21 yr) took part in a double-blind cross-over trial to compare psychomotor performance when plasma vitamin C levels were high (16.28 +/- 3.75 mg/l) owing to supplementation, with times when levels were low (6.15 +/- 3.88 mg/l). Subjects were tested at 0730, 1130, and 1900 h by an hour-long auditory vigilance test to assess alertness, a digit-symbol substitution task to test short-term memory, and a memory-for-digits test to measure immediate memory. No significant differences were found on these measures of performance, nor was there any change in their subjectively rated sheep quality, alertness, concentration, or mood.

Diurnal variation in vigilance efficiency.

Five sets of data are presented, obtained from studies that examined the influence of time of day on auditory vigilance performance during the normal waking day. Although both hits and false alarms...

The effects of continuous exposure to carbon monoxide on auditory vigilance in man.

Six different groups of non-smoking young male subjects were studied separately for 18 consecutive days each in a closed controlled-environmental human exposure chamber. Each group was subjected to a 5-day control period in fresh air followed successively by an 8-day period of continuous exposure to 50 ppm, 15 ppm or 0 ppm (control) by volume of carbon monoxide (CO) in air, and a 5-day recovery period in fresh air. The subjects performed a 1-h auditory vigilance task every day at the same time of day in a fixed qualitative, quantitative, and temporal relationship with food intake, consumption of stimulating beverages, physical activity, and sleep. It was concluded that such CO exposure, involving the continuous carriage of carboxyhaemoglobin loads up to 7%, was without significant effect on auditory vigilance.

The effects upon vigilance and reaction speed of the addition of ephedrine hydrochloride to chlorpheniramine maleate.

The addition of stimulant, ephedrine hydrochloride (15 mg), to the antihistamine, chlorpheniramine maleate (10 mg) is shown significantly to reduce the adverse drowsy effects of the latter upon various components of human performance. Auditory vigilance--a test of long-term attentiveness--is shown particularly to benefit from the addition of ephedrine. Whilst ephedrine does not aid simple reaction speed, it does reduce the pausing in serial-choice performance, indicative of a drowsy state, which otherwise occurs under chlorpheniramine alone.

Effects of ad lib extended-delayed sleep on sensorimotor performance, memory and sleepiness in the young adult

Behavioral functions were studied in 16 healthy young adult males who slept regularly for 7–8 hr following two electrographically recorded conditions of continuous sleep. The conditions consisted of a rigidly scheduled 12–8:00 a.m. control night and an ad lib session when the times for sleep were at the subjects' own inclination. Thirty minutes after awakening from each condition measurements were obtained from (1) short-term memory, (2) visual choice reaction time and (3) auditory vigilance tasks, and (4) the Stanford Sleepiness Scale. A statistically significant augmentation of total sleep occurred on the ad lib nights (mean=9.6 hr) compared with the control condition (mean=7.5 hr) which was mainly due to an average 2.7 hr delay in awakening times. Following ad lib extended-delayed sleep there was a significant decline in performance on all tasks and significant elevation of sleepiness scale ratings 90 min after awakening. This effect of ad lib sleep, like behavioral deficits characteristically arising from disturbances in the diurnal rhythm, was mainly apparent early during testing and increased little with time. The results of the present study support the assumption that phase-delays in accustomed awakening times were largely the cause for the specific performance decrements observed rather than extended sleep per se.

Auditory and Visual Vigilance in Normal and Learning Disabled Readers

The Continuous Performance Test was administered to normal and learning disabled males (CA 12.5) to test the proposition that learning disabled children manifest an attention deficit related to reading performance. Children were tested on two task lengths (4.45 and 9.30 minutes) and two modalities (auditory and visual) in which dependent measures were correct detections and false responses. As expected, learning disabled children with reading deficiencies made significantly fewer correct detections and more false responses than did normal children. There was no strong evidence to indicate that a visual presentation provided better attention for learning disabled children. Results were interpreted as supporting the notion that learning disabled readers are underattentive to critical stimuli.

Auditory vigilance: Normals compared to chronic schizophrenic subgroups defined by skin conductance variables

Three electrodermally distinct subgroups of chronic schizophrenics were identified by Patterson and Venables (1978). The present study investigated the auditory vigilance ability of these subgroups relative to a normal population. In one subgroup of schizophrenics (the fast habituators) no evidence could be found for a deficit in auditory vigilance ability relative to normal. Implications for further electrophysiological and biochemical research in schizophrenia are discussed.