Conditions Of High Attentional Load Research Articles

Auditory Attentional Load Modulates Audiovisual Integration During Auditory/Visual Discrimination.

Attention modulates numerous stages of audiovisual integration, and studies have shown that audiovisual integration is higher in attended conditions than in unattended conditions. However, attentional resources are limited for each person, and it is not yet clear how audiovisual integration changes under different attentional loads. Here, we explored how auditory attentional load affects audiovisual integration by applying an auditory/visual discrimination task to evaluate audiovisual integration and a rapid serial auditory presentation (RSAP) task to manipulate auditory attentional resources. The results for peak benefit and positive area under the curve of different probability showed that audiovisual integration was highest in the low attentional load condition and lowest in the high attentional load condition (low > no = medium > high). The peak latency and time window revealed that audiovisual integration was delayed as the attentional load increased (no < low < medium < high). Additionally, audiovisual depression was found in the no, medium, and high attentional load conditions but not in the low attentional load condition. These results suggest that mild auditory attentional load increases audiovisual integration, and high auditory attentional load decreases audiovisual integration.

Neural efficiency in basketball players is associated with bidirectional reductions in cortical activation and deactivation during multiple-object tracking task performance

Although sports expertise has been shown to have transferable cognitive benefits, it is unclear how motor expertise influences brain activity during perceptual-cognitive tasks. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether improved perceptual-cognitive behavioral task performance in individuals with well-developed motor skills is associated with characteristic cortical activation and deactivation. Blood oxygenation-level dependent (BOLD) functional MRI (fMRI) was conducted in 23 athletes and 24 age- and education-matched non-athletes performing a multiple object tracking (MOT) task with graded levels of attentional load (two, three, or four targets). Compared to non-athletes, athletes had better performance in the three- and four-target conditions of the MOT task. Less activation of the left frontal eye field (FEF) and bilateral anterior intraparietal sulcus (aIPS) and less deactivation in the bilateral medial superior frontal gyrus (mSFG) were observed in athletes compared to non-athletes. Importantly, as the attentional load was increased, differences in deactivation of the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) between athletes and non-athletes became larger. Behavioral performance in the high attentional load condition correlated negatively with activation in the left FEF and right aIPS, and correlated positively with that in the mSFG and left MTG. Better performance in elite athletes may transfer from the sport domain to a general cognitive domain owing to higher neural efficiency, which may be represented by a bidirectional reduction phenomenon encompassing both reduced activation of areas associated with task execution and reduced deactivation of areas associated with irrelevant information processing.

The Impact of Manipulating Attentional Shifting Demands on Preschool Children With Specific Language Impairment.

Purpose This study investigated attentional shifting in preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) compared to their typically developing peers. Children's attentional shifting capacity was assessed by varying attentional demands. Method Twenty-five preschool children with SLI and 25 age-matched, typically developing controls participated. A behavioral task measuring attentional shifting within and across multiple dimensions (auditory, linguistic, and visual) was employed. Demands on attentional shifting were increased based on input dimension (low load: staying within dimension; medium load: shifting between 2 dimensions; and high load: shifting among 3 dimensions). Results Compared to controls, the group with SLI made more erroneous responses and exhibited longer response times. Although both groups' error rates were similarly affected by shifting compared to nonshifting trials, their response speed was not. The group with SLI exhibited a larger comparative decrement to their response speed in the high-attentional load condition. Discussion When demands on attentional shifting increase, children with SLI struggle to shift their attention as efficiently to changing stimuli as their unimpaired peers. Potential implications for the assessment and treatment of this population are discussed.

Motion and position shifts induced by the double-drift stimulus are unaffected by attentional load.

The double-drift stimulus produces a strong shift in apparent motion direction that generates large errors of perceived position. In this study, we tested the effect of attentional load on the perceptual estimates of motion direction and position for double-drift stimuli. In each trial, four objects appeared, one in each quadrant of a large screen, and they moved upward or downward on an angled trajectory. The target object whose direction or position was to be judged was either cued with a small arrow prior to object motion (low attentional load condition) or cued after the objects stopped moving and disappeared (high attentional load condition). In Experiment 1, these objects appeared 10° from the central fixation, and participants reported the perceived direction of the target's trajectory after the stimulus disappeared by adjusting the direction of an arrow at the center of the response screen. In Experiment 2, the four double-drift objects could appear between 6 ° and 14° from the central fixation, and participants reported the location of the target object after its disappearance by moving the position of a small circle on the response screen. The errors in direction and position judgments showed little effect of the attentional manipulation-similar errors were seen in both experiments whether or not the participant knew which double-drift object would be tested. This suggests that orienting endogenous attention (i.e., by only attending to one object in the precued trials) does not interact with the strength of the motion or position shifts for the double-drift stimulus.

An Eye Movement Study on the Relationship Between Multiple Implicit Sequence Learning and Attention

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between multiple implicit sequence learning and attention. A one-factor between-subjects experimental design was used, with attentional load (low vs. high) as between-subjects variable. Eye-movement technology was adopted, and saccadic reaction time was as dependent measure. Forty healthy volunteers were randomly assigned to high attentional load condition and low attentional load condition. The results showed that: (1) Saccadic reaction time in high attentional load condition was longer than low attentional load condition’s; (2) Both the primary sequence and the secondary sequence could be learned no matter whether in low attentional load condition or in high attentional load condition; (3) the sequence learning scores did not differ from primary sequence and secondary sequence. These findings suggest that there are no attentional limitations on the learning of multiple sequence learning.

多重内隐序列学习与注意的关系：来自眼动的证据

采用单因素(注意负荷：高、低)被试间实验设计，通过分心刺激操纵注意负荷，利用眼动技术，探讨注意与多重序列学习的关系。结果发现：1) 高注意负荷组的眼跳反应时长于低注意负荷组的；2) 高、低注意负荷组对主、次序列都发生了内隐序列学习；3) 主、次序列的内隐学习量差异不显著。研究结论：多重内隐序列学习不需要注意参与。 The relationship between implicit sequence learning and attention was one of the basic questions in the study of implicit learning. Forty healthy volunteers were randomly assigned to high attention load condition and low attention load condition. Our data showed that: 1) Saccadic reaction time in high attentional load condition was longer than low attentional load condition’s; 2) primary sequence could be learned under both high and low attentional load condition; secondary sequence could be learned under both high and low attentional load condition; new sequence could not be learned under neither high nor low attentional load condition; 3) the sequence learning scores did not differ from primary sequence and secondary sequence. These findings suggested that there were not attentional limitations on the learning of multiple sequence learning.

Perceptual load of divided attention modulates auditory-motor integration of voice control

The present study sought to examine how the auditory-motor processing of feedback errors during vocal pitch regulation is modulated as a function of divided attention. Subjects were exposed to pitch perturbations in voice auditory feedback and flashing lights on the computer screen, during which they were asked to divide their attention to both auditory and visual stimuli by counting the number of both of them. The presentation rate of the visual stimuli (inter-stimulus intervel) was manipulated to produce a low, intermediate, and high attentional load. The results revealed that, as compared to the low and intermediate attentional load conditions, the high attentional load condition elicited significantly smaller magnitudes of vocal responses but larger amplitudes of N1 and P2 responses to pitch feedback perturbations. These findings demonstrate the effect of attentional load on the auditory-motor processing of pitch feedback errors during divided attention, suggesting that perceptual load of visual attention interferes the attentional modulation of auditory-motor integration in voice control.

Attentional demands influence vocal compensations to pitch errors heard in auditory feedback.

Auditory feedback is required to maintain fluent speech. At present, it is unclear how attention modulates auditory feedback processing during ongoing speech. In this event-related potential (ERP) study, participants vocalized/a/, while they heard their vocal pitch suddenly shifted downward a ½ semitone in both single and dual-task conditions. During the single-task condition participants passively viewed a visual stream for cues to start and stop vocalizing. In the dual-task condition, participants vocalized while they identified target stimuli in a visual stream of letters. The presentation rate of the visual stimuli was manipulated in the dual-task condition in order to produce a low, intermediate, and high attentional load. Visual target identification accuracy was lowest in the high attentional load condition, indicating that attentional load was successfully manipulated. Results further showed that participants who were exposed to the single-task condition, prior to the dual-task condition, produced larger vocal compensations during the single-task condition. Thus, when participants’ attention was divided, less attention was available for the monitoring of their auditory feedback, resulting in smaller compensatory vocal responses. However, P1-N1-P2 ERP responses were not affected by divided attention, suggesting that the effect of attentional load was not on the auditory processing of pitch altered feedback, but instead it interfered with the integration of auditory and motor information, or motor control itself.

Neuronal effects of auditory distraction on visual attention

Selective attention in the presence of distraction is a key aspect of healthy cognition. The underlying neurobiological processes, have not, however, been functionally well characterized. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine how ecologically relevant distracting noise affects cortical activity in 27 healthy adults during two versions of the visual Sustained Attention To Response Task (SART) that differ in difficulty (and thus attentional load). A significant condition (noise or silence) by task (easy or difficult) interaction was observed in several areas, including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), fusiform gyrus (FG), posterior cingulate (PCC), and pre-supplementary motor area (PreSMA). Post hoc analyses of interaction effects revealed deactivation of DLPFC, PCC, and PreSMA during distracting noise under conditions of low attentional load, and activation of FG and PCC during distracting noise under conditions of high attentional load. These results suggest that distracting noise may help alert subjects to task goals and reduce demands on cortical resources during tasks of low difficulty and attentional load. Under conditions of higher load, however, additional cognitive resources may be required in the presence of noise.

The Improvement of Emotion and Attention Regulation after a 6-Week Training of Focused Meditation: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Self-regulatory trainings can be an effective complementary treatment for mental health disorders. We investigated the effects of a six-week-focused meditation training on emotion and attention regulation in undergraduates randomly allocated to a meditation, a relaxation, or a wait-list control group. Assessment comprised a discrimination task that investigates the relationship between attentional load and emotional processing and self-report measures. For emotion regulation, results showed greater reduction in emotional interference in the low attentional load condition in meditators, particularly compared to relaxation. Only meditators presented a significant association between amount of weekly practice and the reduction in emotion interference in the task and significantly reduced image ratings of negative valence and arousal, perceived anxiety and difficulty during the task, and state and trait-anxiety. For attention regulation, response bias during the task was analyzed through signal detection theory. After training, meditation and relaxation significantly reduced bias in the high attentional load condition. Importantly, there was a dose-response effect on general bias: the lowest in meditation, increasing linearly across relaxation and wait-list. Only meditators reduced omissions in a concentrated attention test. Focused meditation seems to be an effective training for emotion and attention regulation and an alternative for treatments in the mental health context.

Reduced amygdala response in youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits: decreased emotional response versus increased top-down attention to nonemotional features.

Amygdala dysfunction has been reported to exist in youths and adults with psychopathic traits. However, there has been disagreement as to whether this dysfunction reflects a primary emotional deficit or is secondary to atypical attentional control. The authors examined the validity of the contrasting predictions. Participants were 15 children and adolescents (ages 10–17 years) with both disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits and 17 healthy comparison youths. Functional MRI was used to assess the response of the amygdala and regions implicated in top-down attentional control (the dorsomedial and lateral frontal cortices) to emotional expression under conditions of high and low attentional load. Relative to youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits, healthy comparison subjects showed a significantly greater increase in the typical amygdala response to fearful expressions under low relative to high attentional load conditions. There was also a selective inverse relationship between the response to fearful expressions under low attentional load and the callous-unemotional component (but not the narcissism or impulsivity component) of psychopathic traits. In contrast, the two groups did not differ in the significant recruitment of the dorsomedial and lateral frontal cortices as a function of attentional load. Youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits showed reduced amygdala responses to fearful expressions under low attentional load but no indications of increased recruitment of regions implicated in top-down attentional control. These findings suggest that the emotional deficit observed in youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits is primary and not secondary to increased top-down attention to nonemotional stimulus features.

Finding a single guy: The role of attention in masked face priming under conditions of high attentional load

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Adaptation Affects Both High and Low (Subitized) Numbers Under Conditions of High Attentional Load

It has recently been reported that, like most sensory systems, numerosity is subject to adaptation. However, the effect seemed to be limited to numerosity estimation outside the subitizing range. In this study we show that low numbers, clearly in the subitizing range, are adaptable under conditions of high attentional load. These results support the idea that numerosity is detected by a perceptual mechanism that operates over the entire range of numbers, supplemented by an attention-based system for small numbers (subitizing).

The Role of Attention in Binding Visual Features in Working Memory: Evidence from Cognitive Ageing

Two experiments were conducted to assess the costs of attentional load during a feature (colour-shape) binding task in younger and older adults. Experiment 1 showed that a demanding backwards counting task, which draws upon central executive/general attentional resources, reduced binding to a greater extent than individual feature memory, but the effect was no greater in older than in younger adults. Experiment 2 showed that presenting memory items sequentially rather than simultaneously, such that items are required to be maintained while new representations are created, selectively affects binding performance in both age groups. Although this experiment exhibited an age-related binding deficit overall, both age groups were affected by the attention manipulation to an equal extent. While a role for attentional processes in colour-shape binding was apparent across both experiments, manipulations of attention exerted equal effects in both age groups. We therefore conclude that age-related binding deficits neither emerge nor are exacerbated under conditions of high attentional load. Implications for theories of visual working memory and cognitive ageing are discussed.

Hemispheric modulations of alpha-band power reflect the rightward shift in attention induced by enhanced attentional load

Rightward shifts in attention are a common consequence of brain injury. A growing body of evidence appears to suggest that increases in attentional load, and decreases in alertness can lead to rightward shifts in attention in healthy and patient populations. It is unclear however whether these factors affect spatial biases in attention at the level of preparatory control processes or at the level of stimulus driven expression mechanisms. Whilst such effects cannot easily be dissociated behaviourally, the robust association between changes in α-band activity and shifts in visual attention provides a neural marker by which the temporal dynamics of effects of attentional load on spatial processing might be examined. Here we use electroencephalography to examine the relationship between modulations in α-band activity and behavioural outcome on a dual task paradigm comprising a detection task (t1), closely followed by a temporal order judgment task (t2). We examine the effects of high (respond to t1 and t2) and low (t2 only) attentional load conditions on spatial bias and changes in lateralization of α-band activity over the course of the trial. As anticipated a rightward bias in detecting target onsets was observed in the temporal order judgment task (t2) under conditions of high attentional load. This rightward shift in attention was associated with changes in the lateralization of α-band activity that occurred only after the presentation of t2, suggesting that attentional load may primarily influence expression mechanisms.

252. Asymmetries in the modulation of alpha-band power for high attentional load conditions: Involvement of the attentional control mechanism

252. Asymmetries in the modulation of alpha-band power for high attentional load conditions: Involvement of the attentional control mechanism

Right impairment of temporal order judgements in dyslexic children

This study investigates the spatial bias of visual attention measured by a temporal order judgement (TOJ) task and the influence of a high attentional load condition in a group of dyslexic children compared to a control group with normal reading skills (each group N=10). The TOJ task (T2) was placed after a shape discrimination task (T1). In a low attentional load block participants worked only on T2, whereas in the high attentional load block they were required to process both T1 and T2. Several t-tests were executed to compare performance between conditions and groups. In the low attentional load conditions, results in dyslexic children were significantly impaired for the right visual field compared to a control group. The high attentional load conditions did not enhance these effects and seems to provoke the same leftward bias in the control group.

Sustained Selective Attention Skills of Preschool Children With Specific Language Impairment: Evidence for Separate Attentional Capacities

The present study was designed to investigate the performance of preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their typically developing (TD) peers on sustained selective attention tasks. This study included 23 children diagnosed with SLI and 23 TD children matched for age, gender, and maternal education level. The children's sustained selective attention skills were assessed with different types of stimuli (visual, nonverbal-auditory, linguistic) under 2 attentional load conditions (high, low) using computerized tasks. A mixed design was used to compare children across groups and performance across tasks. The SLI participants exhibited poorer performance than their peers on the sustained selective attention tasks presented in the auditory modality (linguistic and nonverbal-auditory) under the high attentional load conditions. Performance was comparable with their peers under the low attentional load conditions. The SLI group exhibited similar performance to their peers on the visual tasks regardless of attentional load. These results support the notion of attention difficulties in preschool children with SLI and suggest separate attentional capacities for different stimulus modalities.

Selective attention modulates inferior frontal gyrus activity during action observation

Our ability to recognize the actions of others is subserved by a complex network of brain areas, including the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and superior temporal sulcus (STS). An unresolved issue is whether the activity within these regions requires top–down control or whether it arises relatively automatically during passive action observation. Here we used fMRI to determine whether cortical activity associated with action observation is modulated by the strategic allocation of selective attention. Participants observed moving and stationary images of reach-to-grasp hand actions, while they performed an attentionally demanding task at the fovea. We first defined regions-of-interest (ROIs) in the IFG, IPL and STS which responded to the perception of these actions. We then probed these ROIs while participants observed the identical, but now task-irrelevant, actions and instead performed an easy (low attentional load) or difficult (high attentional load) visual discrimination task. Our data indicate that the activity of the left IFG was consistently attenuated under conditions of high attentional load, while the remaining action observation areas remained relatively unaffected by attentional manipulations. The suppression of the left IFG was unique to the observation of hand actions, and did not occur during the observation of non-biological control stimuli, in the form of coherent dot motion. We propose that the left IFG is the site at which descending inhibitory processes affect the processing of observed actions, and that the attentional modulation of this region is responsible for filtering task-irrelevant actions during ongoing behavior.

Audiovisual Integration of Speech Falters under High Attention Demands

One of the most commonly cited examples of human multisensory integration occurs during exposure to natural speech, when the vocal and the visual aspects of the signal are integrated in a unitary percept. Audiovisual association of facial gestures and vocal sounds has been demonstrated in nonhuman primates and in prelinguistic children, arguing for a general basis for this capacity. One critical question, however, concerns the role of attention in such multisensory integration. Although both behavioral and neurophysiological studies have converged on a preattentive conceptualization of audiovisual speech integration, this mechanism has rarely been measured under conditions of high attentional load, when the observers' attention resources are depleted. We tested the extent to which audiovisual integration was modulated by the amount of available attentional resources by measuring the observers' susceptibility to the classic McGurk illusion in a dual-task paradigm. The proportion of visually influenced responses was severely, and selectively, reduced if participants were concurrently performing an unrelated visual or auditory task. In contrast with the assumption that crossmodal speech integration is automatic, our results suggest that these multisensory binding processes are subject to attentional demands.