Directed Attention Task Research Articles

Shorter sleep duration and longer sleep onset latency are related to difficulty disengaging attention from negative emotional images in individuals with elevated transdiagnostic repetitive negative thinking

Background and objectivesRepetitive negative thinking (RNT) is often associated with disruptions in sleep and circadian rhythms. Disruptions in sleep and circadian rhythms may deal a “second hit” to attentional control deficits. This study evaluated whether sleep and circadian rhythm disruptions are related to the top-down control of attention to negative stimuli in individuals with heightened repetitive negative thinking. MethodsFifty-two community adults with high levels of transdiagnostic RNT and varying habitual sleep durations and bedtimes participated in a hybrid free-viewing and directed attention task using pairs of emotionally-evocative and neutral images while eye-tracking data were collected. Self-report and clinician-administered interviews regarding sleep were also collected. ResultsShorter habitual sleep duration was associated with more time looking at emotionally negative compared to neutral images during a free-viewing attention task and more difficulty disengaging attention from negative compared to neutral images during a directed attention task. In addition, longer sleep onset latencies were also associated with difficulty disengaging attention from negative stimuli. The relations between sleep and attention for positive images were not statistically significant. LimitationsA causal link between sleep and attentional control cannot be inferred from these cross-sectional data. The lack of a healthy control sample means that the relations between sleep disruption, attention, and emotional reactivity may not be unique to individuals with RNT. ConclusionsThese findings suggest that sleep disruption may be associated with a specific impact on cognitive resources that are necessary for the top-down inhibitory control of attention to emotionally negative information.

Phonological processing in late second language learners: The effects of proficiency and task

Using event related brain potentials (ERPs), we examined the neurocognitive basis of phonological discrimination of phoneme /h/ in native English speakers and Francophone late second language (L2) learners, as a function of L2 proficiency and stimulus/task demands. In Experiment 1, native and non-native (L2 only) phonological contrasts were presented as syllables during a task that directed attention to phonological form. Phonological categorization was assessed with MMN, N2b and P3b effects. In Experiment 2, the same contrasts were presented as words/ pseudowords during a task that directed attention to semantics. Phonological discrimination was assessed with N400 pseudoword effects. High proficiency L2 learners displayed similar ERPs as native speakers in both experiments; low proficiency L2 learners showed discrimination of non-native contrasts in Experiment 1 (directed attention task) only. Thus, L2 phonological discrimination by late learners may depend on stimulus/task factors and occurs in a wider range of contexts as L2 proficiency improves.

Does walking in nature restore directed attention?

Event Abstract Back to Event Does walking in nature restore directed attention? Rachel Richardson1* and Alison Bowling1 1 Southern Cross University, Psychology, School of Health and Human Sciences, Australia Aims: Mental fatigue is commonly understood and experienced as mental exhaustion, irritability and foggy thinking. Research indicates mental fatigue is indicative of depleted directed attention resources. Thus, restoration of directed attention is thought to alleviate mental fatigue. This research sought to determine if walking in nature compared to walking on a treadmill provided enhanced performance on tasks of directed attention. Method: Twenty-two participants completed a 30-min walk on a treadmill and a walk in the local Botanic Garden on separate days. Two directed attention tasks (Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVIP) and Necker Cube reversal task) were conducted both before and after each walk as well as a Perceived Arousal Scale and a Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Results: Total hits and sensitivity to a target on a RVIP task improved significantly in both locations F(1, 20) = 11.892, p = .003, F(1, 20) = 12.364, p = .002 respectively. However, there was no significant difference between the nature walk and the treadmill walk. Significant order effects were found for sensitivity to targets pre/post walks, F(1, 19) = 10.309, p = .005 and F(1, 19) = 8.578, p = .009 respectively. Necker cube baseline scores indicated a significant reduction in reversals after 30 minutes of walking in both locations. Arousal was higher overall in the nature walk compared to the treadmill walk, F(1, 20) = 11.626, p = .003. Conclusions: No evidence was obtained to suggest that walking in nature leads to improved directed attention compared to walking on a treadmill. Results indicate that improvements were due to significant learning affects. The significantly higher overall score on the arousal scale in the natural environment suggests that participants were more alert in this environment. Keywords: Mental Fatigue, nature, directed attention, Attention Restoration Theory Conference: 12th Annual Psychology Research Conference, 2015, Coffs Harbour, Australia, 25 Sep - 26 Sep, 2015. Presentation Type: Research Topic: Psychology Citation: Richardson R and Bowling A (2015). Does walking in nature restore directed attention?. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: 12th Annual Psychology Research Conference, 2015. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2015.66.00018 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 23 Sep 2015; Published Online: 23 Sep 2015. * Correspondence: Ms. Rachel Richardson, Southern Cross University, Psychology, School of Health and Human Sciences, Coffs Harbour, NSW, 2450, Australia, r.richardson.15@student.scu.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Rachel Richardson Alison Bowling Google Rachel Richardson Alison Bowling Google Scholar Rachel Richardson Alison Bowling PubMed Rachel Richardson Alison Bowling Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

An exploration of dichotic listening among adults who stutter

A pilot investigation of dichotic listening of CV stimuli was undertaken using seven adults who stutter (AWS) and a comparison group of seven adults who do not stutter (AWNS). The aim of this research was to investigate whether AWS show a difference in the strength of the right ear advantage (REA) in both undirected and directed attention tasks when compared to AWNS. The undirected attention task involved manipulating the interaural intensity difference (IID) of the CV stimuli presented to each ear. The CV stimuli were presented with equal intensity for the directed attention task. The undirected attention results indicated that both AWS and AWNS have a REA for processing speech information, with a primary difference observed between groups in regard to the IID point at which a REA shifts to a LEA. This crossing-over point occurred earlier for AWS, indicating a stronger right hemisphere involvement for the processing of speech compared to AWNS. No differences were found between groups in the directed attention task. The differences and similarities observed in dichotic listening between the two groups are discussed in regard to hemispheric specialization in the processing of speech.

Gestalt perception and the decline of global precedence in older subjects

Our visual world is hierarchically organized. Hierarchical processing is frequently investigated using Navon figures (large letters made up of smaller ones). In young adults, many studies reported faster reaction times (RT) to target letters presented at the global level [i.e., global precedence (GP)]. Furthermore, an age-related decline of this GP has been reported. We tested whether deficits in perceptual grouping via Gestalt laws (Gestalt principles of Proximity and Continuity) might contribute to this decline. In a directed attention task with valid and invalid cues, 20 young (mean age 22) and 20 older (mean age 57) male subjects had to indicate whether a target letter appeared at the global or local level of a Navon figure. The number of local letters forming the global figure was modulated in 5 steps. As expected, during valid trials, young adults showed a GP that linearly increased with increasing numbers of local letters (i.e., GP enhancement). This suggests that GP is related to perceptual grouping via Gestalt laws. By contrast, the group of older subjects demonstrated no precedence effect in RT and a non-significant trend toward GP in error rates (ER). No GP enhancement with an increasing number of local elements was observed. Exploratory analysis revealed that individual insensitivity to the modulation of matrix density, as revealed by a lack of global RT acceleration, was restricted to subjects that showed an overall local precedence (LP). Because older subjects tended to more frequently display an insensitivity to matrix modulation and an LP, we conclude that deficient Gestalt detection as indicated by non-enhanced global RT might contribute to the RT-related decline of GP with age.

The effects of smoking on selective attention as measured by startle reflex, skin conductance, and heart rate responses to auditory startle stimuli

The present study examined the effects of cigarette smoking on attentional processing by measuring nondeprived smokers' (n=39), minimally deprived smokers' (n=36), and nonsmokers' (n=34) startle eyeblink reflex, heart rate, and skin conductance responses (SCR) to acoustic startle stimuli (105 dB) during directed attention tasks. Whereas smokers demonstrated smaller startle responses than nonsmokers during a directed attention visual task, no difference in startle response magnitude emerged between the two smoking groups, nor did we observe an effect of smoking on SCR or heart rate response to the startle stimuli. Our findings suggest that smokers differ from nonsmokers in their selective attention abilities and that smoking does not enhance minimally deprived smokers' selective attention.

Instructed Delay Discharge in Primary and Secondary Somatosensory Cortex Within the Context of a Selective Attention Task

The neuronal mechanisms that contribute to tactile perception were studied using single-unit recordings from the cutaneous hand representation of primate primary (S1) and secondary (S2) somatosensory cortex. This study followed up on our recent observation that S1 and S2 neurons developed a sustained change in discharge during the instruction period of a directed-attention task. We determined the extent to which the symbolic light cues, which signaled the modality (tactile, visual) to attend and discriminate, elicited changes in discharge rate during the instructed delay (ID) period of the attention task and the functional importance of this discharge. ID responses, consisting of a sustained increase or decrease in discharge during the 2-s instruction period, were present in about 40% of the neurons in S1 and S2. ID responses in both cortical regions were very similar in most respects (frequency, sign, latency, amplitude), suggesting a common source. A major difference, however, was related to attentional modulation during the ID period: attentional influences were almost entirely restricted to S2 and these effects were always superimposed on the ID response (additive effect). These findings suggest that the underlying mechanisms for ID discharge and attention are independent. ID discharge significantly modified the initial response to the standard stimuli (competing texture and visual stimuli), usually enhancing responsiveness. We also showed that tactile detection in humans is enhanced during the ID period. Together, the results suggest that ID discharge represents a priming mechanism that prepares cortical areas to receive and process sensory inputs.

Differential processing of hierarchical visual stimuli in young and older healthy adults: Implications for pathology

Hierarchical figures in which large (global) forms are constructed from smaller (local) forms (Navon, 1977) have proved valuable in studies of perceptual organisation and hemispheric specialisation in both healthy volunteers and a wide range of neurological and psychiatric patients. In studies using Navon figures, normal young adults typically identify global forms faster than local forms. When the global and local forms are incongruent (e.g., a large E made of smaller Rs), global forms often interfere with local form identification more than vice versa. In two conditions on the same subjects, we contrasted the performance of young (mean age 22 years) and older (mean age 58 years) healthy volunteers on global and local processing. In the directed attention task, subjects were instructed to detect a target letter that occurred at the prespecified local or global level. The young subjects showed, as expected, faster reaction times (RTs) to detect global targets. In contrast, the older subjects showed significantly faster RTs to the local targets. Likewise, in a divided attention task, in which subjects were instructed to detect a target letter that could occur at either the local or the global level, the young adults were slightly quicker to detect the global targets and the older subjects were significantly quicker to detect the local targets. Error rates were generally low and there was no significant speed/accuracy trade-off in either condition. The observed local precedence effects in healthy older subjects were unexpected and are discussed in reference to previous work on differential hemispheric aging. That work has suggested that the left hemisphere is preferentially biased toward local processing and ages relatively slowly while the right hemisphere is biased toward global processing and ages relatively quickly. The implications of such putative differential aging for the interpretation of pathological local/global processing in neurological and psychiatric diseases are also emphasised.

Investigating evoked and induced electroencephalogram activity in task-related alpha power increases during an internally directed attention task

This study sought to explore whether the so-called 'paradoxical' task-related increases in the alpha bandwidth of the human electroencephalogram result from increases in evoked (phase locked), as opposed to induced (non-phase locked), activity. The electroencephalograms of 18 participants were recorded while they engaged in both auditory sensory-intake tasks (listening to randomly generated 'tunes') and internally directed attention tasks (imagining the same randomly generated tunes) matched for auditory input. Measures of evoked (phase locked) and induced (non-phase locked) activity were compared between tasks. Increases in induced alpha power were found during internal attention. No experimental effects were observed for evoked activity. These results are not entirely consistent with proposals that 'paradoxical' alpha indexes the evoked inhibition of task irrelevant processing.

IMPAIRED AUDITORY ATTENTION SKILLS FOLLOWING MIDDLE-EAR INFECTIONS

The present study investigated auditory attention skills in a sample of children with non-chronic otitis media with effusion (OME). Twenty children with repeated episodes of OME but not found in the need for myringotomy and insertion of ventilating tubes were compared to 20 control children with no known episodes of OME based on parental reports and medical records. Mean age during assessment was 9 years, and none of the children showed signs of impaired language functions and with normal general cognitive abilities. They were assessed with dichotic listening CV-syllables (DLCV-108) free recall and directed attention tasks. The control children showed the expected right ear advantage during free recall and the directed right condition, and demonstrated a shift toward a left ear advantage during the directed left. The children with a history of OME showed a predominant right ear advantage across all three tasks. Although some change in ear accuracy occurred across tasks, impaired auditory attention skills were found following a history of middle ear infections. These results replicate those reported earlier from a sample of children with persistent otitis media with effusion, and suggest that treatment with ventilating tubes does not appear to make any difference in the development of auditory attention skills, whereas occurrence of OME must be considered when testing auditory attentional skills as a part of a neuropsychological assessment. The writing of this report was facilitated with a grant from L. Meltzer Høyskolefond and financial support from the University of Bergen to Dr. Arve E. Asbjørnsen

The Role of Dichotic Listening Performance and Tasks of Executive Functions in Reading Impairment: A Discriminant Function Analysis

This study focused on the role of dichotic listening performance for the identification of reading impaired subtypes. Dichotic listening (DL), using verbal stimuli, has shown to be a valid measure of language lateralization. Usually, lateralization is estimated from the proportion of right ear over left ear accuracy during a free recall test procedure. However, it has been suggested that a more accurate estimate of laterality can be obtained by using a directed attention procedure. A sample of 43 reading disabled children of whom 18 showed signs of impaired language comprehension skills and 25 without language comprehension impairments, were compared to 20 age, and gender, matched controls on dichotic listening performance in both an unbiased free recall task and in a directed attention task using consonant-vowel syllables as dichotic stimuli. A laterality index was calculated for left and right ear stimuli reported during both the free recall condition and the attended ear-scores for the two directed attention conditions. Although both DL procedures yielded significant group differences, with a lower laterality score for the reading disabled compared to the controls, there was no main effect of DL-procedure or group × procedure interaction. Taken alone, DL performance could correctly classify 42% of the reading impaired samples, but together with other measures of executive functions, discriminant function analyses yielded 90.74% accuracy in classifying reading impaired children. The result indicates that DL together with tests of executive functions are valuable tools for assessment of reading impaired subjects.

Scene segmentation and attention in primate cortical areas V1 and V2.

The responses of many neurons in primary visual cortex are modulated by stimuli outside the classical receptive field in ways that may contribute to integrative processes like scene segmentation. To explore this issue, single-unit neuronal responses were recorded in monkey cortical areas V1 and V2 to visual stimuli containing either a figure or a background pattern over the receptive field. Figures were defined either by orientation contrast or by illusory contours. In all conditions, the stimulation over the RF and its nearby surround was identical. Both figure types enhanced the average population response in V1 and V2. For orientation contrast figures, enhancement averaged 50% in V2 and 30% in V1; for illusory contour figures, the enhancement averaged 24% in V2 and 18% in V1. These differences were statistically significant for figure type but not for visual area. In V2, the latency of enhancement to illusory contour-defined figures was longer than that to orientation-defined figures. Neuronal responses were recorded while the monkey performed a directed-attention task. Enhancement to both figure types was observed even when attention was directed away from the figure. Attention slightly enhanced responses in V2, independent of figure type, but did not affect responses in V1. There was no discernible effect of attention on background firing rate in either V1 or V2. These results suggest that scene segmentation is a distributed process, in which neuronal signals at successive stages of the visual hierarchy and over time increasingly reflect the global structure of the image. This process occurs independent of directed visual attention.

Extraversion, attention, and startle response reactivity

The present study investigated the impact of directed attention tasks performed by introverts and extraverts, using the brainstem startle eyeblink response as a measure of automatic reactivity. Participants (23 introverts and 24 extraverts) were instructed to either attend to a startle-eyeblink-eliciting acoustic noise pulse (90 or 105 dB) or to a drawing of animals, or to ignore all stimuli, while their eyeblink reflex to the noise pulse was measured. In the no-task condition, introverts were generally more reactive than extraverts. When attention was directed to the startle-eliciting stimulus, startle response amplitude was potentiated in both introverts and extraverts. When attention was directed to a visual task, acoustic startle reactivity was reduced for introverts, but not for extraverts. Therefore, introverts were more able to focus their attention, and were less distractible than extraverts. These data support previous findings of a narrower focus of attention in introverts than in extraverts, based on differences in arousal as a function of extraversion.

Deriving Numerosity and Shape from Identical Visual Displays

We presented identical displays of three to five dots in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment with normal volunteers. Two distinct directed attention tasks were performed on these displays: In one condition, subjects assessed the numerosity of the display; in the other condition, they assessed the shape of the display. Decisions based on numerosity activated differentially striate and extrastriate visual processing areas as well as left inferior frontal cortex. Decisions based on shape derived from arrangement activated differentially temporoparietal cortex bilaterally, medial posterior cingulate cortex, and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These divergent neural activations in response to identical stimuli suggest that attentional mechanisms are deployed in very different ways in rapid enumeration of visual objects and in linking spatially discrete elements to one form.

Lasting auditory attention impairment after persistent middle ear infections: a dichotic listening study.

Dichotic listening performance was studied in children who at an early age had undergone a myringotomy with insertion of ventilating tubes for persistent middle ear infections (otitis media with effusion; OME) and compared with age-equivalent children who had no history of otitis media or hearing problems. The OME group consisted of 19 children with a median age of 9 years; 15 of whom were right-handed, and 14 were boys. The comparison sample comprised 18 children with a median age was 9 years 4 months. Hand preference and sex were matched with the OME group. Both groups were tested with dichotic listening to consonant-vowel syllables and additional forced-attention tasks. The comparison sample showed a weak right-ear advantage, and age-adequate attentional modulations. The children in the OME group showed a strong right-ear advantage, but were not able to modulate the ear advantage during directed-attention tasks. Models for interpreting the result are discussed.

Hemispheric asymmetries in global⧹local processing are modulated by perceptual salience

It has been claimed that a left hemisphere bias toward local and right hemisphere bias toward global visual processing can be explained in terms of specialization for relatively high and low spatial frequencies, respectively. Using non-representational figures, we tested this hypothesis in experiment 1 using positron emission tomography (PET) measures of cerebral activity in 10 normal volunteers. In each block of trials subjects viewed either a relatively high or a relatively low spatial frequency grating. The orientation (vertical or horizontal) of the grating changed from trial to trial. In a directed attention task, subjects reported the orientation of either the whole stimulus (globally directed attention) or the orientation of the component parts thereof (locally directed attention). A significant interaction between hierarchical processing level (global or local) and stimulus level (relatively high or relatively low spatial frequency within the absolute low spatial frequency range) was found. Globally directed attention led to significantly increased cerebral activity in the right hemisphere when relatively high spatial frequency stimuli were used but not when relatively low spatial frequency stimuli were used. Likewise, locally directed attention increased cerebral activity when low but not high spatial frequency stimuli were used. On the basis of these results we suggest that perceptual salience of the global or local form modulates hemispheric processing asymmetries in early visual cortex. In experiment 2, the perceptual salience of global form in relatively high spatial frequency stimuli and of local form in relatively low spatial frequency stimuli was confirmed in a reaction time (RT) study. In combination, the results of the two experiments suggest that perceptual salience takes precedence over spatial frequency (within the range studied here) in determining the cerebral organization of global⧹local processing.

Neural mechanisms involved in the processing of global and local aspects of hierarchically organized visual stimuli.

We investigated the functional anatomy involved in sustaining or switching visual attention between different perceptual levels, using functional imaging measures of neural activity. Two experiments were carried out using hierarchically organized letters (i.e. large letters made out of small letters). In a divided-attention task, subjects were required to switch attention between local and global levels. The number of successive stimuli for which subjects had to sustain attention to either the global or local level co-varied significantly with temporal-parietal activations bilaterally. Other activations were also observed in the right orbitofrontal cortex, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the right middle temporal gyrus. The number of switches between levels co-varied significantly with activations in the left supplementary motor area and the left medial parietal cortex. In the directed-attention task, subjects were required to attend to either the global or local level of the stimuli throughout all trials; attention to the global aspect resulted in significant activation of the right lingual gyrus while attention to the local aspect significantly activated the left inferior occipital cortex. We suggest that left hemisphere activations with increasing numbers of switches between perceptual levels reflect increased demands on an executive attentional system, while sustained attention to either level activates a predominantly right hemispheric network involving temporal-parietal and dorsolateral prefrontal regions. Overall, the results provide evidence for relative hemispheric specialization for global and local processing in accordance with previous neuropsychological studies. In addition, the findings demonstrate that early visual processing mechanisms in the prestriate cortex are influenced by an attentional system in temporal-parietal areas.

Hemispheric specialization for global and local processing: the effect of stimulus category.

Neuropsychological evidence indicates that the global aspect of complex visual scenes is preferentially processed by the right hemisphere, and local aspects are preferentially processed by the left hemisphere. Using letter-based hierarchical stimuli (Navon figures), we recently demonstrated, in a directed-attention task, lateralized neural activity (assessed by positron emission tomography) in the left prestriate cortex during local processing, and in the right prestriate cortex during global processing. Furthermore, temporal-parietal cortex was critically activated bilaterally in a divided-attention task that involved varying the number of target switches between local and global levels of letter-based hierarchical stimuli. Little is known about whether such stimulus categories influence such hemispheric lateralization. We now present data on brain activity, derived from positron emission tomography, in normal subjects scanned during either local or global processing of object-based hierarchical stimuli. We again observe attentional modulation of neural activity in prestriate cortex. There is now greater right-sided activation for local processing and greater left-sided activation for global processing, which is the opposite of that seen with letter-based stimuli. The results suggest that the relative differential hemispheric activations in the prestriate areas during global and local processing are modified by stimulus category.

Where in the brain does visual attention select the forest and the trees?

The perceptual world is organized hierarchically: the forest consists of trees, which in turn have leaves. Visual attention can emphasize the overall picture (global form) or the focal details of a scene (local components). Neuropsychological studies have indicated that the left hemisphere is biased towards local and the right towards global processing. The underlying attentional and perceptual mechanisms are maximally impaired by unilateral lesions to the temporal and parietal cortex. We measured brain activity of normal subjects during two experiments using 'hierarchically' organized figures. In a directed attention task, early visual processing (prestriate) areas were activated: attention to the global aspect of the figures activated the right lingual gyrus whereas locally directed attention activated the left inferior occipital cortex. In a subsequent divided attention task, the number of target switches from local to global (and vice versa) covaried with temporal-parietal activation. The findings provide direct evidence for hemispheric specialization in global and local perception; furthermore, they indicate that temporal-parietal areas exert attentional control over the neural transformations occurring in prestriate cortex.

Hierarchical Stimuli and Hemispheric Specialization: Two Case Studies

Local versus global visual processing was examined in two patients with massive unilateral left hemisphere lesions using a directed attention task involving hierarchical stimuli. Previous studies found an impressive global advantage in patients with posterior left hemisphere lesions on similar tasks. In addition, whereas patients with left inferior parietal lobule (IPL) lesions showed the global interference on local processing that is typically observed in normals, patients with lesions centered on the superior temporal gyrus (STG) demonstrated no interference. Paradoxically, our two patients who had complete destruction of both the left IPL and STG regions showed an overall local advantage due to local interference on global processing. We propose that following extensive left hemisphere damage, the isolated right hemisphere may be able to perform efficiently the type of processing usually ascribed to the left hemisphere (i.e., local). However, at least under certain conditions, this apparent functional plasticity seems to occur at the expense of the type of processing normally associated with the right hemisphere (i.e., global).