Effects Of Selective Attention Research Articles

Selective attention and decision-making have separable neural bases in space and time.

Attention and decision-making processes are fundamental to cognition. However, they are usually experimentally confounded, making it difficult to link neural observations to specific processes. Here we separated the effects of selective attention from the effects of decision-making on brain activity obtained from human participants (both sexes), using a two-stage task where the attended stimulus and decision were orthogonal and separated in time. Multivariate pattern analyses of multimodal neuroimaging data revealed the dynamics of perceptual and decision-related information coding through time (magnetoencephalography (MEG)), space (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)), and their combination (MEG-fMRI fusion). Our MEG results showed an effect of attention before decision-making could begin, and fMRI results showed an attention effect in early visual and frontoparietal regions. Model-based MEG-fMRI fusion suggested that attention boosted stimulus information in frontoparietal and early visual regions before decision-making was possible. Together, our results suggest that attention affects neural stimulus representations in frontoparietal regions independent of decision-making.Significance statement Attention and decision-making processes are often experimentally confounded in neuroimaging studies, as participants are commonly asked to make categorical decisions about an attended stimulus only. Our study addresses this issue by separating the effects of selective attention from decision-making effects in human observers. We used multivariate pattern analyses to investigate the dynamics of perceptual and decision-related information coding through time (with MEG) and space (with fMRI) and applied a MEG-fMRI fusion analysis to combine data across neuroimaging modalities. Our results show that attention boosts stimulus information in frontoparietal and early visual regions before decision-making was possible. These findings provide an important verification of claims that attention modulates information processing in the brain and highlights the importance of separating these processes.

Sustained attention operates via dissociable neural mechanisms across different eccentric locations.

In primates, foveal and peripheral vision have distinct neural architectures and functions. However, it has been debated if selective attention operates via the same or different neural mechanisms across eccentricities. We tested these alternative accounts by examining the effects of selective attention on the steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP) and the fronto-parietal signal measured via EEG from human subjects performing a sustained visuospatial attention task. With a negligible level of eye movements, both SSVEP and SND exhibited the heterogeneous patterns of attentional modulations across eccentricities. Specifically, the attentional modulations of these signals peaked at the parafoveal locations and such modulations wore off as visual stimuli appeared closer to the fovea or further away towards the periphery. However, with a relatively higher level of eye movements, the heterogeneous patterns of attentional modulations of these neural signals were less robust. These data demonstrate that the top-down influence of covert visuospatial attention on early sensory processing in human cortex depends on eccentricity and the level of saccadic responses. Taken together, the results suggest that sustained visuospatial attention operates differently across different eccentric locations, providing new understanding of how attention augments sensory representations regardless of where the attended stimulus appears.

Train driver selection: The impact of cognitive ability on train driving performance

AbstractTrain driving is a demanding form of human performance where inattention or distraction can lead to serious errors and accidents. Train drivers, therefore, require a unique set of abilities to deal with these demands, especially when exposed to competing or conflicting performance expectations (e.g., on‐time performance and following safety rules). Cognitive abilities, in particular, are considered essential to safe and effective train driving. Selective attention is one such ability, however, other cognitive abilities can be equally important. Drawing on self‐control theory, this article examines the combined effect of selective attention, fluid intelligence, and verbal reasoning on train driving performance. The results of a study involving 101 experienced train drivers indicates that drivers with low selective attention, low fluid intelligence, and low verbal reasoning perform worse on a train simulator driving assessment than drivers who are higher in these cognitive abilities. The results from this study provide direction for future rail safety research and guidance for practitioners responsible for assessing and selecting train drivers.

Attentional Modulation of the Cortical Contribution to the Frequency-Following Response Evoked by Continuous Speech.

Selective attention to one of several competing speakers is required for comprehending a target speaker among other voices and for successful communication with them. It moreover has been found to involve the neural tracking of low-frequency speech rhythms in the auditory cortex. Effects of selective attention have also been found in subcortical neural activities, in particular regarding the frequency-following response related to the fundamental frequency of speech (speech-FFR). Recent investigations have, however, shown that the speech-FFR contains cortical contributions as well. It remains unclear whether these are also modulated by selective attention. Here we used magnetoencephalography to assess the attentional modulation of the cortical contributions to the speech-FFR. We presented both male and female participants with two competing speech signals and analyzed the cortical responses during attentional switching between the two speakers. Our findings revealed robust attentional modulation of the cortical contribution to the speech-FFR: the neural responses were higher when the speaker was attended than when they were ignored. We also found that, regardless of attention, a voice with a lower fundamental frequency elicited a larger cortical contribution to the speech-FFR than a voice with a higher fundamental frequency. Our results show that the attentional modulation of the speech-FFR does not only occur subcortically but extends to the auditory cortex as well.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Understanding speech in noise requires attention to a target speaker. One of the speech features that a listener can use to identify a target voice among others and attend it is the fundamental frequency, together with its higher harmonics. The fundamental frequency arises from the opening and closing of the vocal folds and is tracked by high-frequency neural activity in the auditory brainstem and in the cortex. Previous investigations showed that the subcortical neural tracking is modulated by selective attention. Here we show that attention affects the cortical tracking of the fundamental frequency as well: it is stronger when a particular voice is attended than when it is ignored.

CEO gender and social versus economic value creation of social enterprises: an attention-based view

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the effects of CEO gender on social enterprise (SE) value creation and the moderating effect of selective attention on SEs’ dual goals (i.e. relative attention to social versus economic goals).Design/methodology/approachThe authors surveyed 596 active Taiwanese SEs to rate independent and moderating variables and received 191 responses (109 female and 82 male CEOs). The authors used external SE experts to evaluate each SE’s economic and social value creation, lowering the threat of common method bias and enhancing data quality.FindingsSocial value creation is higher with female chief executive officer (CEOs) (than with male CEOs), whereas economic value creation tends to be lower. But, attentional selection (i.e. changes in attention) to economic goals by female CEOs mitigates the negative relationship between female CEOs and economic value creation.Practical implicationsGender diversity in the top management team is critical for dual-goal attainment. Decision-makers’ attention focus could vary along with the situation to achieve the desired outcomes. Thus, creating an attention structure under a given situation may help guide the decision-making process toward the desired performance for SEs.Originality/valueLittle research brings the attention-based view to investigate the effects of managerial gender roles on the dual-goal performance (i.e. social versus economic value creation) of SEs and test its contingency, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to do so. This study also adopted a unique research design asking outside SE experts to provide the performance data.

Does animacy affect visual statistical learning? Revisiting the effects of selective attention and animacy on visual statistical learning.

Animates receive preferential attentional processing over inanimates because, from an evolutionary perspective, animates are important to human survival. We investigated whether animacy affects visual statistical learning-the detection and extraction of regularities in visual information from our rich, dynamic, and complex environment. Participants completed a selective-attention task, in which regularities were embedded in two visual streams, an attended and an unattended visual stream. The attended visual stream always consisted of line-drawings of non-objects, while the unattended visual stream consisted of line-drawings of either animates or inanimates. Participants then completed a triplet-discrimination task, which assessed their ability to extract regularities from the attended and unattended visual streams. We also assessed participants' awareness of regularities in the visual statistical learning task, and asked if any learning strategies were used. We were specifically interested in whether the animacy status of line-drawings in the unattended visual stream would affect visual statistical learning. There were four key findings. First, selective attention modulates visual statistical learning, with greater visual statistical learning for attended than for unattended information. Second, animacy does not affect visual statistical learning, with no differences found in visual statistical learning performance between the animate and inanimate condition. Third, awareness of regularities was associated with visual statistical learning of attended information. Fourth, participants used strategies (e.g., naming or labelling stimuli) during the visual statistical learning task. Further research is required to understand whether visual statistical learning is one of the adaptive functions that evolved from ancestral environments.

The effect of topic familiarity and volatility of auditory scene on selective auditory attention

Selective auditory attention has been shown to modulate the cortical representation of speech. This effect has been well documented in acoustically more challenging environments. However, the influence of top-down factors, in particular topic familiarity, on this process remains unclear, despite evidence that semantic information can promote speech-in-noise perception. Apart from individual features forming a static listening condition, dynamic and irregular changes of auditory scenes—volatile listening environments—have been less studied. To address these gaps, we explored the influence of topic familiarity and volatile listening on the selective auditory attention process during dichotic listening using electroencephalography. When stories with unfamiliar topics were presented, participants’ comprehension was severely degraded. However, their cortical activity selectively tracked the speech of the target story well. This implies that topic familiarity hardly influences the speech tracking neural index, possibly when the bottom-up information is sufficient. However, when the listening environment was volatile and the listeners had to re-engage in new speech whenever auditory scenes altered, the neural correlates of the attended speech were degraded. In particular, the cortical response to the attended speech and the spatial asymmetry of the response to the left and right attention were significantly attenuated around 100–200 ms after the speech onset. These findings suggest that volatile listening environments could adversely affect the modulation effect of selective attention, possibly by hampering proper attention due to increased perceptual load.

Effect of selective attention on auditory brainstem response

Introduction Auditory selective attention can enhance the processing of relevant information and inhibit irrelevant information. The attentional modulation of auditory processing is evidenced through cortical auditory event-related potentials and frequency following response. On the other hand, such attentional effects on brainstem evoked potentials showed mixed results. Hence, the current study aimed to investigate the effect of selective attention on Auditory Brainstem Response. Methods Sixteen young adults with bilateral normal hearing sensitivity were recruited for the study, and their auditory brainstem responses were recorded using IHS Smart EP version 3.92 for active listening, passive listening with the visual task, and passive listening with visual distracter conditions. Results The statistical analysis of the wave-V latency and amplitude obtained from three conditions revealed no effect on the latency; however, peak V amplitude was lower in passive listening with visual distractor condition than in active listening and passive listening with visual task condition. Further attentional modulation was seen only on the contralateral montage and not on the ipsilateral montage. Conclusion The current study results demonstrate the attentional modulation at earlier stages of auditory processing as evidenced by the increased amplitude of peak V.

The mechanisms of selective attention in phenomenal consciousness

In three experiments we investigated the effects of selective attention in iconic memory and fragile-visual short-term memory (VSTM), which have been related to phenomenal consciousness. We used a novel retro-cue paradigm with different delays (early vs late) and object priorities (high vs equal vs low), to investigate (a) attentional costs and benefits and the role of (b) bottom-up factors and (c) fragile-VSTM in feature-based attentional selection. Experiment 1 showed that attentional costs modulate visual maintenance at longer delays, while Experiment 2 showed that by reducing the time exposure of the memory array from 250 ms to 100 ms, as a bottom-up factor, participants were not able to select the objects based on their priorities. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that a pattern mask presented before the transfer in visual working memory, attenuates the overall performance while preserving the priority effect. The implications for phenomenal consciousness before conscious access are discussed.

No evidence for an effect of selective spatial attention on the development of secondary hyperalgesia: A replication study.

Central sensitization refers to the increased responsiveness of nociceptive neurons in the central nervous system after repeated or sustained peripheral nociceptor activation. It is hypothesized to play a key role in the development of chronic pain. A hallmark of central sensitization is an increased sensitivity to noxious mechanical stimuli extending beyond the injured location, known as secondary hyperalgesia. For its ability to modulate the transmission and the processing of nociceptive inputs, attention could constitute a promising target to prevent central sensitization and the development of chronic pain. It was recently shown that the experimental induction of central sensitization at both forearms of healthy volunteers using bilateral high-frequency electrocutaneous stimulation (HFS), can be modulated by encouraging participants to selectively focus their attention to one arm, to the detriment of the other arm, resulting in a greater secondary hyperalgesia on the attended arm as compared to the unattended one. Given the potential value of the question being addressed, we conducted a preregistered replication study in a well-powered independent sample to assess the robustness of the effect, i.e., the modulatory role of spatial attention on the induction of central sensitization. This hypothesis was tested using a double-blind, within-subject design. Sixty-seven healthy volunteers performed a task that required focusing attention toward one forearm to discriminate innocuous vibrotactile stimuli while HFS was applied on both forearms simultaneously. Our results showed a significant increase in mechanical sensitivity directly and 20 min after HFS. However, in contrast to the previous study, we did not find a significant difference in the development of secondary hyperalgesia between the attended vs. unattended arms. Our results question whether spatial selective attention affects the development of secondary hyperalgesia. Alternatively, the non-replication could be because the bottom-up capture of attention caused by the HFS-mediated sensation was too strong in comparison to the top-down modulation exerted by the attentional task. In other words, the task was not engaging enough and the HFS pulses, including those on the unattended arm, were too salient to allow a selective focus on one arm and modulate nociceptive processing.

Attentional M100 gain modulation localizes to auditory sensory cortex and is deficient in first-episode psychosis.

Selective attention is impaired in first-episode psychosis (FEP). Selective attention effects can be detected during auditory tasks as increased sensory activity. We previously reported electroencephalography scalp-measured N100 enhancement is reduced in FEP. Here, we localized magnetoencephalography (MEG) M100 source activity within the auditory cortex, making novel use of the Human Connectome Project multimodal parcellation (HCP-MMP) to identify precise auditory cortical areas involved in attention modulation and its impairment in FEP. MEG was recorded from 27 FEP and 31 matched healthy controls (HC) while individuals either ignored frequent standard and rare oddball tones while watching a silent movie or attended tones by pressing a button to oddballs. Because M100 arises mainly in the auditory cortices, MEG activity during the M100 interval was projected to the auditory sensory cortices defined by the HCP-MMP (A1, lateral belt, and parabelt parcels). FEP had less auditory sensory cortex M100 activity in both conditions. In addition, there was a significant interaction between group and attention. HC enhanced source activity with attention, but FEP did not. These results demonstrate deficits in both sensory processing and attentional modulation of the M100 in FEP. Novel use of the HCP-MMP revealed the precise cortical areas underlying attention modulation of auditory sensory activity in healthy individuals and impairments in FEP. The sensory reduction and attention modulation impairment indicate local and systems-level pathophysiology proximal to disease onset that may be critical for etiology. Further, M100 and N100 enhancement may serve as outcome variables for targeted intervention to improve attention in early psychosis.

Age differences in visual statistical learning: Investigating the effects of selective attention and stimulus category.

A cognitive function that is of interest when investigating age-related changes is statistical learning-the ability to detect and extract regularities in sensory information from our rich, dynamic, and complex environment. A previous study has suggested that there were age differences in visual statistical learning, with older adults demonstrating visual statistical learning of attended and unattended information (due to the "hyper-binding effect"). In the present study, we were interested in investigating whether there are age differences in visual statistical learning and whether stimulus category influenced visual statistical learning of unattended information in older adults. We tested two stimulus categories: highly familiar line drawings and abstract shapes. Participants completed a selective-attention task, in which regularities were embedded into both the attended and unattended visual streams. Then, participants completed a triplet-discrimination task, which assessed their ability to extract regularities from the attended and unattended visual streams. We also implemented a 4-point confidence-rating scale in the triplet-discrimination task as an assessment of participants' awareness of these regularities. There were four key findings. First, selective attention modulates visual statistical learning, with greater visual statistical learning for attended information than for unattended information. Second, there were age differences in visual statistical learning, but these differences were only observed for visual statistical learning of attended information. Third, stimulus category did not affect visual statistical learning of unattended information in older adults. Fourth, visual statistical learning occurs with awareness of statistical regularities. Further research is warranted to investigate the age-related mechanisms underlying visual statistical learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of selective attention on the C1 ERP component: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

The C1 event-related potential (ERP) captures the earliest stage of feedforward processing in the primary visual cortex (V1). An ongoing debate is whether top-down selective attention can modulate the C1. One side of the debate pointed out that null findings appear to outnumber positive findings; thus, selective attention does not seem to influence the C1. However, this suggestion is not based on a valid approach to summarizing evidence across studies. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the effects of selective attention on the C1, involving 47 experiments and 794 subjects in total. Despite heterogeneity across studies, results suggested that attention has a moderate effect on the C1 (Cohen's =0.33, p < .0001); that is, C1 amplitude is larger for visual stimuli that are attended than unattended. These results suggest that C1 is affected by top-down selective attention.

Intra Parietal Sulcus Area 1-2 and Angular Gyrus Differentiates Visual Short-Term Memory and Sustained Attention Activities.

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) and attention were found to modulate neural activity predominantly in a superior parietal lobule. This is thought to be the selective attention importance for encoding and manipulation in VSTM. The major area of investigation mainly rested with the differences in the neural substrates and networks mediating these cognitive processes in near and far cortical structures. Based on previous investigations, the dynamic temporal window route of attention and time locked associated cognitive processes and sub-processes are sketched and its implication in VSTM study is discussed. Imaging cortical structures to isolate closely linked cognitive tasks require circumscribing to certain time-windows in which the paradigm should support to tap time-locked associated processes and sub-processes. The neural activities in intraparietal sulcus area 1-2 and angular gyrus during VSTM encoding are beyond the modulatory effects of selective and sustained attention.

Outbreak risk, managerial distraction, and corporate information disclosure: Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic

To fill the gaps between managerial distraction and disclosure quality of management earnings forecasts (MEFs), we examine the effects of managerial selective attention resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using this pandemic in 2020 as an adverse shock potentially causing managerial distraction, results based on a difference-in-differences estimation suggest that managerial distraction had a negative effect on MEFs and affected forecast quality by increasing work burden and perceptual narrowing among managers, while cash reserves demonstrated a preventive function and alleviated such adverse effects. Our findings are robust, as supported by tests that address potential measurement errors.

Are animates special? Exploring the effects of selective attention and animacy on visual statistical learning.

Our visual system is built to extract regularities in how objects in our visual environment appear in relation to each other across time and space ("visual statistical learning"). Existing research indicates that visual statistical learning is modulated by selective attention. Our attentional system prioritises information that enables adaptive behaviour; for example, animates are prioritised over inanimates (the "animacy advantage"). The present study examined the effects of selective attention and animacy on visual statistical learning in young adults (N = 284). We tested visual statistical learning of attended and unattended information across four animacy conditions: (1) living things that can self-initiate movement (animals); (2) living things that cannot self-initiate movement (fruits and vegetables); (3) non-living things that can generate movement (vehicles); and (4) non-living things that cannot generate movement (tools and kitchen utensils). We implemented a 4-point confidence rating scale as an assessment of participants' awareness of the regularities in the visual statistical learning task. There were four key findings. First, selective attention plays a critical role by modulating visual statistical learning. Second, animacy does not play a special role in visual statistical learning. Third, visual statistical learning of attended information cannot be exclusively accounted for by unconscious knowledge. Fourth, performance on the visual statistical learning task is associated with the proportion of stimuli that were named or labelled. Our findings support the notion that visual statistical learning is a powerful mechanism by which our visual system resolves an abundance of sensory input over time.

Incentivized learning, selective attention and durable treatment effects in energy usage

Incentivized learning, selective attention and durable treatment effects in energy usage

Evaluation of stress and cognitive skills in individuals with tinnitus complaints

Background/Aim: The sense of sound in the absence of external acoustic stimuli is known as subjective tinnitus, or phantom tinnitus. The purpose of this study was whether tinnitus complaints have an impact on perceived stress and cognitive skills like attention and memory. Methods: This prospective case-control study comprised 60 healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 25, all of whom had normal hearing. Using the G*Power program, it was established that a minimum of 50 people should be worked with an 80 percent power and a 5% margin of error. The study group consisted of 30 people with tinnitus complaints in their daily lives, whereas the control group consisted of the remaining people. Tinnitus Handicap Inventory and Perceived Stress Scale were applied to the participants within the scope of the working hypotheses. In terms of cognitive skills, the Stroop Test Form was applied to evaluate selective attention, focused attention and disruptive effects, and the Visual Auditory Digit Sequence Test Form was applied to evaluate short-term memory and working memory skills. The findings were analyzed with the SPSS program. Type 1 error level is determined as 5%. Results: According to Tinnitus Handicap Inventory, tinnitus complaint of all individuals in the study group is very mild. The statistically significant differences were found between the perceived stress level, Stroop and Visual Auditory Digit Sequence Test scores between people with and without tinnitus complaints. The poorer performance was observed in the group with tinnitus complaint. (P=0.037, P=0.017, P=0.010). No statistically significant relationship was found between perceived stress level, tinnitus and cognitive skills (P=0.067, P=0.160, P=0.208). Conclusion: Tinnitus is becoming a more common cause of health problems, sometimes coupled by psychological stress, and it affects cognitive skills. The study adds to the knowledge regarding the use of cognitive tests as a supplemental measurement in the evaluation of tinnitus and the impact of tinnitus on daily cognitive abilities.

Listening in the Mix: Lead Vocals Robustly Attract Auditory Attention in Popular Music

Listeners can attend to and track instruments or singing voices in complex musical mixtures, even though the acoustical energy of sounds from individual instruments may overlap in time and frequency. In popular music, lead vocals are often accompanied by sound mixtures from a variety of instruments, such as drums, bass, keyboards, and guitars. However, little is known about how the perceptual organization of such musical scenes is affected by selective attention, and which acoustic features play the most important role. To investigate these questions, we explored the role of auditory attention in a realistic musical scenario. We conducted three online experiments in which participants detected single cued instruments or voices in multi-track musical mixtures. Stimuli consisted of 2-s multi-track excerpts of popular music. In one condition, the target cue preceded the mixture, allowing listeners to selectively attend to the target. In another condition, the target was presented after the mixture, requiring a more “global” mode of listening. Performance differences between these two conditions were interpreted as effects of selective attention. In Experiment 1, results showed that detection performance was generally dependent on the target’s instrument category, but listeners were more accurate when the target was presented prior to the mixture rather than the opposite. Lead vocals appeared to be nearly unaffected by this change in presentation order and achieved the highest accuracy compared with the other instruments, which suggested a particular salience of vocal signals in musical mixtures. In Experiment 2, filtering was used to avoid potential spectral masking of target sounds. Although detection accuracy increased for all instruments, a similar pattern of results was observed regarding the instrument-specific differences between presentation orders. In Experiment 3, adjusting the sound level differences between the targets reduced the effect of presentation order, but did not affect the differences between instruments. While both acoustic manipulations facilitated the detection of targets, vocal signals remained particularly salient, which suggest that the manipulated features did not contribute to vocal salience. These findings demonstrate that lead vocals serve as robust attractor points of auditory attention regardless of the manipulation of low-level acoustical cues.

Selective attention involves a feature-specific sequential release from inhibitory gating

Selective attention is a fundamental cognitive mechanism that allows our brain to preferentially process relevant sensory information, while filtering out distracting information. Attention is thought to flexibly gate the communication of irrelevant information through top-down alpha-rhythmic (8–12 Hz) functional connections, which influence early visual processing. However, the dynamic effects of top-down influence on downstream visual processing remain unknown. Here, we used electroencephalography to investigate local and network effects of selective attention while subjects attended to distinct features of identical stimuli. We found that attention-related changes in the functional brain network organization emerge shortly after stimulus onset, accompanied by an overall decrease of functional connectivity. Signatures of attentional selection were evident from a sequential release from alpha-band parietal gating in feature-selective areas. The directed connectivity paths and temporal evolution of this release from gating were consistent with the sensory effect of each feature, providing a neural basis for how visual processing quickly prioritizes relevant information in functionally specialized areas.