Feature-based filtering determines object-based selection in the attentional boost effect.

The attentional blink (AB) refers to impaired processing of a second target (T2) when presented 200-500 msec after a first target (T1) in a rapid serial visual presentation stream. There is converging evidence that alpha oscillations (8-12 Hz) may be critical for AB performance, as they can regulate attentional control and suppress distractor interference. This study investigated the effects of neuromodulation of alpha activities via transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) on AB. Alpha tACS may either reduce the AB magnitude at intermediate lags by modulating inhibitory control (the suppression hypothesis) or improve AB task performance across the lags by reducing overinvestment of attentional resources on T1 and distractor processing (the diffuse attention hypothesis). In Experiment 1, alpha tACS applied over the right dorsolateral pFC (rDLPFC) during an AB task increased T2|T1 accuracy independent of the T2 lags. In Experiment 2, in-phase tACS over the rDLPFC and parietal cortex produced higher T2|T1 accuracy than antiphase tACS, again independent of T2 lag. These behavioral effects may result from alpha-tACS-induced diffuse attentional state that minimizes distractor interference of AB. The present study offers insights into the neural mechanisms underlying temporal attention and further highlights the potential utility of the neuromodulation method.

Rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) is a promising paradigm for visual brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) based on event-related potentials (ERPs) for patients with limited muscle and eye movement. This study explores the impact of video background and stimulus transparency on BCI control, factors that have not been previously examined together under RSVP. Two experimental sessions were conducted with 12 participants each. Four BCI conditions were tested: opaque pictograms, and white background (A255W); opaque pictograms, and video background (A255V); intermediate transparent pictograms, and video background (A085); and highly transparent pictograms, and video background (A028V). The results indicated that the video background had a negative impact on BCI performance. In addition, the intermediate transparent pictograms (A085V) proved to be balanced, as it did not show significant performance differences compared to opaque pictograms (A255V) but was rated significantly better by users on subjective measures related to attending to the video background. Therefore, in applications where users must shift attention between BCI control and their surroundings, balancing stimulus transparency is a suitable option for enhancing system usability. These findings are particularly relevant for designing asynchronous ERP-BCIs using RSVP for patients with impaired oculomotor control.

PurposeMacular degeneration impairs central vision, compelling patients to use their peripheral vision for reading, which is difficult due to reduced spatial resolution and crowding. Although perceptual learning improves reading, single-session anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (a-tDCS) over the visual cortex has shown inconsistent outcomes, with transient improvements observed in English reading but no benefit for Chinese reading in macular degeneration patients. This randomized controlled trial investigated whether combining multi-session a-tDCS with perceptual learning enhances Chinese reading performance in these patients compared to sham stimulation.MethodsTwenty Chinese-reading patients with macular degeneration (39–90 years old) were randomized to receive either active (n = 10) or sham (n = 10) a-tDCS during six sessions of rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) reading training. Trained outcomes (RSVP reading) and untrained functions (sentence reading, crowding, contrast sensitivity, and visual acuity) were compared at baseline, 1 day, and 1 month post-training.ResultsPerceptual learning significantly improved RSVP reading speed (P < 0.001) in both groups, with effects lasting at least a month. No additive effect of active versus sham a-tDCS was observed (group × time P = 0.99). Transfer effects to untrained functions were limited to visual acuity and critical print size for sentence reading.ConclusionsPerceptual learning enhances Chinese reading performance in individuals with macular degeneration, but a-tDCS confers no additional benefit. This contrasts with previous results where non-invasive brain stimulation enhanced English reading in macular degeneration. The results emphasize the need for more refined neuromodulation strategies for improving logographic reading.

How quickly we attend to objects plays an important role in navigating the world, especially in dynamic and rapidly changing environments. Measuring individual differences in attention speed is therefore an important, yet challenging, task. Although reaction times in visual search tasks have often been used as an intuitive proxy of such individual differences, these measures are limited by inconsistent levels of reliability and contamination by non-attentional factors. This study introduces the rate of post-target distractor intrusions (DI) in the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm as an alternative method of studying individual differences in the speed of attention. In RSVP, a target is presented for a brief duration and embedded among multiple distractors. DIs are reports of a subsequent distractor rather than the target and have previously been shown to be associated with the speed of attention. The present study explored the reliability and validity of DI rates as a measure of individual differences. In three studies, DI rates showed high internal consistency and test–retest reliability over a year (>.90), even with a short task administration of only about 5 minutes. Moreover, DI rates were associated with measures related to attention speed, but not with unrelated measures of attentional control, reading speed, and attentional blink effects. Taken together, DI rates can serve as a useful tool for research into individual differences in the speed of attention. Links to a downloadable and easily executable DI experiment, as well as a brief discussion of methodological considerations, are provided to facilitate such future research.

Implicit observational learning of second-order conditional repeated sequences presented in rapid serial visual presentation.

As individuals who have undergone long - term Tai Chi training, Tai Chi athletes may have adaptive changes in brain structure and function, which in turn endow them with unique advantages in cross - auditory - visual tasks. The philosophy of Tai Chi, which emphasizes the combination of internal and external training as well as the unity of mind and body, may assist athletes in maintaining better attention stability and enhancing information integration ability when dealing with complex audio - visual information. Recent research has found that Taichi athletes have superior performance in cross - modal tasks, but the reason is still unknown. This study added a pre - surprise test, surprise test, and post - surprise test to cross - modal rapid serial visual presentation tasks. The pre - surprise test required reporting of the two visual targets T1 and T2, while the surprise and post - surprise tests required additional reporting of auditory stimuli. Method: In our experiment, Taichi athletes and non - athletes were included. A significant interaction in accuracy difference patterns between the two groups under different Lag conditions (F (1, 38) = 6.89, p = 0.013, η ² = 0.15). Taichi athletes had higher accuracy in the visual target recognition (T2) task, especially under Lag8 conditions. The Taichi group's accuracy was significantly higher than the non - athlete control group (t (38) = 2.71, p = 0.010, Cohen's d = 0.85). Taichi athletes also exhibited lower attribute amnesia in these tests. In the surprise test, 10 (45.45%) of the Taichi group correctly reported compared to 5 (25%) of the non - athlete control group, with a chi - square test result of χ ² (1) = 3.84, p = 0.05. The post - surprise test showed a higher auditory information reporting rate in the Taichi group, but the difference was not significant. Conclusion: Taichi exercise may improve cross - modal tasks and attribute amnesia due to better processing of auditory stimuli.

The ability to read relies on the rapid mapping of perceived visual letters and their combinations (i.e., visual word forms) to phonology and meaning. The central role of the left ventral occipito-temporal cortex (VOTC) in processing letter strings, initially suggested by lesion studies, is now widely accepted. Although this brain region has been extensively studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), its causal role as a critical node of a cortical network for reading remains unclear. Here we report a comprehensive case of pure alexia during direct electrical stimulation (DES) of the left VOTC (patient SV, female, 38 yr old, implanted with intracerebral electrodes for refractory epilepsy). During DES of the left posterior occipito-temporal sulcus, but not of neighboring and remote cortical sites, SV was transiently impaired at reading single words while being able to slowly read letter-by-letter. However, SV was impaired when presenting a single letter in a rapid serial visual presentation, which showed that their letter reading is not entirely preserved. In contrast, DES to the same critical sites left performance for oral naming, auditory naming, reading numbers, writing, auditory lexical decision, and semantic matching of pictures unaffected. Intracerebral electrophysiological frequency-tagging investigations showed highly word-selective neural responses at the critical sites. These functional responses were abolished by concurrent DES, which also affected remote word-selective neural activity in the left VOTC. Altogether, these observations provide original evidence for word-selective representations of the left VOTC as a critical node of the cortical reading network.

BFRCNet: Addressing the class imbalance problem in the rapid serial visual presentation paradigm for decoding.

In everyday vision, we often shift attention internally without external cues. These self-initiated attention shifts are fundamental to voluntary behavior but are poorly understood because most studies use cue-based paradigms that predetermine when and where to shift attention. To address this gap, we designed a multi-sequential-choice rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm with identical visual inputs to dissociate internal and external determinants of attention across three voluntary shift types: task-constrained self-initiated, externally instructed, and unconstrained free-viewing. Participants viewed four simultaneous streams of letters and made overt attention shifts among them, while EEG was recorded. We time-locked theta (4–7 Hz) and alpha (8–12 Hz) oscillations to shift onset and found distinct signatures for each condition. Notably, a frontal-midline theta ramping was observed before self-initiated shifts but not before instructed or free-viewing shifts, suggesting a preparatory buildup of cognitive control specific to internally driven shifts. Concurrently, sustained suppression of posterior alpha occurred before self-initiated shifts. In contrast, instructed and free-viewing shifts showed relatively higher posterior alpha. These findings suggest that internally generated, goal-driven shifts engage an anticipatory frontal control mechanism indexed by theta increase and reduce posterior inhibition, whereas externally cued or unguided shifts do not. By isolating these condition-specific neural dynamics under identical external stimuli, our study identifies a unique oscillatory signature, frontal-midline theta ramping, associated with task-constrained self-initiated attention shifts.

In rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) tasks, fearful faces are detected more readily than neutral faces, but it remains unclear whether this pattern extends to happy faces or whether the task difficulty of the first target (T1) modulates these fear and happiness superiority effects. This study investigated how T1 difficulty (an alphabetic search task) influenced the attentional blink (AB) for T2, which involved identifying emotional faces (fearful, happy, and neutral) in an emotion classification task. Forty-one college students from Xinxiang Medical University completed the RSVP task, and their behavioral and ERP data were recorded and analyzed. Behavioral results revealed that during the AB period, fearful and happy faces were detected with significantly higher accuracy than neutral faces under low T1 difficulty conditions, while fearful faces outperformed both happy and neutral faces under high T1 difficulty. ERP data showed that fearful faces (compared with neutral faces) elicited significantly more positive VPP and P3b amplitudes, whereas happy faces (compared with neutral faces) triggered significantly more negative N170 and more positive P3b amplitudes. Additionally, happy faces evoked more positive P3a amplitudes than neutral faces under low and medium T1 difficulty conditions, while fearful faces elicited more positive P3a amplitudes only under low difficulty conditions. These findings demonstrate that T1 task difficulty moderates the superiority of fearful and happy faces during the AB period, with fearful faces being detected more easily and earlier than happy and neutral faces, providing new insights into the temporal dynamics of emotional face processing under varying cognitive demands.

Rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) is one of the most effective gaze-independent paradigms for event-related potential (ERP)-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), particularly for individuals with limited muscle and eye movement control. The speed of visual stimulus presentation is a critical factor influencing system performance and warrants thorough investigation. This study evaluates the impact of different stimulus presentation speeds on the performance of an ERP-BCI used for pictogram selection under RSVP. Thirteen participants tested the ERP-BCI across three experimental conditions, each with a different stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA): 80ms (C080), 160ms (C160), and 320ms (C320). In addition to performance metrics such as accuracy, information transfer rate (ITR), and pictograms per minute (PPM), a subjective evaluation of the user experience was conducted for each condition. The results indicate that C160 outperformed both C080 and C320 across all performance metrics, achieving an ITR of 26.49bit/min (81.28% accuracy in 4.8 s). Subjective evaluations also revealed a preference for C160 and C320 over C080. Therefore, among the SOAs evaluated, 160ms appears to be the most suitable for enhancing system usability. These findings underscore the crucial role of stimulus presentation speed in the usability of ERP-BCIs for pictogram selection under RSVP, emphasizing its importance in future gaze-independent ERP-BCI designs for communication purposes.

Slow binocular reading during rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) in children with amblyopia and the role of fixation instability.

Attentional bias significantly influences the development, persistence, and exacerbation of anxiety disorders in individuals with high trait anxiety (HTA). Although attention encompasses both temporal and spatial aspects, temporal attentional bias remains underexplored. Traditional views often negatively generalize attentional biases, neglecting their distinct cognitive vulnerabilities and biological adaptive functions. This study aims to explore temporal bias, focusing on its unique characteristics and significance. We used the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task to measure temporal attentional engagement and disengagement precisely in two EEG experiments. Experiment 1 examined attentional engagement by presenting neutral T1 followed by negative or neutral T2 stimuli. Experiment 2 assessed disengagement using negative or neutral T1 followed by neutral T2 stimuli. Behaviorally, typical attentional blink effects were observed in both experiments. Electrophysiologically, Experiment 1 (Engagement) revealed significantly larger P3b and late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes for negative compared with neutral T2 stimuli, specifically in the HTA group, suggesting enhanced engagement. The LTA group showed larger early posterior negativity (EPN) to negative T2 at lag 2 than the HTA group. Experiment 2 (disengagement) showed distinct T2-elicited LPP patterns: HTA participants exhibited significantly smaller LPP amplitudes following negative versus neutral T1 stimuli, whereas LTA participants showed no such difference, indicating greater difficulty disengaging from negative information in HTA. For T1 processing, LTA showed larger EPN to negative versus neutral T1, while HTA did not. Increased engagement with negative stimuli may be a common human trait, as evidenced by increased sensitivity in both high- and low-anxiety individuals. However, difficulties in disengaging attention from negative stimuli are particularly evident in individuals with HTA. These findings have important implications for the prediction, assessment, and prevention of anxiety disorders.

This study aimed to investigate how semantic and syntactic parafoveal processing differ between fluent left-to-right and non-fluent right-to-left reading directions in individuals accustomed to left-to-right reading. A self-paced rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task was employed to evaluate semantic and syntactic congruency effects. Participants, familiar with left-to-right reading, were tested under conditions simulating both fluent left-to-right and non-fluent right-to-left reading directions. In the fluent left-to-right reading presentation, both semantic and syntactic congruency effects were significantly observed in the RVF. Conversely, in the non-fluent right-to-left reading presentation, syntactic congruency effects were observed in the LVF, while semantic congruency effects were notably absent. Additionally, syntactic congruency effects emerged at the LVF in left-to-right reading presentation and at the RVF in right-to-left reading presentation, demonstrating the flexibility of syntactic processing mechanisms across reading contexts. The findings reveal a dissociation between semantic and syntactic processing in parafoveal regions based on fluency of reading direction. Syntactic information serves as a foundational element, adaptable across reading contexts, emphasizing its hierarchical role in parafoveal processing. The current study provides a basis for future exploration of cross-linguistic variations and cognitive adaptations in reading behavior.

Facial expressions enable individuals to assess and understand emotions conveyed by others. Two crucial sources of expressive cues on the human face-the eyes and the mouth-capture attention and serve as reliable shortcuts for expression recognition. However, how the brain effectively extracts emotional information from these diagnostic features remains unknown. We investigated this issue using an electroencephalogram combined with a rapid serial visual presentation task in which participants were asked to recognize facial expressions (fear, happiness, and neutrality) from three formats (whole face, eye region, and mouth region). We found that participants recognized happy expressions from the mouth region more accurately than the other expressions, affirming the role of diagnostic features in facilitating bottom-up attentional capture. The isolated eye region with higher visual saliency induced the largest P1 component. Diagnostic features, such as a happy mouth and fearful eyes, elicited a larger N170 component compared to non-diagnostic features, such as a fearful mouth and happy eyes. Source analysis of N170 showed that the fusiform gyrus exhibited similar patterns in response to these emotional features. The P3 was effective in discriminating between different emotional content. When whole faces were visible, fearful and happy expressions were not distinguishable in the N170, while the P3 amplitude was larger when induced by fearful faces than by happy faces. Our study contributes to understanding how facial features play distinct roles in emotional perception, attention, and facial processing.

How is object information organized in high-level visual cortex? A recent comprehensive model of object space in macaques defines object space via orthogonal axes of animacy and aspect ratio (i.e., stubby vs. spiky) (Bao et al., 2020). However, when using object stimuli that dissociated category, animacy, and aspect ratio in human fMRI, object space appeared to be principally defined by category and animacy, with limited tuning of aspect ratio in object-selective regions (Yargholi & Op de Beeck, 2023). Here, we aimed to further clarify the contribution of aspect ratio during object processing by using whole-brain electroencephalography (EEG) to systematically investigate the time course underlying aspect ratio, animacy, and category information during visual object processing. Participants (N = 20) viewed the stimulus set used by Yargholi and Op de Beeck (2023), as well as silhouette versions of the stimuli that lacked internal object details (thus increasing reliance on shape information). Stimuli appeared in 5 Hz rapid serial visual presentation streams, with intact and silhouette stimuli sets shown in separate streams. Using standard multivariate decoding pipelines and representational similarity analysis, we found that information about aspect ratio, category, and animacy was represented during visual object processing. The dominant dimension was modulated by stimulus type, demonstrating that the observable dimensions of object space depend on the nature of the stimuli presented. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that aspect ratio is indeed represented during object processing, but earlier and more transiently than categorical dimensions, such as animacy. By focusing on underlying temporal dynamics, our results provide a more nuanced understanding of how object space evolves over time that can speak of how extant findings on this topic might be reconciled.

Auditory stimuli are known to enhance visual target recognition in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) tasks, yet the robustness and potential trade-offs of this audiovisual integration (AVI) effect remain debated. Attribute amnesia (AA) refers to the phenomenon in which individuals successfully identify a stimulus for a task, but fail to recall its basic attributes when unexpectedly tested. The present study investigates whether improvements in visual recognition through AVI occur at the expense of auditory information loss, as predicted by the AA framework. Across two RSVP experiments, participants were presented with letter targets embedded among digit distractors. In Experiment 1, an auditory pitch (bass, alto, treble) accompanied the second target (T2); in Experiment 2, an auditory syllable either matched or mismatched the semantic identity of T2. A surprise-test paradigm was used to assess participants’ ability to recall auditory stimuli. The results show that both pitch and semantic attributes were subject to AA, with semantic stimuli recalled more accurately than pitch. Moreover, semantic congruency enhanced T2 identification, highlighting the automatic processing advantage of semantic cues. Post-surprise trials revealed the improved recall of auditory attributes, consistent with the working memory reselection model. Together, these findings suggest that AVI enhances visual recognition by reallocating cognitive resources, but at the cost of a partial loss of irrelevant auditory information.

ABSTRACT Attentional capture by emotionally salient stimuli is adaptive, permitting identification of possible threats; however, an excessive bias towards emotional stimuli can interrupt goal-directed behaviour. This is especially relevant in psychiatric disease, where severe emotional distress can interfere with daily function. As such, understanding the mechanisms by which emotional stimuli compete for attentional resources is a critical area of investigation. Previous studies using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigms observe that emotional distractors disrupt the detection of subsequent stimuli, referred to as emotion-induced blindness (EIB). Our study expands upon this work, characterising how temporal and perceptual factors shape the emergence and intensity of EIB. Contrary to previous assumptions regarding temporal dynamics of EIB, we found that effects of emotional distractors persisted across prolonged image presentation durations. Further, we investigated the extent to which the depth of distractor processing influences EIB using a distractor recall task. While recall was predictive of EIB magnitude, a significant effect of emotional distractors on target detection was nonetheless present even without conscious recall of the distractor. These findings demonstrate the robustness of the EIB effect in RSVP in the context of temporal and perceptual manipulations.

In ADHD a common obstacle of academic success is impaired reading comprehension. Impaired comprehension in ADHD is accompanied by altered eye movements during reading as well as more general eye movement deficits associated with non-verbal stimuli. This suggests that the reading deficits do not cause the eye movement impairment. Instead, eye movements might contribute to reading comprehension difficulties. We tested whether minimizing the need for eye movements during reading aids comprehension. We measured reading comprehension in a sample of undergraduate students with and without ADHD. Students read short paragraphs using normal text reading with all words fully visible (FULL), PACED reading that preserved text layout with one word at a time appearing at its usual location in the text, and reading with minimal eye movements in which one word at a time appeared in the center of the screen in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). ADHD participants performed better in the RSVP condition relative to the other two reading conditions that required eye movements, and they benefited from the RSVP condition requiring minimal eye movements by almost 13% relative to neurotypical controls, who showed comprehension difficulties using the RSVP mode. Minimizing eye movement boosted reading comprehension in the ADHD suggesting that eye movements are implicated in reading processes in ADHD, an interference that can be avoided in the RSVP reading condition. Future work should explore the possibility of RSVP as a reading aid in ADHD adults and potentially school-aged children.