Temporal Dynamics Of Attention Research Articles

The temporal dynamics of selective attention are reflected by distractor intrusions

When observers have to identify an object embedded in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream, they often erroneously report the identity of a distractor instead of the target (distractor intrusion). In two experiments, we examined whether these intrusion errors are associated with the speed of attentional engagement. Participants reported the identity of target digits indicated by shape selection cues. To manipulate the speed of engagement, targets appeared either within a single RSVP stream or unpredictably in one of two streams. Objects that followed the selection cue were reported more frequently when engagement was delayed (two streams), whereas the probability of reporting objects preceding the cue was higher when engagement was faster (single stream). These results show that distractor intrusions are closely linked to the allocation of selective attention in time, making the intrusion paradigm a useful tool for research into the temporal dynamics of attention. They also provide new evidence for the idea that attentional selectivity operates within brief periods of perceptual enhancement (attentional episodes), facilitating the processing of all objects within this period, regardless of their status as targets or distractors.

The temporal dynamics of attention: Thinking about oneself comes at a cost in sub-clinical depression but not in healthy participants

The temporal dynamics of attention: Thinking about oneself comes at a cost in sub-clinical depression but not in healthy participants

Mackintosh, pearce-hall and time: An EEG study on Inhibition of return

We investigated whether the temporal dynamics of attention could be used to reconcile exploitative and explorative attentional learning theories. Participants trained on a categorisation task where some stimuli were predictive (P) of the correct response while others were non-predictive (NP). These stimuli were then used in a dot probe task in which we varied the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the cues and the target. Participants responded faster to the target when it appeared over a P cue at each SOA. The reaction time advantage towards the P cues increased proportionally with SOA, suggesting that participants were strategically processing the cues. Target-elicited N2pc amplitudes at short SOAs suggested that P cues were preferentially processed, consistent with exploitation. However, the amplitudes at a longer SOA suggested that after the P cues were processed, they were inhibited. This inhibition could bias attention towards other currently ambiguous stimuli, consistent with exploration.

Neural Markers Associated with the Temporal Deployment of Attention: A Systematic Review of Non-motor Psychophysical Measures Post-stroke.

In recent years, evidence has emerged to suggest abnormal temporal dynamics of attentional processing in stroke patients, especially those presenting with neglect symptoms. However, there has been little profiling of the nature and extent of such temporal anomalies. In addition, many paradigms currently used to measure the time required to deploy visual attention in stroke require a psychomotor response, and may therefore confound performance outcomes. Thus, the aim of this systematic review was to identify and evaluate studies that have employed non-motor psychophysical paradigms to characterize the temporal deployment of visual attention in space. A total of 13 non-motor psychophysical studies were identified, in which stimulus exposure times were manipulated to measure the time course of attentional deployment. Findings suggest that prolonged attentional deployment thresholds are more likely to occur with lesions within more ventral areas of the fronto-parietal network, irrespective of whether patients presented with neglect. Furthermore, this deficit was greater following right-hemispheric lesions, suggesting a dominant role for the right-hemisphere in facilitating efficient deployment of attention. These findings indicate that area and hemisphere of lesion may serve as putative markers of attentional deployment efficiency. In addition, findings also provide support for using non-motor psychophysical paradigms as a more rigorous approach to measuring and understanding the temporal dynamics of attention.

Temporal dynamics of attention before anti-saccades

Temporal dynamics of attention before anti-saccades

Assessing the temporal aspects of attention and its correlates in aging and chronic stroke patients

Temporal dynamics of attention have been in the spotlight of research since the earliest days of cognitive psychology. Typically, researchers describe two different aspects of the temporal fluctuations of attention: one is in intervals of milliseconds (phasic alertness), and the other over minutes or even hours (tonic alertness or sustained attention). In order to evaluate individual capacities for sustained attention and phasic alertness, most studies rely on variations of the Continuous Performance Task (CPT). Indices of sustained attention and phasic alertness are typically based on reaction times to targets; phasic alertness is related to the change in reaction times following a cue, and sustained attention is related to variability of reaction times during the task. In the following study, we attempted to establish a new approach for studying sustained attention and phasic alertness, not reliant solely on reaction time measures. We developed a new variation of the CPT with conjunctive feature targets and forward and backward masking to induce a higher variability in accuracy. This allowed us to assess an individual's ability to maintain the same level of sensitivity to targets (d-prime) across a ten minute period on the task as an index for sustained attention. We also assessed reaction times as a function of previous trial type, and suggest previous trial RT benefit might be a marker for an individual’s phasic alertness. We demonstrated the use of this task with healthy aging controls and stroke survivors. As a demonstration of external validity of the novel paradigm, we present a correlation between how individual performance drops over time and individual reports of distractibility in everyday life on the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire. In addition, we found significant differences between the patient and control groups in our proposed marker of phasic alertness. We discuss the implications of our study for current assessment tools, as well as general differences in phasic alertness between clinical and neurologically unimpaired groups.

Individual Differences in Temporal Selective Attention as Reflected in Pupil Dilation.

BackgroundAttention is restricted for the second of two targets when it is presented within 200–500 ms of the first target. This attentional blink (AB) phenomenon allows one to study the dynamics of temporal selective attention by varying the interval between the two targets (T1 and T2). Whereas the AB has long been considered as a robust and universal cognitive limitation, several studies have demonstrated that AB task performance greatly differs between individuals, with some individuals showing no AB whatsoever.Methodology/Principal FindingsHere, we studied these individual differences in AB task performance in relation to differences in attentional timing. Furthermore, we investigated whether AB magnitude is predictive for the amount of attention allocated to T1. For both these purposes pupil dilation was measured, and analyzed with our recently developed deconvolution method. We found that the dynamics of temporal attention in small versus large blinkers differ in a number of ways. Individuals with a relatively small AB magnitude seem better able to preserve temporal order information. In addition, they are quicker to allocate attention to both T1 and T2 than large blinkers. Although a popular explanation of the AB is that it is caused by an unnecessary overinvestment of attention allocated to T1, a more complex picture emerged from our data, suggesting that this may depend on whether one is a small or a large blinker.ConclusionThe use of pupil dilation deconvolution seems to be a powerful approach to study the temporal dynamics of attention, bringing us a step closer to understanding the elusive nature of the AB. We conclude that the timing of attention to targets may be more important than the amount of allocated attention in accounting for individual differences.

Musical Minds: Attentional blink reveals modality-specific restrictions

Background Formal musical training is known to have positive effects on attentional and executive functioning, processing speed, and working memory. Consequently, one may expect to find differences in the dynamics of temporal attention between musicians and non-musicians. Here we address the question whether that is indeed the case, and whether any beneficial effects of musical training on temporal attention are modality specific or generalize across sensory modalities. Methodology/Principal Findings When two targets are presented in close temporal succession, most people fail to report the second target, a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB). We measured and compared AB magnitude for musicians and non-musicians using auditory or visually presented letters and digits. Relative to non-musicians, the auditory AB was both attenuated and delayed in musicians, whereas the visual AB was larger. Non-musicians with a large auditory AB tended to show a large visual AB. However, neither a positive nor negative correlation was found in musicians, suggesting that at least in musicians, attentional restrictions within each modality are completely separate. Conclusion/Significance AB magnitude within one modality can generalize to another modality, but this turns out not to be the case for every individual. Formal musical training seems to have a domain-general, but modality-specific beneficial effect on selective attention. The results fit with the idea that a major source of attentional restriction as reflected in the AB lies in modality-specific, independent sensory systems rather than a central amodal system. The findings demonstrate that individual differences in AB magnitude can provide important information about the modular structure of human cognition.

Temporal dynamics of attention during encoding versus maintenance of working memory: complementary views from event-related potentials and alpha-band oscillations.

Working memory (WM) is strongly influenced by attention. In visual WM tasks, recall performance can be improved by an attention-guiding cue presented before encoding (precue) or during maintenance (retrocue). Although precues and retrocues recruit a similar frontoparietal control network, the two are likely to exhibit some processing differences, because precues invite anticipation of upcoming information whereas retrocues may guide prioritization, protection, and selection of information already in mind. Here we explored the behavioral and electrophysiological differences between precueing and retrocueing in a new visual WM task designed to permit a direct comparison between cueing conditions. We found marked differences in ERP profiles between the precue and retrocue conditions. In line with precues primarily generating an anticipatory shift of attention toward the location of an upcoming item, we found a robust lateralization in late cue-evoked potentials associated with target anticipation. Retrocues elicited a different pattern of ERPs that was compatible with an early selection mechanism, but not with stimulus anticipation. In contrast to the distinct ERP patterns, alpha-band (8-14 Hz) lateralization was indistinguishable between cue types (reflecting, in both conditions, the location of the cued item). We speculate that, whereas alpha-band lateralization after a precue is likely to enable anticipatory attention, lateralization after a retrocue may instead enable the controlled spatiotopic access to recently encoded visual information.

Musical minds: attentional blink reveals modality-specific restrictions.

BackgroundFormal musical training is known to have positive effects on attentional and executive functioning, processing speed, and working memory. Consequently, one may expect to find differences in the dynamics of temporal attention between musicians and non-musicians. Here we address the question whether that is indeed the case, and whether any beneficial effects of musical training on temporal attention are modality specific or generalize across sensory modalities.Methodology/Principal FindingsWhen two targets are presented in close temporal succession, most people fail to report the second target, a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB). We measured and compared AB magnitude for musicians and non-musicians using auditory or visually presented letters and digits. Relative to non-musicians, the auditory AB was both attenuated and delayed in musicians, whereas the visual AB was larger. Non-musicians with a large auditory AB tended to show a large visual AB. However, neither a positive nor negative correlation was found in musicians, suggesting that at least in musicians, attentional restrictions within each modality are completely separate.Conclusion/SignificanceAB magnitude within one modality can generalize to another modality, but this turns out not to be the case for every individual. Formal musical training seems to have a domain-general, but modality-specific beneficial effect on selective attention. The results fit with the idea that a major source of attentional restriction as reflected in the AB lies in modality-specific, independent sensory systems rather than a central amodal system. The findings demonstrate that individual differences in AB magnitude can provide important information about the modular structure of human cognition.

Attentional dwell times for targets and masks

Studies on the temporal dynamics of attention have shown that the report of a masked target (T2) is severely impaired when the target is presented with a delay (stimulus onset asynchrony) of less than 500 ms after a spatially separate masked target (T1). This is known as the attentional dwell time. Recently, we have proposed a computational model of this effect building on the idea that a stimulus retained in visual short-term memory (VSTM) takes up visual processing resources that otherwise could have been used to encode subsequent stimuli into VSTM. The resources are locked until the stimulus in VSTM has been recoded, which explains the long dwell time. Challenges for this model and others are findings by Moore, Egeth, Berglan, and Luck (1996) suggesting that the dwell time is substantially reduced when the mask of T1 is removed. Here we suggest that the mask of T1 modulates performance not by noticeably affecting the dwell time but instead by acting as a distractor drawing processing resources away from T2. This is consistent with our proposed model in which targets and masks compete for attentional resources and attention dwells on both. We tested the model by replicating the study by Moore et al., including a new condition in which T1 is omitted but the mask of T1 is retained. Results from this and the original study by Moore et al. are modeled with great precision.

Eye Movements and Practice Effects in the Attentional Dwell Time Paradigm

In the attentional dwell time paradigm by Duncan, Ward, and Shapiro (1994), two backward masked targets are presented at different spatial locations and separated by a varying time interval. Results show that report of the second target is severely impaired when the time interval is less than 500 ms which has been taken as a direct measure of attentional dwell time in human vision. However, we show that eye movements may have confounded the estimate of the dwell time and that the measure may not be robust as previously suggested. The latter is supported by evidence suggesting that intensive training strongly attenuates the dwell time because of habituation to the masks. Thus, this article points to eye movements and masking as two potential methodological pitfalls that should be considered when using the attentional dwell time paradigm to investigate the temporal dynamics of attention.

Spatiotemporal mapping of visual attention

The spatial distribution and the temporal dynamics of attention are well understood in isolation, but their interaction remains an open question. How does the shape of the attentional focus evolve over time? To answer this question, we measured spatiotemporal maps of endogenous and exogenous attention in humans (more than 140,000 trials in 23 subjects). We tested the visibility of a low-contrast target presented (50 ms) at different spatial distances and temporal delays from a cue in a noisy background. The cue was a non-informative salient peripheral (5°) stimulus for exogenous attention and a central arrow cue (valid 66.6%) pointing left or right for endogenous attention. As a measure of attention, we determined, for each distance and delay, the background contrast compensation required to keep performance at 75%. The spatiotemporal mapping of exogenous attention revealed a significant enhancement zone from 150 to 430 ms, extending up to 6° from the cue. Endogenous attention maps showed a peak at the cued side at 400 ms and between 8 and 10° from the cue. Modeling suggests that the data are compatible with a constant spotlight shape across time. Our results represent the first detailed spatiotemporal maps of both endogenous and exogenous attention.

Attentional disengagement in adults with Williams syndrome

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by a distinctive behavioral and cognitive profile, including widespread problems with attention. However, the specific nature of their attentional difficulties, such as inappropriate attentional allocation and/or poor attentional disengagement abilities, has yet to be elucidated. Furthermore, it is unknown if there is an underlying difficulty with the temporal dynamics of attention in WS or if their attentional difficulties are task-dependent, because previous studies have examined attention in established areas of deficit and atypicality (specifically, visuospatial and face processing). In this study, we examined attentional processing in 14 adults with WS (20–59 years) and 17 typically developing controls (19–39 years) using an attentional blink (AB) paradigm. The AB is the decreased ability to detect a second target when it is presented in close proximity to an initial target. Overall, adults with WS had an AB that was prolonged in duration, but no different in magnitude, compared with typically developing control participants. AB performance was not explained by IQ, working memory, or processing speed in either group. Thus, results suggest that the attention problems in WS are primarily due to general attentional disengagement difficulties rather than inappropriate attentional allocation.

The behavioural temporal dynamics of attention with multiple uncued locations

The behavioural temporal dynamics of attention with multiple uncued locations

The temporal dynamics of attention in a spatial cueing task revealed by classification movies

The temporal dynamics of attention in a spatial cueing task revealed by classification movies

Alteration of Attentional Blink in High Functioning Autism: A Pilot Study

Autism is characterized by deficits in attention. However, no study has investigated the dynamics of attentional processes in autistic patients yet. The attentional blink (AB) paradigm provides information about the temporal dynamics of attention in particular about the allocation and the duration of an attentional episode. We compared 11 high functioning autistic patients with 15 control participants on a classical AB task. Autistic patients exhibited a deficit in rapidly allocated attentional resources. Further investigations such as coupling AB evaluation with neuroimaging data and/or increasing the size of groups, would allow for investigating the neurobiological substrates of these AB alterations in autistic patients.

Hypnotizability and temporal dynamics of attention: a study on the Attentional Blink effect

AbstractThis study was designed to seek hypnotizability‐related differences in attention temporal dynamics. For this purpose, an iconic version of the Attentional Blink Task (AB) was performed on 18 highly (Highs, score 9–12, SHSS form C) and 18 low susceptible individuals (Lows, score 0–3). The procedure consisted of two tasks in which two animal shapes (a coloured animal, Target, and a black butterfly, Probe) appeared in close temporal proximity within a rapid stream of distractors (black animals). In the Single task only Probe detection was required; in the Conditional task, Target identification was also requested. In this case, competition between Target and Probe for limited attentional resources decreases Probe visibility as a function of the time lag from Target (AB effect). A similar AB effect occurred in the two groups; nonetheless, Probe detection scores at the shorter lags were frequently higher in Highs than in Lows. This suggests that time constraints could affect the performance of Highs less than Lows, but also that the two groups could differ in attention capturing mechanisms, i.e. automatic capture by colour at the shorter lag. Moreover, Highs scores on Target identification were lower than Lows' ones indicating an impairment of Highs when engaged in dual tasks.

The influence of mild traumatic brain injury on the temporal distribution of attention

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the temporal dynamics of attention was deficient in participants who have recently experienced mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). For this purpose the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task was used and the performance of participants with mTBI was compared to that of controls matched for age, gender, education, and activity type. In the RSVP task a stream of rapidly presented letters is displayed with target and probe letters separated by varying durations. The participant is required to identify the target letter and determine whether the probe letter was present or not. Previous research has shown that healthy participants display an attentional blink: they fail to detect the probe letter when it appears within approximately 500 ms of the target letter. We found that participants with mTBI had a normal attentional blink-it was neither greater in magnitude nor longer in duration than that displayed by the control participants. However, the participants with mTBI did show evidence of attentional competition-making more errors in identifying the target letter when the probe letter was presented-that was not present in the control participants. Taken together, these results suggest that the temporal constraints of attention are subtly but systematically affected by mTBI.

The Beneficial Effect of Concurrent Task-Irrelevant Mental Activity on Temporal Attention

It is believed that the human cognitive system is fundamentally limited in deploying attention over time. This limitation is reflected in the attentional blink, the impaired ability to identify the second of two visual targets presented in close succession. We report the paradoxical finding that the attentional blink is significantly ameliorated when observers are concurrently engaged in distracting mental activity, such as free-associating on a task-irrelevant theme or listening to music. This finding raises questions about the fundamental nature of the attentional blink, and suggests that the temporal dynamics of attention are determined by task circumstances that induce either a more or a less distributed state of mind.