Visual Selective Attention Research Articles

Neuroplus biofeedback improves attention, resilience, and injury prevention in elite soccer players.

Performance and injury prevention in elite soccer players are typically investigated from physical-tactical, biomechanical, and metabolic perspectives. However, executive functions, visuospatial abilities, and psychophysiological adaptability or resilience are also fundamental for efficiency and well-being in sports. Based on previous research associating autonomic flexibility with prefrontal cortical control, we designed a novel integrated autonomic biofeedback training method called Neuroplus to improve resilience, visual attention, and injury prevention. Herein, we introduce the method and provide an evaluation of 20 elite soccer players from the Italian Soccer High Division (Serie-A): 10 players trained with Neuroplus and 10 trained with a control treatment. The assessments included psychophysiological stress profiles, a visual search task, and indexes of injury prevention, which were measured pre- and posttreatment. The analysis showed a significant enhancement of physiological adaptability, recovery following stress, visual selective attention, and injury prevention that were specific to the Neuroplus group. Enhancing the interplay between autonomic and cognitive functions through biofeedback may become a key principle for obtaining excellence and well-being in sports. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that shows improvement in visual selective attention following intense autonomic biofeedback.

Functional outcome at school age of children born with gastroschisis

ObjectiveWe aimed to determine motor, cognitive and behavioural outcomes of school aged children born with gastroschisis compared to matched controls. Study designWe compared outcomes of 16 children born with gastroschisis treated at the University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands, between 1999 and 2006 with 32 controls matched for gender, gestational age, birth weight, and corrected for small for gestational age (SGA) and parental socioeconomic status (SES). Intelligence, auditory-verbal memory, attention, response inhibition, visual perception, motor skills, visuomotor integration, problem behaviour and executive functioning were evaluated. ResultsMedian verbal intelligence quotient and global executive functioning scores of children born with gastroschisis were poorer than of controls (95 (inter quartile range (IQR) 88–100) vs. 104 (IQR 98–113), P=0.001, and 29 (IQR 6.8–63.8) vs. 5.0 (IQR 2.8–19.8), P=0.03, respectively). Children with gastroschisis were more often classified as borderline or abnormal than controls regarding response inhibition (odds ratio (OR) 20.4; 95%-confidence interval (95%-CI); 2.4–171.5), selective visual attention (OR 40.4; 95%-CI 5.9–275.4), sustained auditory attention (OR 88.1; 95%-CI 5.8–1342.8), and fine motor skills (50% vs. 0%). Grade retention was more prevalent in gastroschisis children (OR 6.07; 95%-CI 1.42–25.9). These associations persisted after adjustment for SGA and SES. The auditory-verbal memory, visuomotor integration and behavioural problems did not significantly differ from the controls. ConclusionsGastroschisis is associated with poorer verbal intelligence, and with an increased risk for poor performance on several aspects of attention, response inhibition and fine motor skills at school age. The follow-up of children born with gastroschisis deserves attention regarding these specific domains, to improve their functional outcomes.

Selection history alters attentional filter settings persistently and beyond top-down control.

Visual selective attention is known to be guided by stimulus-based (bottom-up) and goal-oriented (top-down) control mechanisms. Recent work has pointed out that selection history (i.e., the bias to prioritize items that have been previously attended) can result in a learning experience that also has a substantial impact on subsequent attention guidance. The present study examined to what extent goal-oriented top-down control mechanisms interact with an observer's individual selection history in guiding attention. Selection history was manipulated in a categorization task in a between-subjects design, where participants learned that either color or shape was the response-relevant dimension. The impact of this experience was assessed in a compound visual search task with an additional color distractor. Top-down preparation for each search trial was enabled by a pretrial task cue (Experiment 1) or a fixed, predictable trial sequence (Experiment 2). Reaction times and ERPs served as indicators of attention deployment. Results showed that attention was captured by the color distractor when participants had learned that color predicted the correct response in the categorization learning task, suggesting that a bias for predictive stimulus features had developed. The possibility to prepare for the search task reduced the bias, but could not entirely overrule this selection history effect. In Experiment 3, both tasks were performed in separate sessions, and the bias still persisted. These results indicate that selection history considerably shapes selective attention and continues to do so persistently even when the task allowed for high top-down control.

Resting-State Brain Networks in Elderly Cirrhotic Patients Reveal a Distinct Brain Response to Aging

Background: The cirrhotic population is getting older, with a significant potential overlap of covert HE with pre-dementia mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The underlying functional basis of this cognitive impairment in elderly cirrhotics is unclear and could be related to altered resting-state networks (RSNs). RSNs are anatomically separate yet functionally connected brain regions. Default mode network (DMN) resting network is affected in younger cirrhotics but RSNs is unclear in older patients is understudied. Aim: To investigate differences in resting-state functional connectivity between elderly cirrhotic patients and age-matched non-cirrhotic controls. Methods: Age-matched cirrhotics and non-cirrhotics between 65 and 85 years without current/prior OHE diagnoses/treatment, end-stage organ failures or uncontrolled neuro-psychiatric disorders were enrolled. Subjects underwent PHES, Stroop App and quality of life using sickness impact profile (SIP). All subjects then underwent resting-state fMRI. Group RSNs were created using an independent component analysis approach and group differences between these networks were tested using ‘dual-regression’. Results: 13 cirrhotic and 13 non-cirrhotics were included. The two groups did not differ significantly in age (Ctrl: 73.6 ± 5 yrs; Cirr: 70.1 ± 5 yrs, P = 0.11). Cirrhotics had worse PHES (Ctrl: −1; Cirr: −3; P = 0.05), Stroop Off + Ontime (Ctrl: 171.3 ± 32s; Cirr: 228.6 ± 69s; P = 0.01) and SIP (Ctrl: 1.4 ± 1.8; Cirr: 10.4 ± 16; P = 0.05). RSN analysis: Several group RSNs were detected but no differences on DMN were found. However, we found lower functional connectivity in elderly cirrhosis group compared to elderly controls in two important networks: (A) visual network: right lingual gyrus; P = 0.016 (important for visual processing including visual memory, word processing and selective attention), (B) dorsal/ventral attentional network: (a) left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (left VLPFC); P = 0.004; (b) right VLPFC; P = 0.04, (c) left frontoparietal operculum (FPOC): P = 0.03 dorsal attentional network (DAN) is involved in goal-driven attention processing (top-down) whereas ventral attentional network (VAN) is involved in stimuli-driven attention processing (bottom-up). These two networks have been previously reported to be preferentially affected in amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Largest cluster of voxels showing group difference between cirrhotic and control group was found in the VLPFC which is part of VAN and may indicate deficits in the ability to reorient to novel or unexpected stimulus relevant information (bottom-up processing). FPOC is an area associated with verbal and spatial working memory. Conclusions: Elderly cirrhotic patients have impaired cognitive performance and quality of life compared with age-matched non-cirrhotics. This is compounded by disrupted stimulus-driven visual and attentional RSNs patterns similar to those seen in Alzheimer's-associated MCI, but not in DMN as seen in younger cirrhotics. Abnormal resting state connectivity in elderly cirrhotic patients may represent a distinct brain response to aging in the setting of cirrhosis that overlaps with MCI (Figure 1). The authors have none to declare.

Selective Visual Attention Towards Oneself and Associated State Body Satisfaction: an Eye-Tracking Study in Adolescents with Different Types of Eating Disorders.

The development of eating disorders is associated with a body-related attentional bias. Although eating disorders are especially prevalent in adolescence, so far, no study has analyzed gaze patterns and state body image in response to viewing one's own body in youth. To fill this gap, the present study aimed to examine a body-related attentional bias and state body satisfaction in adolescents with various forms of eating disorders. Girls with anorexia nervosa, restrictive type (AN-R; n = 30), anorexia nervosa, binge eating/purging type (AN-BP; n = 26), bulimia nervosa (BN; n = 22), clinical controls with anxiety disorders (n = 20) and healthy controls (n = 43) looked at photographs of their own and a peer's body, while their spontaneous eye movements were recorded. After stimulus presentation, state body satisfaction and individual attractiveness ratings for areas of the presented stimuli were assessed. An analysis of variance revealed that participants of all subgroups showed an attentive preference for unattractive areas of one's own body. Girls with AN-R attended significantly longer to unattractive body areas than both control groups and significantly shorter to attractive body areas than healthy controls. State body dissatisfaction was more prominent in all eating disorder subgroups, with significantly lower scores in BN compared to AN-R. In general, the higher the state body dissatisfaction, the stronger was the deficit orientation on one's own body. The attentional bias towards unattractive body areas, which is most pronounced in AN-R, indicates that interventions aiming to modify distorted attention might be promising in the prevention and treatment of eating disorders in adolescence.

Neural Mechanisms of Selective Visual Attention.

Selective visual attention describes the tendency of visual processing to be confined largely to stimuli that are relevant to behavior. It is among the most fundamental of cognitive functions, particularly in humans and other primates for whom vision is the dominant sense. We review recent progress in identifying the neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. We discuss evidence from studies of different varieties of selective attention and examine how these varieties alter the processing of stimuli by neurons within the visual system, current knowledge of their causal basis, and methods for assessing attentional dysfunctions. In addition, we identify some key questions that remain in identifying the neural mechanisms that give rise to the selective processing of visual information.

Attention in action and perception: Unitary or separate mechanisms of selectivity?

What is the relation between the two visual stream hypothesis and selective visual attention? In this chapter, we first consider this question at a theoretical level before presenting an example of work from our lab that examines the question: Under what conditions does the emotional content of a visual object influence visually guided action? Previous research has demonstrated that fear can influence perception, both consciously and unconsciously, but it is unclear when fear influences visually guided action. The study tested participants with varying degrees of spiderphobia on two visually guided pointing tasks, while manipulating the emotional valence of the target (positive and negative) and the cognitive load of the participant (single vs dual task). Participants rapidly moved their finger from a home position to a suddenly appearing target image on a touch screen. The images were emotionally negative (e.g., spiders and scorpions) or positive (e.g., flowers and food). In order to test the effect of emotional valence on the online control of the reach, the target either remained static or jumped to a new location. In both the single and dual tasks, a stream of digits were presented on the screen near the finger's starting location, but only in the dual task were participants asked to identify a letter somewhere in the stream. In the single task, increased fear of spiders reduced the speed and accuracy of the movement. In the dual task, increased fear impaired letter identification, but pointing actions were now equally efficient for low- and high-fear participants. These results imply that the finger's autopilot is influenced by emotional content only when attention can be fully devoted to the identification of the emotion-evoking images. As such, the results support the view that the mechanisms of selection are not the same in the two visual streams.

The impact of intelligence on memory and executive functions of children with temporal lobe epilepsy: Methodological concerns with clinical relevance.

Patients with TLE are prone to have lower IQ scores than healthy controls. Nevertheless, the impact of IQ differences is not usually considered in studies that compared the cognitive functioning of children with and without epilepsy. This study aimed to determine the effect of using IQ as a covariate on memory and attentional/executive functions of children with TLE. Thirty-eight children and adolescents with TLE and 28 healthy controls paired as to age, gender, and sociodemographic factors were evaluated with a comprehensive neuropsychological battery for memory and executive functions. The authors conducted three analyses to verify the impact of IQ scores on the other cognitive domains. First, we compared performance on cognitive tests without controlling for IQ differences between groups. Second, we performed the same analyses, but we included IQ as a confounding factor. Finally, we evaluated the predictive value of IQ on cognitive functioning. Although patients had IQ score in the normal range, they showed lower IQ scores than controls (p=0.001). When we did not consider IQ in the analyses, patients had worse performance in verbal and visual memory (short and long-term), semantic memory, sustained, divided and selective attention, mental flexibility and mental tracking for semantic information. By using IQ as a covariate, patients showed worse performance only in verbal memory (long-term), semantic memory, sustained and divided attention and in mental flexibility. IQ was a predictor factor of verbal and visual memory (immediate and delayed), working memory, mental flexibility and mental tracking for semantic information. Intelligence level had a significant impact on memory and executive functioning of children and adolescents with TLE without intellectual disability. This finding opens the discussion of whether IQ scores should be considered when interpreting the results of differences in cognitive performance of patients with epilepsy compared to healthy volunteers.

Assessing the internal consistency of the event‐related potential: An example analysis

ERPs are widely and increasingly used to address questions in psychophysiological research. As discussed in this special issue, a renewed focus on questions of reliability and stability marks the need for intuitive, quantitative descriptors that allow researchers to communicate the robustness of ERP measures used in a given study. This report argues that well-established indices of internal consistency and effect size meet this need and can be easily extracted from most ERP datasets, as demonstrated with example analyses using a representative dataset from a feature-based visual selective attention task. We demonstrate how to measure the internal consistency of three aspects commonly considered in ERP studies: voltage measurements for specific time ranges at selected sensors, voltage dynamics across all time points of the ERP waveform, and the distribution of voltages across the scalp. We illustrate methods for quantifying the robustness of experimental condition differences, by calculating effect size for different indices derived from the ERP. The number of trials contributing to the ERP waveform was manipulated to examine the relationship between signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), internal consistency, and effect size. In the present example dataset, satisfactory consistency (Cronbach's alpha > 0.7) of individual voltage measurements was reached at lower trial counts than were required to reach satisfactory effect sizes for differences between experimental conditions. Comparing different metrics of robustness, we conclude that the internal consistency and effect size of ERP findings greatly depend on the quantification strategy, the comparisons and analyses performed, and the SNR.

Evaluation of Attention and Verbal Memory in Yoga Practicing Pre-Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background and objectives: Yoga is a holistic mind‐body practice used for physical and mental health, which is most commonly looked upon by educators as a wellness program for students. This study aims to analyze whether pre-adolescent school students who practiced yoga performed better in attention and memory tasks in comparison with controls that did not practice yoga.Design and interventions: This is a single-center cross-sectional study involving healthy students between grades 3 and 9 (8‐14 years of age) from the same school. Forty students who practiced yoga (yogic breathing and postures) for 30 minutes, 5 days a week in the past 12 months (Y group) were assessed against a control group of 40 students in the same age group (NY group) who were not involved in any yogic practices for differences in scores of trail making tests (TMT), Stroop color task, and digit memory tests. Data were analyzed using independent samples t-test with a confidence interval of 95% and P<0.05 considered statistically significant.Main outcome measure: To establish the difference in scores of visual attention, selective attention, and verbal memory/auditory attention between the groups.Results: The mean scores for TMT-A (joining numbers in numerical order) were 42.7±21.66 in the Y group compared with 50.8±22.0 for the NY group (P=0.02). Mean scores of TMT-B (joining numbers in intermittent order) were 91.4±34.9 in the Y group compared with 125.7±48.3 in the NY group. The mean scores of digit span forwards in Y and NY groups were 9.82±1.72 and 7.62±1.67, respectively. Digit span backward scores in Y and NY groups were 8.75±22.07 and 5.8±4.82, respectively. The mean scores of Stroop color test in Y and NY groups were 2.02±1.94 and 4.21±1.87, respectively, which were statistically significant (P<0.0001).Conclusion: Pre-adolescent school students who practiced yoga in the past 12 months showed better performance in visual attention, selective attention, and verbal memory/auditory attention compared with the pre-adolescent controls. Randomized controlled trials are needed to assess the generalizability of these study findings.

Temporal mental qualities and selective attention

This article presents an argument for the view that we can perceive temporal features without awareness. Evidence for this claim comes from recent empirical work on selective visual attention. An interpretation of selective attention as a mechanism that processes high-level perceptual features is offered and defended against one particular objection. In conclusion, time perception likely has an unconscious dimension and temporal mental qualities can be instantiated without ever being conscious.

Visual selective attention in body dysmorphic disorder, bulimia nervosa and healthy controls

ObjectiveCognitive behavioral models postulate that selective attention plays an important role in the maintenance of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). It is suggested that individuals with BDD overfocus on perceived defects in their appearance, which may contribute to the excessive preoccupation with their appearance. MethodsThe present study used eye tracking to examine visual selective attention in individuals with BDD (n=19), as compared to individuals with bulimia nervosa (BN) (n=21) and healthy controls (HCs) (n=21). Participants completed interviews, questionnaires, rating scales and an eye tracking task: Eye movements were recorded while participants viewed photographs of their own face and attractive as well as unattractive other faces. ResultsEye tracking data showed that BDD and BN participants focused less on their self-rated most attractive facial part than HCs. Scanning patterns in own and other faces showed that BDD and BN participants paid as much attention to attractive as to unattractive features in their own face, whereas they focused more on attractive features in attractive other faces. HCs paid more attention to attractive features in their own face and did the same in attractive other faces. ConclusionResults indicate an attentional bias in BDD and BN participants manifesting itself in a neglect of positive features compared to HCs. Perceptual retraining may be an important aspect to focus on in therapy in order to overcome the neglect of positive facial aspects. Future research should aim to disentangle attentional processes in BDD by examining the time course of attentional processing.

Reorganization of neural systems mediating peripheral visual selective attention in the deaf: An optical imaging study

Theories of brain plasticity propose that, in the absence of input from the preferred sensory modality, some specialized brain areas may be recruited when processing information from other modalities, which may result in improved performance. The Useful Field of View task has previously been used to demonstrate that early deafness positively impacts peripheral visual attention. The current study sought to determine the neural changes associated with those deafness-related enhancements in visual performance. Based on previous findings, we hypothesized that recruitment of posterior portions of Brodmann area 22, a brain region most commonly associated with auditory processing, would be correlated with peripheral selective attention as measured using the Useful Field of View task. We report data from severe to profoundly deaf adults and normal-hearing controls who performed the Useful Field of View task while cortical activity was recorded using the event-related optical signal. Behavioral performance, obtained in a separate session, showed that deaf subjects had lower thresholds (i.e., better performance) on the Useful Field of View task. The event-related optical data indicated greater activity for the deaf adults than for the normal-hearing controls during the task in the posterior portion of Brodmann area 22 in the right hemisphere. Furthermore, the behavioral thresholds correlated significantly with this neural activity. This work provides further support for the hypothesis that cross-modal plasticity in deaf individuals appears in higher-order auditory cortices, whereas no similar evidence was obtained for primary auditory areas. It is also the only neuroimaging study to date that has linked deaf-related changes in the right temporal lobe to visual task performance outside of the imaging environment. The event-related optical signal is a valuable technique for studying cross-modal plasticity in deaf humans. The non-invasive and relatively quiet characteristics of this technique have great potential utility in research with clinical populations such as deaf children and adults who have received cochlear or auditory brainstem implants.

Selective visual attention based clutter metric with human visual system adaptability.

Most existing clutter metrics are proposed based on fixed structural features and experienced weight measures. In this paper, we identify the clutter as selective visual attention effects and propose a type of clutter metric. First, adaptive structural features are extracted from the blocks with an edge-structure similarity to the target. Next, the confusing blocks are selected by the similarity threshold based on the attention guidance map. The clutter is estimated by quantifying the effects of confusing blocks on target acquisition performance. The comparative field experiments, with a Search_2 dataset, show that the proposed metric is consistent with the adaptability of the human visual system (HVS) and outperforms other metrics.

Are sluggish cognitive tempo symptoms associated with executive functioning in preschoolers?

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study is to investigate whether sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) symptoms are associated with neurocognitive task performance and ratings of real-world executive functioning (EF) in preschoolers at risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The associations between parent- and teacher-rated SCT symptoms and neuropsychological task performance and ratings of EF in 61 4-year-old preschool children (51 boys, 10 girls) with self-regulation difficulties were examined, with regression analyses controlling for the effects of ADHD inattention symptoms. In the study sample, higher teacher-rated SCT symptoms are significantly associated with poorer performance on tasks of visual-perceptual abilities, auditory and visual attention, sustained and selective attention, inhibitory control, pre-numerical/numerical concepts, and slower processing speed, but SCT symptoms are not significantly associated with working memory, attention shifting or cognitive flexibility when controlling for ADHD inattention. Higher parent-rated SCT symptoms are significantly associated with visual-perceptual abilities. ADHD inattention symptoms are more strongly associated than SCT with daily life EF ratings; neither parent- nor teacher-rated SCT symptoms are significantly associated with daily life ratings of inhibition, working memory, or planning/organization after controlling for ADHD inattention. This study suggests that SCT symptoms contribute to EF deficits at least on neurocognitive tasks assessing visual-perceptual/spatial abilities, attention to detail and processing speed, as observed in this sample of young children at risk for ADHD, and may be an important intervention target.

Augmenting distractor filtering via transcranial magnetic stimulation of the lateral occipital cortex

Visual selective attention (VSA) optimizes perception and behavioral control by enabling efficient selection of relevant information and filtering of distractors. While focusing resources on task-relevant information helps counteract distraction, dedicated filtering mechanisms have recently been demonstrated, allowing neural systems to implement suitable policies for the suppression of potential interference. Limited evidence is presently available concerning the neural underpinnings of these mechanisms, and whether neural circuitry within the visual cortex might play a causal role in their instantiation, a possibility that we directly tested here. In two related experiments, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied over the lateral occipital cortex of healthy humans at different times during the execution of a behavioral task which entailed varying levels of distractor interference and need for attentional engagement. While earlier TMS boosted target selection, stimulation within a restricted time epoch close to (and in the course of) stimulus presentation engendered selective enhancement of distractor suppression, by affecting the ongoing, reactive instantiation of attentional filtering mechanisms required by specific task conditions. The results attest to a causal role of mid-tier ventral visual areas in distractor filtering and offer insights into the mechanisms through which TMS may have affected ongoing neural activity in the stimulated tissue.

The Effects of Blur/Clarity Contrast on Visual Selective Attention

The Effects of Blur/Clarity Contrast on Visual Selective Attention

Individual differences in selective attention predict speech identification at a cocktail party.

Listeners with normal hearing show considerable individual differences in speech understanding when competing speakers are present, as in a crowded restaurant. Here, we show that one source of this variance are individual differences in the ability to focus selective attention on a target stimulus in the presence of distractors. In 50 young normal-hearing listeners, the performance in tasks measuring auditory and visual selective attention was associated with sentence identification in the presence of spatially separated competing speakers. Together, the measures of selective attention explained a similar proportion of variance as the binaural sensitivity for the acoustic temporal fine structure. Working memory span, age, and audiometric thresholds showed no significant association with speech understanding. These results suggest that a reduced ability to focus attention on a target is one reason why some listeners with normal hearing sensitivity have difficulty communicating in situations with background noise.

Visual Attention in Flies-Dopamine in the Mushroom Bodies Mediates the After-Effect of Cueing.

Visual environments may simultaneously comprise stimuli of different significance. Often such stimuli require incompatible responses. Selective visual attention allows an animal to respond exclusively to the stimuli at a certain location in the visual field. In the process of establishing its focus of attention the animal can be influenced by external cues. Here we characterize the behavioral properties and neural mechanism of cueing in the fly Drosophila melanogaster. A cue can be attractive, repulsive or ineffective depending upon (e.g.) its visual properties and location in the visual field. Dopamine signaling in the brain is required to maintain the effect of cueing once the cue has disappeared. Raising or lowering dopamine at the synapse abolishes this after-effect. Specifically, dopamine is necessary and sufficient in the αβ-lobes of the mushroom bodies. Evidence is provided for an involvement of the αβposterior Kenyon cells.

Efficient Target Object Localization Model Based on Biologically Motivated Visual Selective Attention

This work proposes a novel biologically motivated visual selective attention model for efficient visual searching, which is implemented by integrating three attention mechanisms: bottom-up attention, top-down attention, and spatial attention. Bottom-up attention generates salient locations by reflecting top-down biases as well as three primitive visual features: intensity, edge and color. Prototype-based object perception is proposed for top-down attention, in which a 3-D color histogram is applied to generate a prototype of the target object. And experience based spatial attention can determine acceleration to localize a target object, which is modeled by using memorized spatial location information updated by object-localization experience. In order to verify the performance of the proposed visual selective attention model, we apply the proposed model to a real application in pedestrian traffic signal detection, to be utilized as part of a blind guide system. The proposed selective attention model shows plausible performance in terms of accuracy and computation time while efficiently localizing pedestrian traffic signals.