40-Hz Binaural beats enhance training to mitigate the attentional blink

When two tones with slightly different frequencies are presented to both ears, they interact in the central auditory system and induce the sensation of a beating sound. At low difference frequencies, we perceive a single sound, which is moving across the head between the left and right ears. The percept changes to loudness fluctuation, roughness, and pitch with increasing beat rate. To examine the neural representations underlying these different perceptions, we recorded neuromagnetic cortical responses while participants listened to binaural beats at a continuously varying rate between 3 Hz and 60 Hz. Binaural beat responses were analyzed as neuromagnetic oscillations following the trajectory of the stimulus rate. Responses were largest in the 40-Hz gamma range and at low frequencies. Binaural beat responses at 3 Hz showed opposite polarity in the left and right auditory cortices. We suggest that this difference in polarity reflects the opponent neural population code for representing sound location. Binaural beats at any rate induced gamma oscillations. However, the responses were largest at 40-Hz stimulation. We propose that the neuromagnetic gamma oscillations reflect postsynaptic modulation that allows for precise timing of cortical neural firing. Systematic phase differences between bilateral responses suggest that separate sound representations of a sound object exist in the left and right auditory cortices. We conclude that binaural processing at the cortical level occurs with the same temporal acuity as monaural processing whereas the identification of sound location requires further interpretation and is limited by the rate of object representations.

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Eliminating the Attentional Blink through Binaural Beats: A Case for Tailored Cognitive Enhancement

Frontiers in Psychiatry ◽

10.3389/fpsyt.2015.00082 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 6 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Susan A. Reedijk ◽

Anne Bolders ◽

Lorenza S. Colzato ◽

Bernhard Hommel

Keyword(s):

Attentional Blink ◽

Cognitive Enhancement ◽

Binaural Beats

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Phase Synchronization Analysis of EEG during Attentional Blink

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/089892905775008706 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 17 (12) ◽

pp. 1969-1979 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

Chie Nakatani ◽

Junji Ito ◽

Andrey R. Nikolaev ◽

Pulin Gong ◽

Cees van Leeuwen

Keyword(s):

Attentional Blink ◽

Phase Synchronization ◽

Brain Dynamics ◽

Lag Phase ◽

Target Onset ◽

Limited Capacity ◽

Phase Synchrony ◽

Experimental Conditions ◽

Cortical Areas ◽

40 Hz

The attentional blink (AB) phenomenon occurs when perceivers must report two targets embedded in a sequence of distracters; if the first target precedes the second by 200-600 msec, the second one is often missed. We investigated AB by measuring dynamic cross-lag phase synchronization for 565 electrode pairs in 40-Hz-range EEG. Phase synchrony, on average, was higher in experimental conditions, where two targets are reported, than in control conditions, where only the second target is reported. The effect occurred in electrode pairs covering the whole head. Timing of the synchrony was crucial: Brief episodes of enhanced synchrony occurred 100-500 msec before expected target onset in AB conditions where the second target was correctly reported. These results show that intrinsic brain dynamics produce anticipatory synchronization in transient assemblies of cortical areas. Enhanced levels of anticipatory synchronization occur in response to the demands of the task in conditions where the system's limited capacity is under strain.

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Effects of binaural and monaural beat stimulation on attention and EEG

Experimental Brain Research ◽

10.1007/s00221-021-06155-z ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Hessel Engelbregt ◽

Marinda Barmentlo ◽

Daniel Keeser ◽

Oliver Pogarell ◽

Jan Berend Deijen

Keyword(s):

Flanker Task ◽

Cognitive Test ◽

Future Research ◽

Binaural Beats ◽

Frequency Following Response ◽

Neural Entrainment ◽

Specific Frequency ◽

Eeg Recordings ◽

Mood And Cognition ◽

40 Hz

AbstractNowadays a popular technique to improve mood and cognition is auditory beat stimulation (ABS), which is thought to induce a frequency-following response of brainwaves. The main types of ABS are monaural beats (MB) and binaural beats (BB). BB involves the presentation of a specific frequency to one ear and another frequency to the other ear which may induce neural entrainment. A difference between the frequencies of 40 Hz is assumed to improve cognition. The present study examined the effect of 40 Hz binaural beats (BB) and monaural beats (MB) on attention and electroencephalography (EEG). A total of 25 first-year psychology students (11 males, 14 females) performed a Flanker task while EEG was recorded during the 5 min-presentation of pink noise (PN), MB and BB. With respect to attention, as measured by the Flanker task, the number of false responses in the BB condition was smaller than that in the PN condition while the number of false responses in the MB condition was larger as compared to the PN condition. As there was no association of BB with a consistent increase in absolute 40 or 45 Hz power compared to PN or MB, EEG recordings could not confirm the hypothesized neural entrainment in the brain. Overall, the current findings show that listening to 40 Hz BB improves attention but do not show the occurrence of neural entrainment. Future research is recommended to include a larger sample, to use a broader cognitive test battery and to present auditory beats with a longer duration.

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A Quick Visual Mind Can be a Slow Auditory Mind

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169.56.1.33 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 56 (1) ◽

pp. 33-40 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Sander Martens ◽

Addie Johnson ◽

Martje Bolle ◽

Jelmer Borst

Keyword(s):

Attentional Blink ◽

Task Difficulty ◽

Human Mind ◽

Visual Modality ◽

Present Evidence ◽

Conscious Level ◽

Visual Targets ◽

Concurrent Information

The human mind is severely limited in processing concurrent information at a conscious level of awareness. These temporal restrictions are clearly reflected in the attentional blink (AB), a deficit in reporting the second of two targets when it occurs 200–500 ms after the first. However, we recently reported that some individuals do not show a visual AB, and presented psychophysiological evidence that target processing differs between “blinkers” and “nonblinkers”. Here, we present evidence that visual nonblinkers do show an auditory AB, which suggests that a major source of attentional restriction as reflected in the AB is likely to be modality-specific. In Experiment 3, we show that when the difficulty in identifying visual targets is increased, nonblinkers continue to show little or no visual AB, suggesting that the presence of an AB in the auditory but not in the visual modality is not due to a difference in task difficulty.

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