The Absence of Vision Impacts Attentional Focus Effects During a Balancing Task

Event-based prospective memory (PM) was investigated in children with Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), using a novel experimental procedure to evaluate the role of working memory (WM) load, attentional focus, and reward sensitivity. The study included 24 children with ADHD and 23 typically-developing controls. The experimental paradigm comprised one baseline condition (BC), only including an ongoing task, and four PM conditions, varying for targets: 1 Target (1T), 4 Targets (4T), Unfocal (UN), and Reward (RE). Children with ADHD were slower than controls on all PM tasks and less accurate on both ongoing and PM tasks on the 4T and UN conditions. Within the ADHD group, the accuracy in the RE condition did not differ from BC. A significant relationship between ADHD-related symptoms and reduced accuracy/higher speed in PM conditions (PM and ongoing trials), but not in BC, was detected. Our data provide insight on the adverse role of WM load and attentional focus and the positive influence of reward in the PM performance of children with ADHD. Moreover, the relation between PM and ADHD symptoms paves the road for PM as a promising neuropsychological marker for ADHD diagnosis and intervention.

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Disrupting the Flow of Perception-Action through Design

Adaptive Behavior ◽

10.1177/1059712321989099 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 105971232198909

Author(s):

Harry Heft

Keyword(s):

Cultural History ◽

Health Effects ◽

Sense Of Place ◽

Attentional Focus ◽

Good Design ◽

Adverse Health Effects ◽

Adverse Health ◽

Directed Action ◽

Perception Action

It is usually a mark of good design when technologies and tools that mediate goal-directed action are such that the user’s attentional focus is maintained on the intended ends of action rather than on the technologies and tools themselves. When the mediators become the focus, the continuity of goal-directed action is disrupted, and the flow of action can be re-directed. What then is the purpose of the projects designed by the RAAAF studio, as described by Rietveld, which seem to be intended to do both? Disruption of the continuity of goal-directed perception-action may prompt reflection about the circumstances at work, and in so doing provoke a transformation in habitual patterns of action and of thought. The project “The End of Sitting” is intended to remediate the adverse health effects of standard chair-dominated offices through an unconventional office landscape that prompts intermittent postural readjustments, boosting the levels of activity common in such settings. The project “Bunker 599” demonstrates that seemingly unremarkable features of the landscape can sometimes conceal aspects of culture’s history, and that design can function to draw attention to a hidden and even vanishing history. Design can enrich an individual’s sense of place in a stream of cultural history.

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Cochlear activity in silent cue-target intervals shows a theta-rhythmic pattern and is correlated to attentional alpha and theta modulations

BMC Biology ◽

10.1186/s12915-021-00992-8 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Moritz Herbert Albrecht Köhler ◽

Gianpaolo Demarchi ◽

Nathan Weisz

Keyword(s):

Selective Attention ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Attentional Focus ◽

Theta Activity ◽

Superior Olivary Complex ◽

Rhythmic Pattern ◽

Auditory Input ◽

Auditory Selective Attention ◽

Beta Power ◽

Cortical Regions

AbstractBackgroundA long-standing debate concerns where in the processing hierarchy of the central nervous system (CNS) selective attention takes effect. In the auditory system, cochlear processes can be influenced via direct and mediated (by the inferior colliculus) projections from the auditory cortex to the superior olivary complex (SOC). Studies illustrating attentional modulations of cochlear responses have so far been limited to sound-evoked responses. The aim of the present study is to investigate intermodal (audiovisual) selective attention in humans simultaneously at the cortical and cochlear level during a stimulus-free cue-target interval.ResultsWe found that cochlear activity in the silent cue-target intervals was modulated by a theta-rhythmic pattern (~ 6 Hz). While this pattern was present independently of attentional focus, cochlear theta activity was clearly enhanced when attending to the upcoming auditory input. On a cortical level, classical posterior alpha and beta power enhancements were found during auditory selective attention. Interestingly, participants with a stronger release of inhibition in auditory brain regions show a stronger attentional modulation of cochlear theta activity.ConclusionsThese results hint at a putative theta-rhythmic sampling of auditory input at the cochlear level. Furthermore, our results point to an interindividual variable engagement of efferent pathways in an attentional context that are linked to processes within and beyond processes in auditory cortical regions.

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The effect of attentional focus on movement accuracy in an immersive and interactive virtual reality environment

Neuroscience Letters ◽

10.1016/j.neulet.2021.135814 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 135814

Author(s):

Masahiro Yamada ◽

Kuznetsov A. Nikita ◽

Jed A. Diekfuss ◽

Louisa D. Raisbeck

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Attentional Focus ◽

Virtual Reality Environment ◽

Movement Accuracy

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