scholarly journals Multiple Neuronal Networks Mediate Sustained Attention

2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (7) ◽  
pp. 1028-1038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia S. Lawrence ◽  
Thomas J. Ross ◽  
Ray Hoffmann ◽  
Hugh Garavan ◽  
Elliot A. Stein
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Vigilance Task ◽  
Neural Substrates ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Parahippocampal Gyrus ◽  
The Neural Networks ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Sustained attention deficits occur in several neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms are still incompletely understood. To that end, functional MRI was used to investigate the neural substrates of sustained attention (vigilance) using the rapid visual information processing (RVIP) task in 25 healthy volunteers. In order to better understand the neural networks underlying attentional abilities, brain regions where task-induced activation correlated with task performance were identified. Performance of the RVIP task activated a network of frontal, parietal, occipital, thalamic, and cerebellar regions. Deactivation during task performance was seen in the anterior and posterior cingulate, insula, and the left temporal and parahippocampal gyrus. Good task performance, as defined by better detection of target stimuli, was correlated with enhanced activation in predominantly right fronto-parietal regions and with decreased activation in predominantly left temporo-limbic and cingulate areas. Factor analysis revealed that these performance-correlated regions were grouped into two separate networks comprised of positively activated and negatively activated intercorrelated regions. Poor performers failed to significantly activate or deactivate these networks, whereas good performers either activated the positive or deactivated the negative network, or did both. The fact that both increased activation of task-specific areas and increased deactivation of task-irrelevant areas mediate cognitive functions underlying good RVIP task performance suggests two independent circuits, presumably reflecting different cognitive strategies, can be recruited to perform this vigilance task.

scholarly journals Hearing What the Eyes See

2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 228-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon E. Guttman ◽  
Lee A. Gilroy ◽  
Randolph Blake
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Perceptual System ◽  
Spatial Processing ◽  
Auditory Information ◽  
Minimal Impact ◽  
Conflicting Information ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
And Task

When the senses deliver conflicting information, vision dominates spatial processing, and audition dominates temporal processing. We asked whether this sensory specialization results in cross-modal encoding of unisensory input into the task-appropriate modality. Specifically, we investigated whether visually portrayed temporal structure receives automatic, obligatory encoding in the auditory domain. In three experiments, observers judged whether the changes in two successive visual sequences followed the same or different rhythms. We assessed temporal representations by measuring the extent to which both task-irrelevant auditory information and task-irrelevant visual information interfered with rhythm discrimination. Incongruent auditory information significantly disrupted task performance, particularly when presented during encoding; by contrast, varying the nature of the rhythm-depicting visual changes had minimal impact on performance. Evidently, the perceptual system automatically and obligatorily abstracts temporal structure from its visual form and represents this structure using an auditory code, resulting in the experience of “hearing visual rhythms.”

scholarly journals Redefining Visual Working Memory: A Cognitive-Strategy, Brain-Region Approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Pearson ◽  
Rebecca Keogh
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Visual Imagery ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Cognitive Strategy ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
Region Approach

The ability to remember and manipulate visual information is pervasive and is associated with many cognitive abilities. Yet despite the importance of visual working memory (VWM), there is little consensus among researchers in the field as to which neural areas are necessary and sufficient and which models best describe its capacity. Here, we propose that an assumption that all people remember visual information in the same way has led to much contention and inconsistencies in the field. By accepting that there are multiple cognitive strategies and methods to perform a VWM task, we introduce an individual “precision” approach to the study of memory. We propose that VWM should be redefined, not by the type of stimuli used (e.g., visual) but rather by the specific mental processes (e.g., visual imagery, semantic, propositional, spatial) and the corresponding brain regions used to complete the mnemonic task. We further provide a short how-to guide for measuring different mnemonic strategies used for working memory.

scholarly journals Intermodal Attention Shifts in Multimodal Working Memory

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 628-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Katus ◽  
Anna Grubert ◽  
Martin Eimer
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Visual Modality ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Absolute Size ◽  
Subsequent Test ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Attention maintains task-relevant information in working memory (WM) in an active state. We investigated whether the attention-based maintenance of stimulus representations that were encoded through different modalities is flexibly controlled by top–down mechanisms that depend on behavioral goals. Distinct components of the ERP reflect the maintenance of tactile and visual information in WM. We concurrently measured tactile (tCDA) and visual contralateral delay activity (CDA) to track the attentional activation of tactile and visual information during multimodal WM. Participants simultaneously received tactile and visual sample stimuli on the left and right sides and memorized all stimuli on one task-relevant side. After 500 msec, an auditory retrocue indicated whether the sample set's tactile or visual content had to be compared with a subsequent test stimulus set. tCDA and CDA components that emerged simultaneously during the encoding phase were consistently reduced after retrocues that marked the corresponding (tactile or visual) modality as task-irrelevant. The absolute size of cue-dependent modulations was similar for the tCDA/CDA components and did not depend on the number of tactile/visual stimuli that were initially encoded into WM. Our results suggest that modality-specific maintenance processes in sensory brain regions are flexibly modulated by top–down influences that optimize multimodal WM representations for behavioral goals.

Temporal predictability does not impact attentional blink performance: Effects of fixed vs. random inter-trial intervals

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Apthorp ◽  
Lucienne Shenfield ◽  
Vanessa Beanland
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Attentional Blink ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Vigilance Task ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Impact Performance ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Performance Effects ◽  
Inter Trial Interval ◽  
Temporal Predictability

Background: Does the inclusion of a randomised inter-trial interval (ITI) impact performance on an Attentional Blink (AB) task? The AB phenomenon is often used as a test of transient attention (Dux & Marois, 2009); however, it is unclear whether incorporating aspects of sustained attention, by implementing a randomised ITI, would impact task performance. The current research sought to investigate this, by contrasting a standard version of the AB task with a random ITI version to determine whether a performance change, reflecting a change in difficulty, engagement, or motivation. Method: 30 university students (21 female; age range 18-57, Mage = 21.5, SD = 7.4) completed both versions of the task, in counterbalanced order. Results: No significant difference in performance was found between the standard AB task and the AB task with the random ITI. Conclusion: Temporal unpredictability did not appear to impact task performance. This suggests that the standard AB task has cognitive properties with regards to task difficulty, engagement, and motivation, that are inherently similar to tasks which employ a randomized ITI to measure sustained attention (i.e. the Psychomotor Vigilance Task; PVT; Dinges & Powell, 1985). This finding provides important support for future research which may seek to obtain a more detailed understanding of attention through the comparison of performance on transient and sustained attention tasks.

scholarly journals Temporal predictability does not impact attentional blink performance: effects of fixed vs. random inter-trial intervals

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e8677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucienne Shenfield ◽  
Vanessa Beanland ◽  
Deborah Apthorp
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Attentional Blink ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Vigilance Task ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Impact Performance ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Performance Effects ◽  
Inter Trial Interval ◽  
Temporal Predictability

Background Does the inclusion of a randomized inter-trial interval (ITI) impact performance on an Attentional Blink (AB) task? The AB phenomenon is often used as a test of transient attention (Dux & Marois, 2009); however, it is unclear whether incorporating aspects of sustained attention, by implementing a randomized ITI, would impact task performance. The current research sought to investigate this, by contrasting a standard version of the AB task with a random ITI version to determine whether performance changed, reflecting a change in difficulty, engagement, or motivation. Method Thirty university students (21 female; age range 18–57, Mage= 21.5, SD = 7.4) completed both versions of the task, in counterbalanced order. Results No significant difference in performance was found between the standard AB task and the AB task with the random ITI. Bayesian analyses suggested moderate evidence for the null. Conclusion Temporal unpredictability did not appear to impact task performance. This suggests that the standard AB task has cognitive properties with regards to task difficulty, engagement, and motivation, that are inherently similar to tasks that employ a randomized ITI to measure sustained attention (e.g., the Psychomotor Vigilance Task; PVT; Dinges & Powell, 1985). This finding provides important support for future research which may seek to obtain a more detailed understanding of attention through the comparison of performance on transient and sustained attention tasks.

Situational Factors Competing for Attention

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weiyu Zhang ◽  
Se-Hoon Jeong ◽  
Martin Fishbein†
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Sexual Content ◽  
Sexually Explicit ◽  
Explicit Content ◽  
Audio Information

This study investigates how multitasking interacts with levels of sexually explicit content to influence an individual’s ability to recognize TV content. A 2 (multitasking vs. nonmultitasking) by 3 (low, medium, and high sexual content) between-subjects experiment was conducted. The analyses revealed that multitasking not only impaired task performance, but also decreased TV recognition. An inverted-U relationship between degree of sexually explicit content and recognition of TV content was found, but only when subjects were multitasking. In addition, multitasking interfered with subjects’ ability to recognize audio information more than their ability to recognize visual information.

Neuroergonomic Dynamics Associated With Spatial Uncertainty During Vigilance Task Performance

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew E. Funke ◽  
Joel S. Warm ◽  
Gerald Matthews ◽  
Gregory J. Funke ◽  
Peter Chiu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Vigilance Task ◽  
Spatial Uncertainty

Neuroplasticity

2019 ◽  
pp. 230-260
Author(s):  
Judy S. Reilly ◽  
Lara R. Polse
Keyword(s):  
Neural Plasticity ◽  
Late Onset ◽  
Neural Substrates ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Developing Brain ◽  
Perinatal Stroke ◽  
Alternative Pathways ◽  
Affective Expression ◽  
Unilateral Brain ◽  
Irreparable Damage

With respect to language, it has long been observed that children who experience early unilateral brain injury do not show the same irreparable damage as do adults with homologous late-onset strokes. Neural plasticity has been proposed as the explanation for such differential linguistic profiles; that is, the plasticity of the young, developing brain allows the possibility for extensive adaptation and organization following a neural insult. Recent research, however, suggests that there are limits to this ability to adapt and organize. Results from a another communicative system, affect, suggest that children with unilateral pre- or perinatal stroke show similar (albeit subtler) effects to adults with homologous late-onset injuries. This chapter presents findings on language development in children who sustained a pre- or perinatal unilateral stroke, and complements these studies with a discussion of affective expression in these same children. These prospective studies of children with perinatal stroke provide a unique window into the development of the neural substrates for language and affect. Specifically, they afford a context to investigate the degree to which particular brain regions may be privileged for specific behavioral functions, as well as how the developing brain adapts to organize alternative pathways in the wake of an early insult.

scholarly journals Fear-induced brain activations distinguish anxious and trauma-exposed brains

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenfu Wen ◽  
Marie-France Marin ◽  
Jennifer Urbano Blackford ◽  
Zhe Sage Chen ◽  
Mohammed R. Milad
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Fear Conditioning ◽  
Psychiatric Diagnosis ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Conditioned Fear ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Neuroimaging Data ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Translational Models

AbstractTranslational models of fear conditioning and extinction have elucidated a core neural network involved in the learning, consolidation, and expression of conditioned fear and its extinction. Anxious or trauma-exposed brains are characterized by dysregulated neural activations within regions of this fear network. In this study, we examined how the functional MRI activations of 10 brain regions commonly activated during fear conditioning and extinction might distinguish anxious or trauma-exposed brains from controls. To achieve this, activations during four phases of a fear conditioning and extinction paradigm in 304 participants with or without a psychiatric diagnosis were studied. By training convolutional neural networks (CNNs) using task-specific brain activations, we reliably distinguished the anxious and trauma-exposed brains from controls. The performance of models decreased significantly when we trained our CNN using activations from task-irrelevant brain regions or from a brain network that is irrelevant to fear. Our results suggest that neuroimaging data analytics of task-induced brain activations within the fear network might provide novel prospects for development of brain-based psychiatric diagnosis.

scholarly journals Conscious perception and perceptual echoes: a binocular rivalry study

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Canhuang Luo ◽  
Rufin VanRullen ◽  
Andrea Alamia
Keyword(s):  
Binocular Rivalry ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Travelling Wave ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Impulse Response Functions ◽  
Band Frequency ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms

Abstract Alpha rhythms (∼10Hz) in the human brain are classically associated with idling activities, being predominantly observed during quiet restfulness with closed eyes. However, recent studies demonstrated that alpha (∼10Hz) rhythms can directly relate to visual stimulation, resulting in oscillations, which can last for as long as one second. This alpha reverberation, dubbed perceptual echoes (PE), suggests that the visual system actively samples and processes visual information within the alpha-band frequency. Although PE have been linked to various visual functions, their underlying mechanisms and functional role are not completely understood. In this study, we investigated the relationship between conscious perception and the generation and the amplitude of PE. Specifically, we displayed two coloured Gabor patches with different orientations on opposite sides of the screen, and using a set of dichoptic mirrors, we induced a binocular rivalry between the two stimuli. We asked participants to continuously report which one of two Gabor patches they consciously perceived, while recording their EEG signals. Importantly, the luminance of each patch fluctuated randomly over time, generating random sequences from which we estimated two impulse-response functions (IRFs) reflecting the PE generated by the perceived (dominant) and non-perceived (suppressed) stimulus, respectively. We found that the alpha power of the PE generated by the consciously perceived stimulus was comparable with that of the PE generated during monocular vision (control condition) and higher than the PE induced by the suppressed stimulus. Moreover, confirming previous findings, we found that all PEs propagated as a travelling wave from posterior to frontal brain regions, irrespective of conscious perception. All in all our results demonstrate a correlation between conscious perception and PE, suggesting that the synchronization of neural activity plays an important role in visual sampling and conscious perception.

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