Fearful temperament in middle childhood predicts adolescent attention bias and anxiety symptoms: The moderating role of frontal EEG asymmetry

The current study provided first analyses of the moderating effect of baseline-to-task frontal EEG asymmetry on the associations between 9-year fearful temperament and adolescent attention bias to threat as well as anxiety symptoms. Participants include a community sample of 122 children (60 boys, 62 girls; Mage = 14.66 years; Range = 11.82–18.13 years). Baseline-to-task frontal EEG asymmetry at age 9 moderated the relation between fearful temperament at age 9 and adolescent anxiety symptoms. Specifically, fearful temperament predicted adolescent anxiety symptoms when children showed greater right activation from baseline to an executive function task, but not greater left activation. Baseline-to-task frontal EEG asymmetry moderated the association between fearful temperament and sustained (i.e., stimulus onset asynchrony is 1250 ms) but not automatic attention bias (i.e., stimulus onset asynchrony is 500 ms). Children with greater left frontal activation from baseline to task more efficiently direct attention away from threat. Adolescent automatic attention bias to threat was related to concurrent anxiety symptoms. These findings illustrate the importance of considering frontal EEG asymmetry to shape how fearful children process threat and to influence their behavioral problems.

Exploring reward-related attention selectivity deficits in Parkinson’s disease

An important aspect of managing a limited cognitive resource like attention is to use the reward value of stimuli to prioritize the allocation of attention to higher-value over lower-value stimuli. Recent evidence suggests this depends on dopaminergic signaling of reward. In Parkinson’s disease, both reward sensitivity and attention are impaired, but whether these deficits are directly related to one another is unknown. We tested whether Parkinson’s patients use reward information when automatically allocating their attention and whether this is modulated by dopamine replacement. We compared patients, tested both ON and OFF dopamine replacement medication, to older controls using a standard attention capture task. First, participants learned the different reward values of stimuli. Then, these reward-associated stimuli were used as distractors in a visual search task. We found that patients were generally distracted by the presence of the distractors but that the degree of distraction caused by the high-value and low-value distractors was similar. Furthermore, we found no evidence to support the possibility that dopamine replacement modulates the effect of reward on automatic attention allocation. Our results suggest a possible inability in Parkinson’s patients to use the reward value of stimuli when automatically allocating their attention, and raise the possibility that reward-driven allocation of resources may affect the adaptive modulation of other cognitive processes.

Improvement of Student Attention Monitoring Supported by Precision Sensing in Learning Management Systems

A Learning Management Systems (LMS) can benefit from the inclusion Computer-Mediated-Communications (CMC) software for delivering materials. Incorporating CMC tools in virtual classrooms or implementing educational blogs, can be very effective in e-learning platforms. In such student-centered interaction scenarios, it is important to monitor and manage student attention in a precise way to enhance student performance. Sensing with precision through 6G/7G technology allows to include electronic and software devices to produce such monitoring. This chapter contextualizes and describes an abstraction application scenario of sensing and monitoring student attention with high precision in Learning Management System with new communication systems. In that context, technology (e.g. sensors), is used to perform automatic attention monitoring, helping to manage students in e-Learning. Additionally, the document presents a possible scenario which supports intelligent services to the monitoring of student attention during e-learning activities in the context of Smart HEI (Higher Education Institutes).

Irrelevant task suppresses the N170 of automatic attention allocation to fearful faces

Recent researches have provided evidence that stimulus-driven attentional bias for threats can be modulated by top-down goals. However, it is highlight essential to indicate whether and to what extent the top-down goals can affect the early stage of attention processing and its early neural mechanism. In this study, we collected electroencephalographic data from 28 healthy volunteers with a modified spatial cueing task. The results revealed that in the irrelevant task, there was no significant difference between the reaction time (RT) of the fearful and neutral faces. In the relevant task, we found that RT of fearful faces was faster than that of neutral faces in the valid cue condition, whereas the RT of fearful faces was slower than that of neutral faces in the invalid cue condition. The N170 component in our study showed a similar result compared with RT. Specifically, we noted that in the relevant task, fearful faces in the cue position of the target evoked a larger N170 amplitude than neutral faces, whereas this effect was suppressed in the irrelevant task. These results suggest that the irrelevant task may inhibit the early attention allocation to the fearful faces. Furthermore, the top-down goals can modulate the early attentional bias for threatening facial expressions.

Impaired Emotional Self-Referential Processing in First-Episode Schizophrenia

Impairments in self-representation are relevant to the expression of psychosis. To date, the characteristics and neural mechanisms of self-impairment in schizophrenia remain unclear. To this end, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to measure brain activity in 56 first-episode patients with schizophrenia and 56 healthy controls. Participants judged personal trait adjectives regarding themselves, their mothers, or a public person, followed by an unexpected old/new recognition test. The recognition score for mother-reference adjectives was lower than that for self-reference adjectives in patients, while the control group showed comparatively high recognition scores for both self- and mother-referential adjectives. In addition, control subjects recognized more negative words, while patients remembered more positive words. ERP data revealed that controls exhibited typical task effects (self-reference = mother-reference > other-reference) during both automatic attention and effortful encoding periods [indexed by P2 and the late positive potential (LPP), respectively]. In contrast, patients only exhibited the task effect in the P2 amplitude. Moreover, controls exhibited larger P2 amplitudes during encoding negative than positive words, whereas patients had enhanced LPP amplitudes during memory retrieval of positive compared to negative words. These findings demonstrated self-representation dysfunction in first-episode schizophrenic patients in mother (the intimate other) referential processing and the absence of a negative memory bias.

The Effects of Brief Mindfulness Training on Attentional Processes: Mindfulness Increases Prepulse Facilitation but Not Prepulse Inhibition

Mindfulness is intentional focus of one’s attention on emotions, thoughts, or sensations occurring in the present moment with a nonjudgmental attitude. Recently there has been increased interest in the effects of mindfulness practice on psychological processes such as concentration, focus, and attention. In the present study, a prepulse inhibition/facilitation (PPI/PPF) paradigm was employed to investigate the effect of brief mindfulness practice on automatic attention regulation processes. PPI occurs when a relatively weak prepulse (e.g., a tone) is presented 30–500 ms before a startle-inducing stimulus, and reduces the magnitude of the startle response. Prepulse facilitation (PPF) is the increase in startle magnitude when the prepulse is presented 500 ms or more before the startle-eliciting stimulus. In the present study, the effect of engaging in a 23-min mindfulness exercise on PPI and PPF was investigated. Participants listened to either a mindfulness instruction (mindfulness group) or relaxing music (control group). In a PPI/PPF pretest and posttest, a startle-eliciting noise was presented at lead intervals of 60, 120, and 2,000 ms. Results showed that engaging in brief mindfulness practice increased prepulse facilitation at the 2,000 ms lead interval in the posttest compared to the pretest. The amount of PPI did not differ between tests.

The auditory Mismatch Negativity reflects accelerated aging in adults with Down’s Syndrome

Down’s Syndrome (DS) is associated with premature and accelerated ageing and a propensity for early-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The early symptoms of dementia in people with DS may reflect frontal lobe vulnerability to amyloid deposition. The Mismatch Negativity (MMN) is a frontocentral component elicited by auditory violations of expected sensory input and it reflects sensory memory and automatic attention switching. In the typically developing (TD) population, the MMN response has been found to decrease with age. In the cross-sectional phase of this study the MMN was used to investigate the premature neurological ageing hypothesis of DS. In the longitudinal phase, we evaluated the MMN as a potential predictor of cognitive decline. The study found that age predicted MMN amplitude in DS but not in those who are TD, showing that the MMN reflects accelerated ageing in DS. However, a follow-up of 34 adults with DS found that neither amplitude nor latency of the MMN predicted cognitive decline one year later.