Neural Correlates of Enhanced Visual Attentional Control in Action Video Game Players: An Event-Related Potential Study.

Action video game players (AVGPs) outperform non-action video game players (NAVGPs) on a range of perceptual and attentional tasks. Although several studies have reported neuroplastic changes within the frontoparietal networks of attention in AVGPs, little is known about possible changes in attentional modulation in low-level visual areas. To assess the contribution of these different levels of neural processing to the perceptual and attentional enhancements noted in AVGPs, visual event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 14 AVGPs and 14 NAVGPs during a target discrimination task that required participants to attend to rapid sequences of Gabor patches under either focused or divided attention conditions. AVGPs responded faster to target Gabors in the focused attention condition compared with the NAVGPs. Correspondingly, ERPs to standard Gabors revealed a more pronounced negativity in the time range of the parietally generated anterior N1 component in AVGPs compared with NAVGPs during focused attention. In addition, the P2 component of the visual ERP was more pronounced in AVGPs than in NAVGPs over the hemisphere contralateral to the stimulus position in response to standard Gabors. Contrary to predictions, however, attention-modulated occipital components generated in the low-level extrastriate visual pathways, including the P1 and posterior N1, showed no significant group differences. Thus, the main neural signature of enhanced perceptual and attentional control functions in AVGPs appears linked to an attention-dependent parietal process, indexed by the anterior N1 component, and possibly to more efficient higher-order perceptual processing, indexed by the P2 component.

ERP evidence that surface-based attention biases interocular competition during rivalry.

J. F. Mitchell, G. R. Stoner, and J. H. Reynolds (2004) observed that exogenously cuing one of two superimposed transparent surfaces resulted in an enhanced perceptual bias for the cued surface during binocular rivalry. We investigated the neural bases of this effect by recording event-related potentials (ERPs). Subjects viewed two superimposed rotating transparent surfaces and compared the directions of two successive translations, either both of the same surface or one of each surface. Following the first translation, which cued attention to the translating surface, two surface images were removed-one from each eye (dichoptic viewing) or both from one eye (monocular viewing). Subjects were impaired at comparing the first and second translations when they occurred on different surfaces, and the impairment was greater during dichoptic viewing (rivalry). The P1 component (110-160 ms) of the ERP elicited by the second translation of the same surface was larger than for the different surface during dichoptic but not monocular viewing. Larger cueing effects were also observed for the subsequent posterior N1 (160-220 ms) and P2 (250-300 ms) components during rivalry than during monocular viewing. These results are in line with a hybrid model of rivalry whereby cuing one surface initiates an earlier interocular selection process when the competing surfaces are presented to separate eyes.

Evaluation of PCA and ICA of simulated ERPs: Promax vs. Infomax rotations.

Independent components analysis (ICA) and principal components analysis (PCA) are methods used to analyze event-related potential (ERP) and functional imaging (fMRI) data. In the present study, ICA and PCA were directly compared by applying them to simulated ERP datasets. Specifically, PCA was used to generate a subspace of the dataset followed by the application of PCA Promax or ICA Infomax rotations. The simulated datasets were composed of real background EEG activity plus two ERP simulated components. The results suggest that Promax is most effective for temporal analysis, whereas Infomax is most effective for spatial analysis. Failed analyses were examined and used to devise potential diagnostic strategies for both rotations. Finally, the results also showed that decomposition of subject averages yield better results than of grand averages across subjects.

Attention and sensory gain control: a peripheral visual process?

Attention-related sensory gain control in human extrastriate cortex is believed to improve the acuity of visual perception. Yet given wide variance in the spatial resolution of vision across the retina, it remains unclear whether sensory gain operates homogenously between foveal and nonfoveal retinotopic locations. To address this issue, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) in a variant of the canonical spatial attention task. Participants were cued to expect targets at either fixation (foveal targets) or at a location several degrees above fixation (parafoveal targets). At both target locations, manual reaction times were shorter for cued relative to uncued targets, indicating that attention was consistently oriented to the cued location. Nevertheless, attention-related increases in sensory-evoked cortical activity were only observed at the parafoveal target location, as measured by the amplitude of the lateral occipital P1 ERP component. A second experiment replicated this data pattern using targets with lower stimulus contrast, indicating that the absence of a P1 effect for foveal targets could not be attributed to a saturated P1 response under higher-contrast stimulus conditions. When considered in light of retinogeniculate projections to cortex showing systematic changes in their physiological organization beginning within a degree of visual angle of the fovea, our findings support the proposal that the strategic functions of visual attention may vary with the retinotopic location involved.