Temporal deployment of attention in musicians: Evidence from an attentional blink paradigm.

The generalization of music training to unrelated nonmusical domains is well established and may reflect musicians' superior ability to regulate attention. We investigated the temporal deployment of attention in musicians and nonmusicians using scalp-recording of event-related potentials in an attentional blink (AB) paradigm. Participants listened to rapid sequences of stimuli and identified target and probe sounds. The AB was defined as a probe identification deficit when the probe closely follows the target. The sequence of stimuli was preceded by a neutral or informative cue about the probe position within the sequence. Musicians outperformed nonmusicians in identifying the target and probe. In both groups, cueing improved target and probe identification and reduced the AB. The informative cue elicited a sustained potential, which was more prominent in musicians than nonmusicians over left temporal areas and yielded a larger N1 amplitude elicited by the target. The N1 was larger in musicians than nonmusicians, and its amplitude over the left frontocentral cortex of musicians correlated with accuracy. Together, these results reveal musicians' superior ability to regulate attention, allowing them to prepare for incoming stimuli, thereby improving sound object identification. This capacity to manage attentional resources to optimize task performance may generalize to nonmusical activities.

It hurts more than it helps: Cuing T1 with imagery can impair T2 identification in an attentional blink task.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether cuing a first target with color imagery could influence second target identification using the two-target attentional blink procedure of MacLellan, Shore, and Milliken (2015, Psychological Research, 79, 556-569.). This method asks participants to identify a first target word interleaved with a distractor word and a second target word that follows the first target after a variable stimulus onset asynchrony. Prior to each trial of the two-target procedure, participants were cued to generate color imagery that was congruent with the color of the first target word, the color of the distractor word, the color of neither the first target or distractor words (Experiment 2), or to withhold generating color imagery (Experiment 3). The results revealed that identification of the second target was impaired when the cue was congruent with the distractor word, and equivalent when the cue was congruent with the first target word, relative to when color imagery was withheld. These results suggest that the attentional resources needed to identify the first target were not reduced by a match between the color of imagery and the first target, but a match between the color of imagery and the distractor increased the attentional resources needed to identify the first target.

The interplay between audiovisual temporal synchrony and semantic congruency in the cross-modal boost of the visual target discrimination during the attentional blink.

The visual attentional blink can be substantially reduced by delivering a task-irrelevant sound synchronously with the second visual target (T2), and this effect is further modulated by the semantic congruency between the sound and T2. However, whether the cross-modal benefit originates from audiovisual interactions or sound-induced alertness remains controversial, and whether the semantic congruency effect is contingent on audiovisual temporal synchrony needs further investigation. The current study investigated these questions by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) in a visual attentional blink task wherein a sound could either synchronize with T2, precede T2 by 200 ms, be delayed by 100 ms, or be absent, and could be either semantically congruent or incongruent with T2 when delivered. The behavioral data showed that both the cross-modal boost of T2 discrimination and the further semantic modulation were the largest when the sound synchronized with T2. In parallel, the ERP data yielded that both the early occipital cross-modal P195 component (192-228 ms after T2 onset) and late parietal cross-modal N440 component (424-448 ms) were prominent only when the sound synchronized with T2, with the former being elicited solely when the sound was further semantically congruent whereas the latter occurring only when that sound was incongruent. These findings demonstrate not only that the cross-modal boost of T2 discrimination during the attentional blink stems from early audiovisual interactions and the semantic congruency effect depends on audiovisual temporal synchrony, but also that the semantic modulation can unfold at the early stage of visual discrimination processing.

Deployment dynamics of hypnotic anger modulation.

To understand the role that attention plays in the deployment timeline of hypnotic anger modulation, we composed an Attentional Blink paradigm where the first and second targets were faces, expressing neutral or angry emotions. We then suppressed the salience of angry faces through a "hypnotic numbing" suggestion. We found that hypnotic suggestion only attenuated the emotional salience of the second target (T2). By implementing drift-diffusion decision modelling, we also found that hypnotic suggestion mainly affected decision thresholds. These findings suggest that hypnotic numbing resulted from belated changes in response strategy. Interestingly, a contrast against non-hypnotized participants revealed that the numbing suggestion had the instruction-like feature of incorporating emotional valence into the attentional task-set. Together, our results portray hypnotic anger modulation as a two-tiered process: first, hypnotic suggestion alters the attentional task-set; second, provided processing and response preparation are not interrupted, a hypnotizability-dependent response based on said altered task-set is produced through late cognitive control strategies.

Neural Basis of Semantically Dependent and Independent Cross-Modal Boosts on the Attentional Blink.

The present study recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in a visual object-recognition task under the attentional blink paradigm to explore the temporal dynamics of the cross-modal boost on attentional blink and whether this auditory benefit would be modulated by semantic congruency between T2 and the simultaneous sound. Behaviorally, the present study showed that not only a semantically congruent but also a semantically incongruent sound improved T2 discrimination during the attentional blink interval, whereas the enhancement was larger for the congruent sound. The ERP results revealed that the behavioral improvements induced by both the semantically congruent and incongruent sounds were closely associated with an early cross-modal interaction on the occipital N195 (192-228 ms). In contrast, the lower T2 accuracy for the incongruent than congruent condition was accompanied by a larger late occurring cento-parietal N440 (424-448 ms). These findings suggest that the cross-modal boost on attentional blink is hierarchical: the task-irrelevant but simultaneous sound, irrespective of its semantic relevance, firstly enables T2 to escape the attentional blink via cross-modally strengthening the early stage of visual object-recognition processing, whereas the semantic conflict of the sound begins to interfere with visual awareness only at a later stage when the representation of visual object is extracted.

The exogenous and endogenous control of attentional focusing.

Selective visual attention involves prioritizing both the location (orienting) and distribution (focusing) of processing. To date, much more research has examined attentional orienting than focusing. One of the most well-established findings is that orienting can be exogenous, as when a unique change in luminance draws attention to a spatial location (e.g., Theeuwes in Atten Percept Psychophys 51:599-606, 1992; Yantis and Jonides in J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 10:601, 1984), and endogenous, as when a red distractor shape diverts attention when one is looking for a red target (e.g., Bacon and Egeth in Percept Psychophys 55:485-496, 1994; Folk et al. in J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 18:1030, 1992). Here we ask whether attentional focusing-the broadening and contracting of prioritized processing-is influenced by the same two factors. Our methodology involved a dual-stream attentional blink task; participants monitored two spatially separated streams of items for two targets that could appear unpredictably either in the same stream or in opposite streams. The spatial distribution of attention was assessed by examining second-target accuracy in relation to inter-target lag and target location (same or opposite streams). In Experiment 1, we found that attentional contracting was more rapid when the targets differed in luminance from the distractor items. In Experiments 2 and 3, we found that the rate of attentional contracting was slower when there were task-relevant distractors in the stream opposite the first target. These results indicate that the rate of attentional focusing, like orienting, can be modulated by both exogenous and endogenous mechanisms.

Dispositional mindfulness attenuates the emotional attentional blink.

Emotional stimuli have been shown to automatically hijack attention, hindering the detection of forthcoming targets. Mindfulness is defined as a present moment non-judgemental attentional stance that can be cultivated by meditation practices, but that may present interindividual variability in the general population. The mechanisms underlying modification in emotional reactivity linked to mindfulness are still a matter of debate. In particular, it is not clear whether mindfulness is associated with a diminished emotional response, or with faster recovery. We presented participants with target pictures embedded in a rapid visual presentation stream. The targets could be preceded by negative, neutral or scrambled critical distractors. We showed that dispositional mindfulness, in particular the Non-reacting facet, was related to faster disengagement of attention from emotional stimuli. These results could have implications for mood disorders characterised by an exaggerated attentional bias toward emotional stimuli, such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders.

Cortical sources of the auditory attentional blink.

Attentional blink (AB) refers to the situation where correctly identifying a target impairs the processing of a subsequent probe in a sequence of stimuli. Although the AB often coincides with a modulation of scalp-recorded cognitive event-related potentials (ERPs), the neural sources of this effect remain unclear. In two separate experiments, we used classical LORETA analysis recursively applied (CLARA) to estimate the neural sources of ERPs elicited by an auditory probe when it immediately followed an auditory target (i.e., AB condition), when no auditory target was present (i.e., no-AB condition), and when the probe followed an auditory target but occurred outside of the AB time window (i.e., no-AB condition). We observed a processing deficit when the probe immediately followed the target, and this auditory AB was accompanied by reduced P3b amplitude. Contrasting brain electrical source activity from the AB and no-AB conditions revealed reduced source activity in the medial temporal region as well as in the temporoparietal junction (extending into inferior parietal lobe), ventromedial prefrontal cortex, left anterior thalamic nuclei, mammillary body, and left cerebellum. The results indicate that successful probe identification following a target relies on a widely distributed brain network and further support the suggestion that the auditory AB reflects the failure of the probe to reach short-term consolidation. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Within a rapid succession of auditory stimuli, the perception of a predefined target sound often impedes listeners' ability to detect another target sound that is presented close in succession. This attentional blink may be related to activity in brain areas supporting attention and memory. We show that the auditory attentional blink is associated with brain activity changes in a network including the medial temporal lobe, parietal cortex, and prefrontal cortex. This study suggests that a problem in the interaction between attention and memory underlies the auditory attentional blink.

Supplementation of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) affects temporal, but not spatial visual attention.

In a randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled experiment, the acute effects of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) supplementation on temporal and spatial attention in young healthy adults were investigated. A hybrid two-target rapid serial visual presentation task was used to measure temporal attention and integration. Additionally, a visual search task was used to measure the speed and accuracy of spatial attention. While temporal attention depends primarily on the distribution of limited attentional resources across time, spatial attention represents the engagement and disengagement by relevant and irrelevant stimuli across the visual field. Although spatial attention was unaffected by GABA supplementation altogether, we found evidence supporting improved performance in the temporal attention task. The attentional blink was numerically, albeit not significantly, attenuated at Lag 3, and significantly fewer order errors were committed at Lag 1, compared to the placebo condition. No effect was found on temporal integration rates. Although there is controversy about whether oral GABA can cross the blood-brain barrier, our results offer preliminary evidence that GABA intake might help to distribute limited attentional resources more efficiently, and can specifically improve the identification and ordering of visual events that occur in close temporal succession.

Attentional capture and engagement during the attentional blink: A "camera" metaphor of attention.

Identification of a target is impaired when it follows a previous target within 500 ms, suggesting that our attentional system suffers from severe temporal limitations. Although control-disruption theories posit that such impairment, known as the attentional blink (AB), reflects a difficulty in matching incoming information with the current attentional set, disrupted-engagement theories propose that it reflects a delay in later processes leading to transient enhancement of potential targets. Here, we used a variant of the contingent-capture rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm (Folk, Ester, & Troemel, 2009) to adjudicate these competing accounts. Our results show that a salient distractor that shares the target color captures attention to the same extent whether it appears within or outside the blink, thereby invalidating the notion that control over the attentional set is compromised during the blink. In addition, our results show that during the blink, not the attention-capturing object itself but the item immediately following it, is selected, indicating that the AB manifests as a delay between attentional capture and attentional engagement. We therefore conclude that attentional capture and attentional engagement can be dissociated as separate stages of attentional selection. (PsycINFO Database Record

Differential Contributions of GABA Concentration in Frontal and Parietal Regions to Individual Differences in Attentional Blink.

UNLABELLED: Selective attention plays an important role in identifying transient objects in a complex visual scene. Attentional control ability varies with observers. However, it is unclear what neural mechanisms are responsible for individual differences in attentional control ability. The present study used the following attentional blink paradigm: when two targets are to be identified in rapid serial visual presentation, the processing of the first target interrupts the identification of the second one appearing within 500 ms after the first-target onset. It has been assumed that the reduction of the second-target accuracy is mainly due to a transient inhibition of attentional reorienting from the first to the second target, which is modulated by the GABA system. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, we investigated whether individual variation of attentional blink magnitude is associated with GABA concentrations in the left prefrontal cortex (PFC), right posterior-parietal cortex (PPC), and visual cortex (VC) of humans. GABA concentrations in the PFC were related negatively to attentional blink magnitude and positively to the first-target accuracy. GABA concentrations in the PPC were positively correlated with attentional blink magnitude. However, GABA concentrations in the VC did not contribute to attentional blink magnitude and first-target accuracy. Our results suggest that frontoparietal inhibitory mechanisms are closely linked with individual differences in attentional processing and that functional roles of the GABAergic system in selective attention differ between the PFC and PPC. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Selective attention is the process of picking up task-relevant information in the environment. Attentional blink reflects time constraints of visual attention. It has been assumed that attentional blink is induced by the inhibition of attentional reorienting to other objects. This study used magnetic resonance spectroscopy to noninvasively measure concentrations of GABA, the principal inhibitory neurotransmitter, in the human brain. We show that a neural interaction between GABA concentrations in the prefrontal and posterior parietal regions accounts for the interindividual variability of attentional blink magnitude. Our results provide direct evidence that the GABAergic system in the frontoparietal networks is responsible for temporal aspects of attentional control ability.

Shaping prestimulus neural activity with auditory rhythmic stimulation improves the temporal allocation of attention.

Human attention fluctuates across time, and even when stimuli have identical physical characteristics and the task demands are the same, relevant information is sometimes consciously perceived and at other times not. A typical example of this phenomenon is the attentional blink, where participants show a robust deficit in reporting the second of two targets (T2) in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream. Previous electroencephalographical (EEG) studies showed that neural correlates of correct T2 report are not limited to the RSVP period, but extend before visual stimulation begins. In particular, reduced oscillatory neural activity in the alpha band (8-12 Hz) before the onset of the RSVP has been linked to lower T2 accuracy. We therefore examined whether auditory rhythmic stimuli presented at a rate of 10 Hz (within the alpha band) could increase oscillatory alpha-band activity and improve T2 performance in the attentional blink time window. Behaviourally, the auditory rhythmic stimulation worked to enhance T2 accuracy. This enhanced perception was associated with increases in the posterior T2-evoked N2 component of the event-related potentials and this effect was observed selectively at lag 3. Frontal and posterior oscillatory alpha-band activity was also enhanced during auditory stimulation in the pre-RSVP period and positively correlated with T2 accuracy. These findings suggest that ongoing fluctuations can be shaped by sensorial events to improve the allocation of attention in time.

Meditation-induced states predict attentional control over time.

Meditation is becoming an increasingly popular topic for scientific research and various effects of extensive meditation practice (ranging from weeks to several years) on cognitive processes have been demonstrated. Here we show that extensive practice may not be necessary to achieve those effects. Healthy adult non-meditators underwent a brief single session of either focused attention meditation (FAM), which is assumed to increase top-down control, or open monitoring meditation (OMM), which is assumed to weaken top-down control, before performing an Attentional Blink (AB) task - which assesses the efficiency of allocating attention over time. The size of the AB was considerably smaller after OMM than after FAM, which suggests that engaging in meditation immediately creates a cognitive-control state that has a specific impact on how people allocate their attention over time.

Control over experience? Magnitude of the attentional blink depends on meditative state.

The information processing capacity of the human mind is limited, as is evidenced by the so-called 'attentional-blink' deficit. This deficit is believed to result from competition between stimuli for limited attentional resources. We examined to what extent advanced meditators can manipulate their attentional state and control performance on an attentional blink task. We compared the magnitude of the attentional blink between states of focused attention meditation (in which one focuses tightly on an object) and states of open monitoring meditation (in which one is simply aware of whatever comes into experience) in a sample of experienced meditators. We found a smaller attentional blink during open monitoring compared to focused attention meditation due to reduced T1 capture. Of note, this effect was only found for very experienced meditators (on average 10,704 h of experience). These data may suggest that very advanced practitioners can exert some control over their conscious experience.

Attentional engagement is not sufficient to prevent spatial capture.

What conditions, if any, can fully prevent attentional capture (i.e., involuntary allocation of spatial attention to an irrelevant object) has been a matter of debate. In a previous study, Folk, Ester, and Troemel (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 16:127-132, 2009) suggested that attentional capture can be blocked entirely when attention is already engaged in a different object. This conclusion relied on the finding that in a search for a known-color target in a rapid serial visual presentation stream, a peripheral distractor with the target color did not further impair target identification performance when a distractor also with the target color that appeared in the stream had already captured attention. In the present study, we argue that this conclusion is unwarranted, because the effects of the central and peripheral distractors could not be disentangled. In order to isolate the effect of the peripheral distractor, we introduced a distractor-target letter compatibility manipulation. Our results showed that the peripheral distractor summoned attention, irrespective of whether attention had just been engaged. We conclude that neither spatially focused attention nor attentional engagement is sufficient to prevent attentional capture.

Deficits in selective attention in symptomatic Huntington disease: assessment using an attentional blink paradigm.

BACKGROUND: Impaired selective attention in Huntington disease (HD) may manifest as difficulty in identifying a single target embedded among a series of distractors in rapid serial visual presentation tasks. METHOD: We used an attentional blink (AB) paradigm to examine whether attentional control is impaired in symptomatic HD. Fourteen HD patients and 13 age-matched healthy controls performed a rapid serial visual presentation task in which 2 targets (T1 and T2) and numerous distractors were presented in rapid succession. We assessed the accuracy of T1 identification and the AB (impaired T2 detection after the correct identification of T1). RESULTS: Among the HD patients, identification of T1 was significantly impaired and AB was significantly larger but not longer. The HD patients also made significantly more random errors. CONCLUSIONS: Frontostriatal or frontoparietal dysfunction is likely to compromise attentional control in HD, such that well-masked and rapidly presented target stimuli are difficult to detect and identify, especially as the difficulty level increases. Although we previously reported no AB deficits in presymptomatic HD, with manifest disease we found that the progressive frontoparietal cortical changes compromise attentional control mechanisms.

Hearing while blinking: multisensory attentional blink revisited.

It is well established that cognitive system overload is reflected in the attentional blink (AB), the failure to report a second target when it closely follows detection of a first target within a rapid series of stimuli. However, there is intense controversy concerning the effect of first-target detection in one modality on subsequent dynamics of attentional resources in other modalities. Mixed results were found using an audiovisual AB paradigm: depletion of resources in one modality either impaired performance in the other modality or had no effect. Here, we circumvent the need for task switching by measuring an event-related potential, the mismatch negativity, which reflects implicit auditory change detection without requiring task engagement and is present even for background sounds that participants ignore. Surprisingly, we find that during the visual AB, auditory processing is enhanced rather than inhibited, as would be expected by system overload. We suggest that multimodal attentional resources may be freed rather than engaged during the visual AB. Suppression of irrelevant input may require active control by a central executive, which is preoccupied during the visual AB, and/or there may be no reason to suppress other-modal input since the visual system will miss its second target anyway.

Distraction and the auditory attentional blink.

When two target stimuli (T1 and T2) are presented in close succession within a stimulus sequence, detection or discrimination performance for T2 is often impaired; this phenomenon is called the attentional blink (AB). Growing evidence suggests that the AB is present not only for visual, but also for auditory stimuli. Because sounds have a strong potential to attract attention when they are presented after longer silent intervals or in a sequence from which they stand out because of their rare or novel physical features, it seems possible that the involuntary and excessive allocation of attention to T1 (distraction) may contribute to the AB. By varying the saliency of T1, we showed that distraction does contribute to the auditory AB effect, but the contribution is short-lived: Only stimuli immediately following T1 are affected.

Attentional blink in patients with multiple sclerosis.

The attentional blink (AB), characterized as a failure to detect a second target following correct identification of a previous target in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), has become a useful measure for investigation of the temporal dynamics of attention. In our previous work, we proposed a two-stage concurrent inhibition model that attributes AB not only to capacity limitations at the central, working memory but also to the lack of proper inhibitory processes, which depend in part on the integrity of white matter. To test the hypothesis that attentional blink can be influenced by the integrity of the white matter, we investigated AB in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), where the dominant neuropathology is demyelination-related cortical white matter impairments. We tested 22 MS patients and 22 age-matched controls with RSVP task. MS patients were further examined with standard tests of motor functioning (9 Hole Peg Test-9HPT and 8m walking test) and 2 tests of working memory (Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test-PASAT and Digit Ordering test-DOT). On average, MS patients did not show working memory impairments, but greater and longer AB. Our results thus support the hypothesis that one potential mechanism of attentional impairments in MS could be unreliable inhibitory processes. We propose that in MS inhibitory processes depend on white matter integrity, i.e., functional connectivity between the perceptual and working memory modules. Future research should focus on concurrent measurements of neuroanatomical and attentional features of MS patients to further support our findings.

Misdirected by the gap: the relationship between inattentional blindness and attentional misdirection.

In several of our articles we have drawn analogies between inattentional blindness paradigms and misdirection. Memmert (2010) however, has criticized this analogy and urged for caution in assuming too much of a close relationship between these two phenomena. Here we consider the points raised by Memmert and highlight some misunderstandings and omissions in his interpretation of our work, which substantially undermine his argument. Debating the similarities and differences between aspects of misdirection and inattentional blindness is valuable and has the potential to highlight the utility of these two phenomena. However, it is important not to be misdirected by subtle differences between particular instances of each phenomenon, at the expense of failing to detect the opportunities that these phenomena present for extending our understanding of attention and awareness.