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PubMed1997

'Oops!': performance correlates of everyday attentional failures in traumatic brain injured and normal subjects.

Insufficient attention to tasks can result in slips of action as automatic, unintended action sequences are triggered inappropriately. Such slips arise in part from deficits in sustained attention, which are particularly likely to happen following frontal lobe and white matter damage in traumatic brain injury (TBI). We present a reliable laboratory paradigm that elicits such slips of action and demonstrates high correlations between the severity of brain damage and relative-reported everyday attention failures in a group of 34 TBI patients. We also demonstrate significant correlations between self- and informant-reported everyday attentional failures and performance on this paradigm in a group of 75 normal controls. The paradigm (the Sustained Attention to Response Task-SART) involves the withholding of key presses to rare (one in nine) targets. Performance on the SART correlates significantly with performance on tests of sustained attention, but not other types of attention, supporting the view that this is indeed a measure of sustained attention. We also show that errors (false presses) on the SART can be predicted by a significant shortening of reaction times in the immediately preceding responses, supporting the view that these errors are a result of 'drift' of controlled processing into automatic responding consequent on impaired sustained attention to task. We also report a highly significant correlation of -0.58 between SART performance and Glasgow Coma Scale Scores in the TBI group.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2000

Orienting attention in time: behavioural and neuroanatomical distinction between exogenous and endogenous shifts.

Temporal orienting of attention is the ability to focus resources at a particular moment in time in order to optimise behaviour, and is associated with activation of left parietal and premotor cortex [Coull, J. T., Nobre, A. C. Where and when to pay attention: the neural systems for directing attention to spatial locations and to time intervals as revealed by both PET and fMRI. Journal of Neuroscience, 1998, 18, 7426-7435]. In the present experiment, we explored the behavioural and anatomical correlates of temporal orienting to foveal visual stimuli, in order to eliminate any spatial attention confounds. We implemented a two-way factorial design in an event-related fMRI study to examine the factors of trial validity (predictability of target by cue), length of delay (cue-target interval), and their interaction. There were two distinct types of invalid trial: those where attention was automatically drawn to a premature target and those where attention was voluntarily shifted to a delayed time-point. Reaction times for valid trials were shorter than those for invalid trials, demonstrating appropriate allocation of attention to temporal cues. All trial-types activated a shared system, including frontoparietal areas bilaterally, showing that this network is consistently associated with attentional orienting and is not specific to spatial tasks. Distinct brain areas were sensitive to cue-target delays and to trial validity. Long cue-target intervals activated areas involved in motor preparation: supplementary motor cortex, basal ganglia and thalamus. Invalid trials, where temporal expectancies were breached, showed enhanced activation of left parietal and frontal areas, and engagement of orbitofrontal cortex bilaterally. Finally, trial validity interacted with length of delay. Appearance of targets prematurely selectively activated visual extrastriate cortex; while postponement of target appearance selectively activated right prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest that distinct brain areas are involved in redirecting attention based upon sensory events (bottom-up, exogenous shifts) and based upon cognitive expectations (top-down, endogenous shifts).

Adult↗
PubMed2000

The spread of attention and learning in feature search: effects of target distribution and task difficulty.

We examined the roles of two determinants of spatial attention in governing the spread of perceptual learning, namely, stimulus location distribution and task difficulty. Subjects were trained on detection of a target element with an odd orientation imbedded in an array of light bars with otherwise uniform orientation. To assess the effects of target distribution on attention and learning, target positions were distributed so that attention was allocated not only to the target positions themselves, but also to intermediate positions where the target was not presented. Target detection performance substantially improved and improvement spread to match the induced window of spatial attention rather than only the actual target locations. To assess the effect of task difficulty on the spread of attention and learning, the target-distractor orientation difference and the time interval available for processing were manipulated. In addition, we compared performance of subjects with more versus with less detection difficulty. A consistent pattern emerged: When the task becomes more difficult, the window of attention shrinks, and learning becomes more localized. We conclude that task-specific spatial attention is both necessary and sufficient to induce learning. The spread of spatial attention, and thus of learning, is determined by the integrated effects of target distribution and task difficulty. We propose a theoretical framework whereby these factors combine to determine the cortical level of the focus of attention, which in turn enables learning modifications.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Gain adaptation of exogenous shifts of visual attention.

Gain adaptation of saccadic eye movements is the process whereby the size of the saccade is gradually modified if the target is consistently and surreptitiously displaced during the saccade. Because one attends to the saccade target before each saccade, we asked whether covert shifts of exogenous attention might themselves be adaptable. We did this by presenting a peripheral cue and then displacing it by 3 deg after an interval equal to the average time required for attention to shift from a central to a peripheral cue. This interval, as well as the location at which attention landed, was determined by a modification of the line-motion illusion, in which a line appears to shoot from a previously cued location. We found that this adaptation paradigm produced consistent gradual reductions (for back-steps) or increases (for forward-steps) in the magnitude of the shifts of attention. Like saccadic adaptation, adaptation of shifts of attention could be manipulated independently for rightward and leftward shifts. Furthermore, the backward adaptation paradigm also decreased the magnitude of subsequent saccades, even though no saccades had been made during the attentional adaptation. This argues that saccades are targeted to the locus of attention, and when this locus is systematically shifted, so too are subsequent saccades. In conclusion, the adaptability of shifts of attention suggests that attentional shifts, like saccades, are recalibrated using a spatial error signal.

Adaptation, Ocular↗
PubMed2002

The time course of selective visual attention: theory and experiments.

Historically, the psychophysical evidence for "selective attention" originated mainly from visual search experiments. A first important distinction in the processing of information in visual search tasks is its separation in two stages. The first, early "preattentive" stage operates in parallel across the entire visual field extracting single "primitive features" without integrating them. The second "attentive" stage corresponds to the specialized integration of information from a limited part of the field at any one time, i.e. serially. So far, models based on the above mentioned two-stage processes have been able to distinguish features from conjunction search conditions based on the observed slopes of the linear relation between reaction time (i.e., search time) and the number of items in the stimulus array. We propose a neuroscience based model for visual attention that works across the visual field in parallel, but due to its intrinsic dynamics can show the two experimentally observed modes of visual attention, namely: the serial focal attention and the parallel spread of attention over space. The model demonstrates that neither explicit serial focal search nor saliency maps need to be assumed. In the present model the focus of attention is not included in the system but only emerges after convergence of the dynamical behaviour of the neural networks. Furthermore, existing models have not been able to explain the variation of slopes observed in different kinds of conjunction search modes. We hypothesize that the different slopes can be explained by assuming that selective attention is guided by an independent mechanism which corresponds to the independent search for each feature. The model consistently integrates the different neuroscience levels by considering the microscopic neurodynamical mechanism that underlies visual attention, the different brain areas of the dorsal or "where" and ventral or "what" paths of the visual cortex, and behavioural data.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

External noise distinguishes attention mechanisms.

We developed and tested a powerful method for identifying and characterizing the effect of attention on performance in visual tasks as due to signal enhancement, distractor exclusion, or internal noise suppression. Based on a noisy Perceptual Template Model (PTM) of a human observer, the method adds increasing amounts of external noise (white gaussian random noise) to the visual stimulus and observes the effect on performance of a perceptual task for attended and unattended stimuli. The three mechanisms of attention yield three "signature" patterns of performance. The general framework for characterizing the mechanisms of attention is used here to investigate the attentional mechanisms in a concurrent location-cued orientation discrimination task. Test stimuli--Gabor patches tilted slightly to the right or left--always appeared on both the left and the right of fixation, and varied independently. Observers were cued on each trial to attend to the left, the right, or evenly to both stimuli, and decide the direction of tilt of both test stimuli. For eight levels of added external noise and three attention conditions (attended, unattended, and equal), subjects' contrast threshold levels were determined. At low levels of external noise, attention affected threshold contrast: threshold contrasts for non-attended stimuli were systematically higher than for equal attention stimuli, which were, in turn, higher than for attended stimuli. Specifically, when the rms contrast of the external noise is below 10%, there is a consistent 17% elevation of contrast threshold from attended to unattended condition across all three subjects. For higher levels of external noise, attention conditions did not affect threshold contrast values at all. These strong results are characteristic of a signal enhancement, or equivalently, an internal additive noise reduction mechanism of attention.

Attention↗
PubMed1999

Spatial attention and latencies of saccadic eye movements.

Recent theories of visual attention, such as the oculomotor readiness theory of Klein (1980) (Does oculomotor readiness mediate cognitive control of the visual attention. In: R. Nickerson, Attention and performance, Hillsdale: Erlbaum), the premotor theory of Rizzolati (1983) (Mechanisms of selective attention in mammals. In: J.P. Ewart, R.R. Capranica, D.J. Ingle, Advances in vertebrate Neuroethology (pp. 261-297). New York: Plenum) and the sequential attention theory of Henderson (1992) (Visual attention and eye movement control during reading and scene perception. In K. Rayner, Eye movements and visual cognition (260-283). New York: Springer-Verlag), propose a link between shifts in spatial attention and the generation of saccadic eye movements. In this paper we show that a winner-take-all model of spatial attention, combined with a simple model for the link between attention and eye movements, can account for the variation in saccadic latency observed in many oculomotor phenomena. These phenomena include the gap effect (Saslow M.G. (1967). Effects of components of displacement-step stimuli upon latency for saccadic eye movement. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 57, 1024-1029), the effect of target jumps on saccadic latency (Becker W. & Jurgens R. (1979). An analysis of the saccadic system by means of double step stimuli. Vision Research, 19, 967-983), the increase of saccadic latency as target eccentricity drops (Kalesnykas R.P. & Hallett P.E. (1994). Retinal eccentricity and the latency of eye saccades. Vision Research, 34, 517-531), and the modulation of saccadic accuracy using target predictability and saccadic latency (Coëffé C. & O'Regan J.K. (1987). Reducing the influence of non-target stimuli on saccade accuracy: predictability and latency effects. Vision Research, 27 (2), 227-240).

Attention↗
PubMed1998

The effects of caffeine and directed attention on acoustic startle habituation.

The present experiment tested the effects of caffeine on acoustic startle habituation during different attention tasks in which subjects either (a) attended to the acoustic startle stimulus (auditory attention; n = 9) (b) attended to a visual search task during presentation of acoustic startle stimuli (visual attention; n = 10), or (c) were given no specific instructions during acoustic startle testing (no attention; n = 9). Startle eyeblink responses were measured after subjects received either caffeine (1 mg/kg) or placebo. Caffeine significantly delayed response habituation in the no attention group and in the auditory attention group, but had no effect on habituation in the visual attention group. These data show that startle habituation can occur with minimal attention being directed to the acoustic startle stimulus, and that visual attention cancels the effects of caffeine on startle habituation.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2001

The cognitive neuroscience of sustained attention: where top-down meets bottom-up.

The psychological construct 'sustained attention' describes a fundamental component of attention characterized by the subject's readiness to detect rarely and unpredictably occurring signals over prolonged periods of time. Human imaging studies have demonstrated that activation of frontal and parietal cortical areas, mostly in the right hemisphere, are associated with sustained attention performance. Animal neuroscientific research has focused on cortical afferent systems, particularly on the cholinergic inputs originating in the basal forebrain, as crucial components of the neuronal network mediating sustained attentional performance. Sustained attention performance-associated activation of the basal forebrain corticopetal cholinergic system is conceptualized as a component of the 'top-down' processes initiated by activation of the 'anterior attention system' and designed to mediate knowledge-driven detection and selection of target stimuli. Activated cortical cholinergic inputs facilitate these processes, particularly under taxing attentional conditions, by enhancing cortical sensory and sensory-associational information processing, including the filtering of noise and distractors. Collectively, the findings from human and animal studies provide the basis for a relatively precise description of the neuronal circuits mediating sustained attention, and the dissociation between these circuits and those mediating the 'arousal' components of attention.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

Attention and selection in the growing child: views derived from developmental psychophysiology.

Our understanding of developmental changes in attentional selection in the growing child has been advanced substantially by the results of (a relatively small number of) studies undertaken from a psychophysiological perspective. The basic outcome of these studies is that, in attentional filtering as well as selective set (the two basic paradigms in attention research), the processes necessary for attentional selection are in essence available even to the young child; however, the speed and efficiency of these processes tends to increase as the child grows into an adolescent. Under optimal conditions, filtering is performed at early stages of information processing, but less optimal stimulus characteristics and task requirements may induce a shift in the locus of selection to later processing stages for young children whereas older individuals are better able to preserve their early locus of selection. When early selection is constrained, young children are substantially more sensitive to the adverse effects of response competition. In selective set, sub-optimal conditions lead not so much to a shift in locus of selection processes, but to a shift in the age at which asymptote efficiency is attained. We have proposed hierarchical regression analysis as a useful technique to examine whether age-related differences in attention effects, as observed in specific ERP components and in RT, are reflections of an age effect on a single source of attentional selection or of separate sources that each contribute uniquely to the developmental trends seen in (attention effects on) RT. Re-analyses of existing data demonstrated that (again depending on task specifics) many but not all of the different component processes involved in attentional selection contributed unique variance to the age-related changes in attention effects.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Visual attention task performance in Wistar and Lister hooded rats: response inhibition deficits after medial prefrontal cortex lesions.

The prefrontal cortex has traditionally been implicated in a variety of cognitive processes, including memory, attention and decision making. The detection of effects of prefrontal cortex lesions on attention has been shown to depend on the procedure used to assess the attentional process. We therefore investigated the effects of lesions of the prefrontal cortex in two different visual attention tasks, i.e. a three-choice serial reaction time task involving sustained and divided attention processes and a visual timing task involving sustained attention and response inhibition processes. In two rat strains that are frequently used in behavioural analysis, i.e. albino Wistar rats and pigmented Lister Hooded rats, lesions of the medial prefrontal cortex caused a deterioration of performance in both tasks, although the effect lasted much longer in the visual timing task. This latter task proved to be especially sensitive to detect the consequences of medial prefrontal cortex lesions, consisting of a loss of both attention control and response inhibition. In both attention tasks, Wistar rats performed less accurate and made more anticipatory responses than Listers. Strain differences could not entirely be attributed to possible visual deficits in albinos, which was also evident when locomotor activity in an open field and food-motivated behaviour in a hoarding paradigm were assessed. Due to slower habituation rates, Lister rats were more active and displayed little food hoarding behaviour. In Wistar rats, hoarding was disrupted by medial prefrontal cortex lesions, showing the effectiveness of the lesion. The results indicate that, although different rat strains provide different baseline levels of behaviour for testing lesion- or drug-induced behavioural changes, lesions of the medial prefrontal cortex do not only disrupt sustained attention processes, but also induce a strong impairment in response inhibition in both Wistar and Lister rats.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Reducing overselective attention to compound visual cues with extended training in adolescents with severe mental retardation.

Because of the devastating impact a disturbance in responding to multiple cues can have on a child's development, this investigation determined whether computer touch-screen technology could be utilized to improve the attentional skills of students with severe developmental disabilities after attentional deficits were initially identified. In particular, we assessed whether establishing prior reinforcement histories for separate stimuli would control how adolescents with severe mental retardation attended to visual compounds when extended training was given. Initially, prior reinforcement contingencies of individual stimuli failed to control the attention of the adolescents (Huguenin, 1997). Longer single stimulus pretraining and additional exposure to compounds containing stimulus components with conflicting reinforcement histories, however, eventually proved effective in determining what aspects of complex visual cues they attended to. In most instances, the adolescents selectively responded to stimulus elements whose prior reinforcement histories were unchanged in the compound after additional training was administered. Stimulus elements with a reversed prior reinforcement contingency were usually ignored. The reliability of the effect of prior reinforcement histories of individual stimulus elements on attention to visual compounds following additional training was confirmed with multiple testing procedures, automatically administered by a computer. Even though presenting conflict compounds initially identified students with overselective attention, extended exposure to single stimulus training and conflict compounds alleviated stimulus overselectivity and improved their attentional skills. After individual stimulus-response relations were reestablished and sufficiently reinforced to reduce disrupting effects when compound training cues were presented, stimulus overselectivity was eliminated. Through longer single stimulus pretraining and additional exposure to training compounds, adolescents with severe mental retardation learned to selectively attend to each component of visual compounds when prior reinforcement histories associated with the individual stimulus elements were manipulated. The findings of this investigation indicated that overselective attention among students with developmental disabilities is not an unmodifiable perceptual characteristic. They also revealed that overselective attention may be due to the disrupting effects of compound training cues which can be minimized through longer single stimulus pretraining and repeated presentations of compound training cues. Utilizing computer technology to administer procedures similar to those described in this study may permit students with developmental disabilities to acquire essential attentional skills for learning educational tasks involving complex cues.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Increases in cortical acetylcholine release during sustained attention performance in rats.

Acetylcholine (ACh) efflux in the frontoparietal cortex was studied with in vivo microdialysis while rats performed in an operant task designed to assess sustained attention. Transferring animals from the baseline environment into the operant chambers elicited a robust increase in cortical ACh efflux that persisted throughout the 18-min pre-task period. Subsequent performance in the 36-min sustained attention task was associated with further significant increases in frontoparietal ACh efflux, while the termination of the task resulted in a delayed decline in ACh levels. Upon the 12-min presentation of a visual distracter (flashing houselight, 0.5 Hz) during task performance, animals initially developed a significant response bias to the left lever in the first 6-min distracter block, reflecting a reduction of attentional effort. Under continued conditions of increased attentional demand, performance recovered during the second 6-min distracter block. This return to attentional processing was accompanied by an increase in cortical ACh efflux, suggesting that the augmentation of attentional demand produced by the distracter elicited further increases in ACh release. The enhancement of cortical ACh efflux observed prior to task performance implies the presence of complex relationships between cortical ACh release and anticipatory and/or contextual factors related to operant performance and attentional processing. This finding, along with the further increases in cortical ACh efflux associated with task performance, extends hypotheses regarding the crucial role of cortical cholinergic transmission for attentional functions. Furthermore, the effects of the distracter stimulus provide evidence for a direct relationship between attentional effort and cortical ACh release.

Acetylcholine↗
PubMed2001

Event-related brain response abnormalities in autism: evidence for impaired cerebello-frontal spatial attention networks.

Although under some conditions the attention-related late positive event-related potential (ERP) response (LPC) is apparently normal in autism during visual processing, the LPC elicited by visuospatial processing may be compromised. Results from this study provide evidence for abnormalities in autism in two components of the LPC generated during spatial processing. The early frontal distribution of the LPC which may reflect attention orienting was delayed or missing in autistic subjects during conditions in which attention was to peripheral visual fields. The later parietal distribution of the LPC which may be associated with context updating was smaller in amplitude in autistic subjects regardless of attention location. Both abnormalities suggest disruption of function in spatial attention networks in autism. Evidence that the cerebellar abnormalities in autism may underlie these deficits comes from: (1) similar results in ERP responses and spatial attention deficits in patients with cerebellar lesions; (2) brain-behavior correlations in normally functioning individuals associating the size of the posterior cerebellar vermis and the latency of the frontal LPC; and (3) a previously reported complementary correlation between the size of the posterior vermal lobules and spatial orienting speed. Although the scalp-recorded LPC is thought to be cortically generated, it may be modulated by subcortical neural activity. The cerebellum may serve as a modulating influence by affecting the task-related antecedent attentional process. The electrophysiological abnormalities reported here index spatial attention deficits in autism that may reflect cerebellar influence on both frontal and parietal spatial attention function.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Auditory and visual attention modulate motion processing in area MT+.

Behavioral and physiological studies have established that visual attention to a given feature or location can modulate early visual processing. In the present experiment, we asked whether auditory attention can likewise influence visual processing. We used a visual illusion, the motion aftereffect (MAE), to assess the effects of visual and auditory attention on motion processing in human area MT+. We acquired psychophysical and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data while subjects fixated and viewed moving and stationary stimuli in alternating blocks. For each of four motion conditions, we measured the duration of the subsequent MAE, the time for activity in MT+ to return to baseline after motion adaptation (decay time), and the magnitude of MT+ activity during motion adaptation. For each subject, we first obtained measures of motion processing in the absence of attentional demands, by comparing reversing and expanding motion conditions. Subjects perceived the MAE following adaptation to expanding but not reversing motion, as observed previously, and decay times in MT+ were selectively prolonged after expanding motion. We then assessed the effects of performing either a visual or an auditory attentional task during expanding motion adaptation. Performance of the attentional task, whether visual or auditory, produced a significant reduction of subsequent MAE perception and associated decay times in MT+, as compared to expanding motion with fixation only. Both attentional tasks also reduced the magnitude of activation during motion adaptation. These data show that auditory attention, like visual attention, can modify sensory processing at a remarkably early stage of the visual hierarchy.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1999

[Evaluation of the attention span of 10,000 school children 8-11 years of age].

AIM: This study was conducted in order to evaluate the attention capacity during the school day and week, taking school life and others factors into account in 10,000 children (8 to 11 years old) in public Parisian schools. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The test used to measure attention was a paper and pencil test validated from the Zazzo test. The children answered a questionnaire before each test to obtain information concerning the time and day of the test, and concerning also the different life styles of children, particularly quantity and quality of sleep and composition of breakfast. The evaluation was performed four times in the morning and four times in the afternoon every day, to measure exactly the fluctuations of attention. This study lasted four weeks. The last evaluation week took place after the summer time change. RESULTS: The results showed the existence of an ultradian fluctuation of attention during the day, with the lowest level between 08.00 a.m. and 09.30 a.m. and the highest level between 04.00 p.m. and 04.30 p.m. The attention levels on Monday and Thursday, after a day without school, were not lowered. Furthermore, after a 2 days weekend the attention level was higher than after a 1 day and half weekend. The summer time change also worsened the attention capacity of children all along the next week. Finally, there was a statistical relationship between children attention capacity and their sleep practice. CONCLUSION: These results confirm the ultradian fluctuation of attention capacity and show the importance of the regularity in the child's life style with respect to their mental functioning.

Attention↗
PubMed2003

Neural mechanisms of top-down control during spatial and feature attention.

Theories of visual selective attention posit that both spatial location and nonspatial stimulus features (e.g., color) are elementary dimensions on which top-down attentional control mechanisms can selectively influence visual processing. Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that regions of superior frontal and parietal cortex are critically involved in the control of visual-spatial attention. This frontoparietal control network has also been found to be activated when attention is oriented to nonspatial stimulus features (e.g., motion). To test the generality of the frontoparietal network in attentional control, we directly compared spatial and nonspatial attention in a cuing paradigm. Event-related fMRI methods permitted the isolation of attentional control activity during orienting to a location or to a nonspatial stimulus feature (color). Portions of the frontoparietal network were commonly activated to the spatial and nonspatial cues. However, direct statistical comparisons of cue-related activity revealed subregions of the frontoparietal network that were significantly more active during spatial than nonspatial orienting when all other stimulus, task, and attentional factors were equated. No regions of the frontal-parietal network were more active for nonspatial cues in comparison to spatial cues. These findings support models suggesting that subregions of the frontal-parietal network are highly specific for controlling spatial selective attention.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Attentional biases for angry faces in unipolar depression.

BACKGROUND: Past research has demonstrated that depression is associated with dysfunctional processing of emotional information. Recent studies demonstrate that a bias in the attentional processing of negative information may be an important cognitive vulnerability factor underlying the onset and maintenance of depression. However, to date, the nature of this attentional bias is still poorly understood and further exploration of this topic to advance current knowledge of attentional biases in depression seems imperative. METHOD: This study examined attentional biases for angry facial expressions presented for 1000 ms in 20 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 20 non-depressed control participants (NC) matched for age and gender using an emotional modification of the Exogenous Cueing task. RESULTS: Patients with MDD showed maintained attention for angry faces compared with neutral faces. In comparison with non-depressed participants they showed a stronger attentional engagement for angry faces. In contrast, the NC group directed attention away from angry faces, more rapidly disengaging their attention compared with neutral faces. CONCLUSIONS: This pattern of results supports the assumption that MDD is characterized by deficits in the attentional processing of negative, interpersonal information and suggests a 'protective' bias in non-depressed individuals. Implications in relation to previous research exploring cognitive and interpersonal functioning in depression are discussed.

Adult↗