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Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Oct 2023Loss aversion is a psychological bias where an increase in loss is perceived as being larger than an equivalent increase in gain. In the present study, two experiments...
Loss aversion is a psychological bias where an increase in loss is perceived as being larger than an equivalent increase in gain. In the present study, two experiments were conducted to explore whether attentional control reflects loss aversion. Participants performed a visual search task. On each trial, a red target and a green target were presented simultaneously, and participants were free to search for either one. Participants always gained points when they searched for a gain color target (e.g., red). However, they gained or lost points when they searched for a gain-loss color target (e.g., green). In Experiment 1, the expected values of the gain color and the gain-loss color were equal. Therefore, for maximizing the reward, participants did not need to preferably search for a particular color. However, results showed that participants searched for the gain color target more than the gain-loss color target, suggesting stronger attentional control for the gain color than the gain-loss color. In Experiment 2, even though the expected value of the gain-loss color was greater than that of the gain color, attention was allocated to the gain color more than to the gain-loss color. The results imply that attentional control can operate in accordance with the loss aversion principle when the boundary conditions for loss aversion in a repeated binary decision-making task were met.
Topics: Humans; Attention; Reward; Affect; Color Perception; Reaction Time
PubMed: 37040019
DOI: 10.3758/s13423-023-02287-1 -
Neuron Mar 2024Attention and working memory (WM) are distinct cognitive functions, yet given their close interactions, it is often assumed that they share the same neuronal mechanisms....
Attention and working memory (WM) are distinct cognitive functions, yet given their close interactions, it is often assumed that they share the same neuronal mechanisms. We show that in macaques performing a WM-guided feature attention task, the activity of most neurons in areas middle temporal (MT), medial superior temporal (MST), lateral intraparietal (LIP), and posterior lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC-p) displays attentional modulation or WM coding and not both. One area thought to play a role in both functions is LPFC-p. To test this, we optogenetically inactivated LPFC-p bilaterally during different task periods. Attention period inactivation reduced attentional modulation in LPFC-p, MST, and LIP neurons and impaired task performance. In contrast, WM period inactivation did not affect attentional modulation or performance and minimally affected WM coding. Our results suggest that feature attention and WM have dissociable neuronal substrates and that LPFC-p plays a critical role in feature attention, but not in WM.
Topics: Animals; Memory, Short-Term; Attention; Macaca; Prefrontal Cortex; Neurons
PubMed: 38228138
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.12.007 -
Experimental Brain Research Jun 2024Healthy individuals typically show more attention to the left than to the right (known as pseudoneglect), and to the upper than to the lower visual field (known as...
Healthy individuals typically show more attention to the left than to the right (known as pseudoneglect), and to the upper than to the lower visual field (known as altitudinal pseudoneglect). These biases are thought to reflect asymmetries in neural processes. Attention biases have been used to investigate how these neural asymmetries change with age. However, inconsistent results have been reported regarding the presence and direction of age-related effects on horizontal and vertical attention biases. The observed inconsistencies may be due to insensitive measures and small sample sizes, that usually only feature extreme age groups. We investigated whether spatial attention biases, as indexed by gaze position during free viewing of a single image, are influenced by age. We analysed free-viewing data from 4,243 participants aged 5-65 years and found that attention biases shifted to the right and superior directions with increasing age. These findings are consistent with the idea of developing cerebral asymmetries with age and support the hypothesis of the origin of the leftward bias. Age modulations were found only for the first seven fixations, corresponding to the time window in which an absolute leftward bias in free viewing was previously observed. We interpret this as evidence that the horizontal and vertical attention biases are primarily present when orienting attention to a novel stimulus - and that age modulations of attention orienting are not global modulations of spatial attention. Taken together, our results suggest that attention orienting may be modulated by age and that cortical asymmetries may change with age.
Topics: Humans; Adult; Middle Aged; Aged; Young Adult; Adolescent; Male; Female; Child; Child, Preschool; Aging; Space Perception; Fixation, Ocular; Attention; Attentional Bias; Functional Laterality; Visual Fields
PubMed: 38555556
DOI: 10.1007/s00221-024-06823-w -
Neural Networks : the Official Journal... Oct 2023Cognitive flexibility encompasses the ability to efficiently shift focus and forms a critical component of goal-directed attention. The neural substrates of this process...
Cognitive flexibility encompasses the ability to efficiently shift focus and forms a critical component of goal-directed attention. The neural substrates of this process are incompletely understood in part due to difficulties in sampling the involved circuitry. We leverage stereotactic intracranial recordings to directly resolve local-field potentials from otherwise inaccessible structures to study moment-to-moment attentional activity in children with epilepsy performing a flexible attentional task. On an individual subject level, we employed deep learning to decode neural features predictive of task performance indexed by single-trial reaction time. These models were subsequently aggregated across participants to identify predictive brain regions based on AAL atlas and FIND functional network parcellations. Through this approach, we show that fluctuations in beta (12-30 Hz) and gamma (30-80 Hz) power reflective of increased top-down attentional control and local neuronal processing within relevant large-scale networks can accurately predict single-trial task performance. We next performed connectomic profiling of these highly predictive nodes to examine task-related engagement of distributed functional networks, revealing exclusive recruitment of the dorsal default mode network during shifts in attention. The identification of distinct substreams within the default mode system supports a key role for this network in cognitive flexibility and attention in children. Furthermore, convergence of our results onto consistent functional networks despite significant inter-subject variability in electrode implantations supports a broader role for deep learning applied to intracranial electrodes in the study of human attention.
Topics: Humans; Child; Brain Mapping; Deep Learning; Neural Pathways; Brain; Attention; Electroencephalography; Connectome; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Cognition
PubMed: 37741065
DOI: 10.1016/j.neunet.2023.07.019 -
Journal of Experimental Psychology.... Sep 2023Salience is a core determinant of attentional processing. Although information on salience has been shown to dissipate within a few hundred milliseconds, we recently...
Salience is a core determinant of attentional processing. Although information on salience has been shown to dissipate within a few hundred milliseconds, we recently observed massive effects of salience on the delayed recall from visual working memory more than 1,300 ms after stimulus onset. Here, we manipulated presentation duration of the memory display and found that effects of salience, albeit decreasing over time, were still markedly present after 3,000 ms (2,000 ms presentation; Experiment 1). In an attempt to overrule this persistent influence of salience, we made less salient stimuli more relevant (by rewarding their prioritized processing in Experiment 2 or by probing them more often in Experiment 3). Participants were unable to reliably prioritize low-salience stimuli. Thus, our results demonstrate that effects of salience or their repercussions have surprisingly long-lasting effects on cognitive performance that reach even relatively late processing stages and are difficult to overrule by volition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Humans; Attention; Memory, Short-Term; Mental Disorders; Mental Recall
PubMed: 37104796
DOI: 10.1037/xge0001420 -
Cell Reports Oct 2023Grid-cells firing fields tile the environment with a 6-fold periodicity during both locomotion and visual exploration. Here, we tested, in humans, whether movements of...
Grid-cells firing fields tile the environment with a 6-fold periodicity during both locomotion and visual exploration. Here, we tested, in humans, whether movements of covert attention elicit grid-like coding using frequency tagging. Participants observed visual trajectories presented sequentially at fixed rate, allowing different spatial periodicities (e.g., 4-, 6-, and 8-fold) to have corresponding temporal periodicities (e.g., 1, 1.5, and 2 Hz), thus resulting in distinct spectral responses. We found a higher response for the (grid-like) 6-fold periodicity and localized this effect in medial-temporal sources. In a control experiment featuring the same temporal periodicity but lacking spatial structure, the 6-fold effect did not emerge, suggesting its dependency on spatial movements of attention. We report evidence that grid-like signals in the human medial-temporal lobe can be elicited by covert attentional movements and suggest that attentional coding may provide a suitable mechanism to support the activation of cognitive maps during conceptual navigation.
Topics: Humans; Temporal Lobe; Attention; Locomotion; Computer Systems; Electrodes; Entorhinal Cortex
PubMed: 37804506
DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.113209 -
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology Aug 2023Previous studies have tested attentional gain patterns, for example, within the normalization model of attention (NMoA), by altering the relative sizes of the attention...
Previous studies have tested attentional gain patterns, for example, within the normalization model of attention (NMoA), by altering the relative sizes of the attention field and stimuli. Existing studies have not investigated whether the gain patterns of altering the relative exogenous cue size as compared with the target stimuli matches the prediction of NMoA and whether these gain patterns exist in the late stage of attentional processing. To resolve these questions, the present study maintained the target grating size and changed the exogenous cue size in both short and long cue-target onset asynchronies (CTOAs) conditions. The results revealed response gain for small cue/large target size conditions and contrast gain for large cue/small target size conditions, which was consistent with the NMoA. However, we observed the decrease in the contrast gain factor only with long CTOAs, regardless of whether the cue size was relatively small or large. This indicated that NMoA-related effects based on the relative attentional field dominated in the early stage and that the contrast gain dominated in the late stage.
Topics: Humans; Cues; Attention; Reaction Time
PubMed: 36786056
DOI: 10.1111/sjop.12899 -
Scientific Reports Feb 2024Distractions are omnipresent and can derail our attention, which is a precious and very limited resource. To achieve their goals in the face of distractions, people need...
Distractions are omnipresent and can derail our attention, which is a precious and very limited resource. To achieve their goals in the face of distractions, people need to regulate their attention, thoughts, and behavior; this is known as self-regulation. How can self-regulation be supported or strengthened in ways that are relevant for everyday work and learning activities? To address this question, we introduce and evaluate a desktop application that helps people stay focused on their work and train self-regulation at the same time. Our application lets the user set a goal for what they want to do during a defined period of focused work at their computer, then gives negative feedback when they get distracted, and positive feedback when they reorient their attention towards their goal. After this so-called focus session, the user receives overall feedback on how well they focused on their goal relative to previous sessions. While existing approaches to attention training often use artificial tasks, our approach transforms real-life challenges into opportunities for building strong attention control skills. Our results indicate that optimal attentional feedback can generate large increases in behavioral focus, task motivation, and self-control-benefitting users to successfully achieve their long-term goals.
Topics: Humans; Feedback; Learning; Motivation; Computers; Attention
PubMed: 38326361
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-53388-3 -
Cognition Aug 2024The debate surrounding whether social and non-social attention share the same mechanism has been contentious. While prior studies predominantly focused on engagement, we...
The debate surrounding whether social and non-social attention share the same mechanism has been contentious. While prior studies predominantly focused on engagement, we examined the potential disparity between social and non-social attention from both perspectives of engagement and disengagement, respectively. We developed a two-stage attention-shifting paradigm to capture both attention engagement and disengagement. Combining results from five eye-tracking experiments, we supported that the disengagement of social attention markedly outpaces that of non-social attention, while no significant discrepancy emerges in engagement. We uncovered that the faster disengagement of social attention came from its social nature by eliminating alternative explanations including broader fixation distribution width, reduced directional salience in the peripheral visual field, decreased cue-object categorical consistency, reduced perceived validity, and faster processing time. Our study supported that the distinction between social and non-social attention is rooted in attention disengagement, not engagement.
Topics: Humans; Attention; Adult; Social Perception; Young Adult; Female; Male; Eye-Tracking Technology
PubMed: 38797054
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105834 -
Journal of Neurophysiology Nov 2023Greater heterogeneity exists in older adults relative to young adults when performing highly skilled manual tasks. The purpose of this study was to assess the influence...
Greater heterogeneity exists in older adults relative to young adults when performing highly skilled manual tasks. The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of visual feedback and attentional demand on visual strategy during a submaximal force-steadiness task in young and older adults. Eye movements of 21 young (age 20-38 yr; 11 females, 10 males) and 21 older (age 65-90 yr; 11 females, 10 males) adults were recorded during a pinch force-steadiness task while viewing feedback with higher and lower gain and while performing a visuospatial task. For the visuospatial task, participants imagined a star moving around four boxes and reported the final location after a series of directions. Performance on standardized tests of attention was measured. All participants gazed near the target line and made left-to-right saccadic eye movements during the force-steadiness tasks without the visuospatial task. Older adults made fewer saccades than young adults (21.0 ± 2.9 and 23.6 ± 4.4 saccades, respectively) and with higher versus lower gain (20.9 ± 4.0 and 23.7 ± 3.5 saccades, respectively). Most participants used the same visual strategy when performing the visuospatial task though seven older adults used an altered strategy; gaze did not stay near the target line nor travel exclusively left to right. Performance on standardized measures of attention was impaired in this subset compared with older adults who did not use the altered visual strategy. Results indicate that visual feedback influences visual strategy and reveals unique eye movements in some older adults when allocating attention across tasks. This study contributes novel findings of age-related changes in visual strategy and associations with attentional deficits during hand motor tasks. Older adults used fewer saccades than young adults and with higher versus lower gain visual feedback during a force-steadiness task. A subset of older adults used an altered visual strategy when allocating attention across multiple tasks. Given that this subset demonstrated attentional deficits, the altered visual strategy could serve to indicate motor and/or cognitive impairments.
Topics: Male; Female; Young Adult; Humans; Aged; Adult; Aged, 80 and over; Feedback, Sensory; Attention; Eye Movements; Saccades
PubMed: 37877175
DOI: 10.1152/jn.00486.2022