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Wang M, Yang P, Zhang T, Li W, Zhang J, Jin Z, Li L. Working memory biases early object discrimination and parietal activity during attentional selection. Cortex 2022; 157:53-64. [PMID: 36272331 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.08.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2021] [Revised: 05/12/2022] [Accepted: 08/28/2022] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
The contents of working memory (WM) guide visual attention, but the neural mechanisms underlying WM biases remains unclear. Here, we used simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) approaches to characterize the timing and location of the neural response underlying WM guidance during a visual search task. Behaviorally, we observed faster search performance when the WM contents matching targets (valid) compared to when WM contents did not reappear (neutral). The EEG data showed similar benefit effects of posterior N1 component, in which targets induced larger N1 amplitudes in the valid condition than in the neutral condition. Interestingly, the fMRI activation in left supramarginal gyrus (SMG)/inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and bilateral occipital cortex was lower in the valid compared to neutral conditions. Importantly, the magnitude of the increased N1 activity and the decreased fMRI activity in the left SMG/IPL predicted the extent of search improvement at an individual subject level. These results suggest that information held in WM enhances early object discrimination during attentional selection, and the left SMG/IPL may be a critical region in mediating goal-directed processing under WM biases in human visual attention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Min Wang
- Bioinformatics and BioMedical Bigdata Mining Laboratory, School of Big Health, Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, China; Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, High-Field Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Ping Yang
- Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, High-Field Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China; Key Laboratory of Basic Psychological and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang, China
| | - Tingting Zhang
- Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, High-Field Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Wenjuan Li
- Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, High-Field Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Junjun Zhang
- Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, High-Field Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Zhenlan Jin
- Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, High-Field Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
| | - Ling Li
- Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, High-Field Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
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Abbasi H, Kadel H, Hickey C, Schubö A. Combined influences of strategy and selection history on attentional control. Psychophysiology 2021; 59:e13987. [PMID: 34932826 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13987] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/09/2021] [Revised: 10/20/2021] [Accepted: 11/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Visual attention is guided by top-down mechanisms and pre-stimulus task preparation, but also by selection history (i.e., the bias to prioritize previously attended items). Here we examine how these influences combine. Two groups of participants completed two intermingled tasks. One task involved categorization of a unique target; one group categorized the target based on color, and the other based on shape. The other task involved searching for a target defined by unique shape while ignoring a distractor defined by unique color. Our expectation was that the search task would be difficult for the color-categorization group because their categorization task required attentional resolution of color, but the search task required that they ignore color. In some experimental blocks, trials from the two tasks appeared predictably, giving the color-categorization group an opportunity to strategically prepare by switching between color-prioritizing and shape-prioritizing attentional templates. We looked to pre-stimulus oscillatory activity as a direct index of this preparation, and to reaction times and post-stimulus ERPs for markers of resultant change in attentional deployment. Results showed that preparation in the color-categorization group optimized attentional templates, such that these participants became less sensitive to the color distractor in the search task. But preparation was not sufficient to entirely negate the influence of selection history, and participants in the color-categorization group continued to show a propensity to attend to the color distractor. These results indicate that preparatory effort can be scaled to the anticipated attentional requirements, but attention is nevertheless considerably biased by selection history.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hossein Abbasi
- Cognitive Neuroscience of Perception and Action, Philipps-University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany
| | - Hanna Kadel
- Cognitive Neuroscience of Perception and Action, Philipps-University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany
| | - Clayton Hickey
- School of Psychology and Center for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
| | - Anna Schubö
- Cognitive Neuroscience of Perception and Action, Philipps-University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany
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Dodwell G, Liesefeld HR, Conci M, Müller HJ, Töllner T. EEG evidence for enhanced attentional performance during moderate-intensity exercise. Psychophysiology 2021; 58:e13923. [PMID: 34370887 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13923] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2021] [Revised: 06/22/2021] [Accepted: 07/30/2021] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
Research on attentional control within real-world contexts has become substantially more feasible and thus frequent over the past decade. However, relatively little is known regarding how these processes may be influenced by common naturalistic behaviors such as engaging in physical activity, which is thought to modulate the availability of neurometabolic resources. Here, we used an event-related potential (ERP) approach to determine whether various intensities of aerobic exercise might affect the concurrent performance of attentional control mechanisms. Participants performed an additional-singleton visual search task across three levels of aerobic activity while seated on a stationary bicycle: at rest, during moderate-intensity exercise, and during vigorous-intensity exercise. In addition to behavioral measures, attentional processing was assessed via lateralized ERPs referencing target selection (PCN) and distractor suppression (PD ) mechanisms. Whereas engaging in exercise resulted in speeded response times overall, moderate-intensity exercise was found to uniquely eliminate the expression of distractor interference by the PCN while also giving rise to an unanticipated distractor-elicited Ppc. These findings demonstrate workload-specific and object-selective influences of aerobic exercise on attentional processing, providing insights not only for approaching attention in real-world contexts but also for understanding how attentional resources are used overall.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gordon Dodwell
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Planegg, Germany.,Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany.,Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Heinrich R Liesefeld
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Planegg, Germany.,Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany.,Department of Psychology, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
| | - Markus Conci
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Planegg, Germany.,Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
| | - Hermann J Müller
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Planegg, Germany.,Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
| | - Thomas Töllner
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Planegg, Germany.,Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
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Liu M, Nie ZY, Li RR, Zhang W, Huang LH, Wang JQ, Xiao WX, Zheng JC, Li YX. Neural Mechanism of Repeated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation to Enhance Visual Working Memory in Elderly Individuals With Subjective Cognitive Decline. Front Neurol 2021; 12:665218. [PMID: 34335441 PMCID: PMC8320844 DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2021.665218] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/23/2021] [Accepted: 06/08/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Visual working memory (VWM), the core process inherent to many advanced cognitive processes, deteriorates with age. Elderly individuals usually experience defects in the processing of VWM. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is a key structure for the top-down control of working memory processes. Many studies have shown that repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) improves VWM by modulating the excitability of neurons in the target cortical region, though the underlying neural mechanism has not been clarified. Therefore, this study sought to assess the characteristics of brain memory function post-rTMS targeting the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The study stimulated the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in elderly individuals by performing a high-frequency rTMS protocol and evaluated behavioral performance using cognitive tasks and a VWM task. Based on the simultaneously recorded electroencephalogram signals, event-related potential and event-related spectral perturbation analysis techniques were used to investigate the variation characteristics of event-related potential components' (N2PC and CDA) amplitudes and neural oscillations in elderly individuals to elucidate the effect of high-frequency rTMS. The results found that rTMS enhanced VWM performance and significantly improved attention and executive function in elderly individuals with subjective cognitive decline. We therefore speculate that rTMS enhances VWM by increasing the N2PC and CDA amplitude, alongside increasing β oscillation activity. This would improve the attention and allocation of resources in elderly individuals such as to improve an individual's VWM.
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Affiliation(s)
- Meng Liu
- Department of Neurology, Tongji University School of Medicine, Tongji Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
| | - Zhi-Yu Nie
- Department of Neurology, Tongji University School of Medicine, Tongji Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
| | - Ren-Ren Li
- Department of Neurology, Tongji University School of Medicine, Tongji Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
| | - Wei Zhang
- Department of Neurology, Tongji University School of Medicine, Tongji Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
| | - Li-He Huang
- Research Center for Ageing Language and Care, School of Foreign Languages, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
| | - Jie-Qun Wang
- Department of Neurology, Tongji University School of Medicine, Tongji Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
| | - Wei-Xin Xiao
- Department of Neurology, Tongji University School of Medicine, Tongji Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
| | - Jialin C Zheng
- Department of Neurology, Tongji University School of Medicine, Tongji Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
| | - Yun-Xia Li
- Department of Neurology, Tongji University School of Medicine, Tongji Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
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Zhang Q, Liang T, Zhang J, Fu X, Wu J. Electrophysiological evidence for temporal dynamics associated with attentional processing in the zoom lens paradigm. PeerJ 2018; 6:e4538. [PMID: 29632741 PMCID: PMC5888137 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.4538] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2018] [Accepted: 03/06/2018] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Visuospatial processing requires wide distribution or narrow focusing of attention to certain regions in space. This mechanism is described by the zoom lens model and predicts an inverse correlation between the efficiency of processing and the size of the attentional scope. Little is known, however, about the exact timing of the effects of attentional scaling on visual searching and whether or not additional processing phases are involved in this process. Method Electroencephalographic recordings were made while participants performed a visual search task under different attentional scaling conditions. Two concentric circles of different sizes, presented to the participants at the center of a screen modulated the attentional scopes, and search arrays were distributed in the space areas indicated by these concentric circles. To ensure consistent eccentricity of the search arrays across different conditions, we limited our studies to the neural responses evoked by the search arrays distributed in the overlapping region of different attentional scopes. Results Consistent with the prediction of the zoom lens model, our behavioral data showed that reaction times for target discrimination of search arrays decreased and the associated error rates also significantly decreased, with narrowing the attentional scope. Results of the event-related potential analysis showed that the target-elicited amplitude of lateral occipital N1, rather than posterior P1, which reflects the earliest visuospatial attentional processing, was sensitive to changes in the scaling of visuospatial attention, indicating that the modulation of the effect of changes in the spatial scale of attention on visual processing occurred after the delay period of P1. The N1 generator exhibited higher activity as the attentional scope narrowed, reflecting more intensive processing resources within the attentional focus. In contrast to N1, the amplitude of N2pc increased with the expansion of the attentional focus, suggesting that observers might further redistribute attentional resources according to the increased task difficulty. Conclusion These findings provide electrophysiological evidence that the neural activity of the N1 generator is the earliest marker of the zoom lens effect of visual spatial attention. Furthermore, evidence from N2pc shows that there is also a redistribution of attentional resources after the action of the zoom lens mechanism, which allows for better perform of the search task in the context of low attentional resolution. On the basis of the timing of P1, N1, and N2pc, our findings provide compelling evidence that visuospatial attention processing in the zoom lens paradigm involves multi-stage dynamic processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qing Zhang
- Department of Radiology, Affiliated Zhongshan Hospital of Dalian University, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
| | - Tengfei Liang
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
| | - Jiafeng Zhang
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
| | - Xueying Fu
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
| | - Jianlin Wu
- Department of Radiology, Affiliated Zhongshan Hospital of Dalian University, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
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Li C, Liu Q, Hu Z. Further Evidence That N2pc Reflects Target Enhancement Rather Than Distracter Suppression. Front Psychol 2018; 8:2275. [PMID: 29354086 PMCID: PMC5758545 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02275] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/25/2017] [Accepted: 12/14/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The N2-posterior-contralateral (N2pc) component is an index in the domain of event-related potentials for exploring the underlying mechanism of visual-spatial attention. It has been disputed whether the attentional selection reflected by N2pc is primarily due to distracter suppression or target enhancement processes. We addressed this controversy by combining the pop-out item and the target feature, and instructed participants whether the pop-out item included the target feature. Thus, in a visual search task, bilateral visual stimuli including a pop-out item and three distractors were displayed simultaneously. The pop-out detection was analyzed under varying two factors: (a) pop-out item as a target or non-target (b) the distractors containing a target feature or non-target feature. Although all conditions had a salient effect on behavioral performance, the reliable difference of N2pc existed only between the target condition and the non-target condition. These results provided strong support for the hypothesis of target enhancement processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chaojie Li
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
| | - Qiang Liu
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
| | - Zhonghua Hu
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
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How handedness influences perceptual and attentional processes during rapid serial visual presentation. Neuropsychologia 2017; 100:155-163. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.04.030] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2016] [Revised: 04/24/2017] [Accepted: 04/26/2017] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
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The deployment of visual spatial attention during visual search predicts response time. Neuroreport 2016; 27:1237-42. [DOI: 10.1097/wnr.0000000000000684] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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