Multimodal neuroimaging evidence linking memory and attention systems during visual search cued by context.

Visual search can be facilitated by the learning of spatial configurations that predict the location of a target among distractors. Neuropsychological and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) evidence implicates the medial temporal lobe (MTL) memory system in this contextual cueing effect, and electroencephalography (EEG) studies have identified the involvement of visual cortical regions related to attention. This work investigated two questions: (1) how memory and attention systems are related in contextual cueing; and (2) how these systems are involved in both short- and long-term contextual learning. In one session, EEG and fMRI data were acquired simultaneously in a contextual cueing task. In a second session conducted 1 week later, EEG data were recorded in isolation. The fMRI results revealed MTL contextual modulations that were correlated with short- and long-term behavioral context enhancements and attention-related effects measured with EEG. An fMRI-seeded EEG source analysis revealed that the MTL contributed the most variance to the variability in the attention enhancements measured with EEG. These results support the notion that memory and attention systems interact to facilitate search when spatial context is implicitly learned.

Isolating the neural mechanisms of interference during continuous multisensory dual-task performance.

The need to engage in multiple tasks simultaneously is often encountered in everyday experience, but coordinating between two or more tasks can lead to impaired performance. Typical investigations of multitasking impairments have focused on the performance of two tasks presented in close temporal proximity on discrete trials; however, such paradigms do not match well with the continuous performance situations more typically encountered outside the laboratory. As a result, the stages of information processing that are affected during multisensory continuous dual tasks and how these changes in processing relate to behavior remain unclear. To address these issues, participants were presented simultaneous rapid visual and auditory stimulus sequences under three conditions: attend visual only, attend auditory only, and dual attention (attend both visual and auditory). Performance, measured in terms of response time and perceptual sensitivity (d'), revealed dual-task impairments only in the auditory task. Neural activity, measured by the ERP technique, revealed that both early stage sensory processing and later cognitive processing of the auditory task were affected by dual-task performance, but similar stages of processing of the visual task were not. Critically, individual differences in neural activity at both early and late stages of information processing accurately rank-ordered individuals based on the observed difference in behavioral performance between the single and dual attention conditions. These results reveal relationships between behavioral performance and the neural correlates of both early and late stage information processing that provide key insights into the complex interplay between the brain and behavior when multiple tasks are performed continuously.

Multiple measures of visual attention predict novice motor skill performance when attention is focused externally.

Multiple lines of evidence indicate that the control of attention and motor skill performance are related. Athletes of various skill levels differ in terms of their control over the focus of attention and directing athletes to adopt an internal or external focus of attention modulates performance. However, it is unclear (a) whether the relationship between skill level and attentional control arises from preexisting individual differences in attention or from practice of the motor skill and (b) whether the effect of adopting an internal or external focus of attention on motor performance is influenced by individual differences in attention. To address these issues, individuals were measured on three distinct attention functions - orienting, alerting, and executive - prior to engaging in a novel golf-putting task performed with either external or internal focus instructions. The results indicated that, on average, attentional functioning and putting performance were related but that the strong relationships with orienting and executive attention were only present in the group given external focus instructions. These findings suggest that individual differences in attentional abilities are predictive of novel skill performance under an external focus of attention and they shed light on the mechanisms underlying the effects of focus instructions during motor performance.

Multimodal target detection using single trial evoked EEG responses in single and dual-tasks.

The detection of event-related potentials in the electroencephalogram signal is a common way for creating a brain-computer interface (BCI). Successful detection of evoked responses can be enhanced by the user selectively attending to specific stimuli presented in the BCI task. Because BCI users need a system that performs well in a variety of contexts, even ones that may impair selective attention, it is critical to understand how single trial detection is affected by attention. We tested 16 participants using a rapid serial visual/auditory presentation paradigm under three conditions, one in which they detected the presence of a visual target, one in which they detected the presence of an auditory target, and one in which they detected both visual and auditory targets. The behavioral performance indicates that the visual task was more difficult than the auditory task. Consistent with the higher behavioral difficulty of the visual task, single trial performance showed no difference between single and dual-task for the visual target detection (mean=0.76). However, the area under the curve for the auditory target detection was significantly lower than the dual-task (mean=0.81 for single task, 0.75 for dual-task). The results support the conclusion that single-trial target detection is impaired when attention is divided between multiple tasks.