Early processing stages are modulated when auditory stimuli are presented at an attended moment in time: An event‐related potential study

Abstract

The present study investigated with event-related potentials whether attending to a moment in time modulates the processing of auditory stimuli at a similar early, perceptual level as attending to a location in space. The participants listened to short (600 ms) and long (1,200 ms) intervals marked by white noise bursts. The task was to attend in alternating runs either to the short or to the long intervals and to respond to rare offset markers that differed in intensity from the frequent standard offset markers. Prior to the to-be-attended moment, a slow negative potential developed over the frontal scalp. Stimuli presented at the attended compared to the unattended moments in time elicited an enhanced N1 and an enhanced posteriorly distributed positivity (300-370 ms). The results show that attention can be flexibly controlled in time and that not only late but also early perceptual processing stages are modulated by attending to a moment in time.

Dopamine modulates attentional control of auditory perception: DARPP-32 (PPP1R1B) genotype effects on behavior and cortical evoked potentials

“…We tested for genotype effects in attention regulation of early auditory processing, as reflected by differences in the amplitude of the P1, N1 and P2 components (e.g., Clark & Hillyard, 1996;Hillyard et al, 1973;Lange et al, 2003;Sanders & Astheimer, 2008). Informed by previous findings (Ceponiene, Westerfield, Torki, & Townsend, 2008) and in line with the scalp topography of the present data (see Fig.…”

“…Early or late auditory evoked potentials have been shown to reflect neural correlates of sensory-driven or conflict-related processes, respectively. We tested whether the two genotype groups differ in attention modulation of sensory processing as reflected in amplitude differences in P1, N1 or P2 component (e.g., Clark & Hillyard, 1996;Hillyard, Hink, Schwent, & Picton, 1973;Lange, Rösler, & Röder, 2003;Sanders & Astheimer, 2008). As for conflict-related processing, we focused on a late negativity occurring approximately in the time window of 450-550 ms after stimulus onset.…”

“…The amplitude of early cortical evoked potentials, such as the N1 component, has been shown to be associated with attentional enhancement of early sensory selection of auditory inputs from the attended locations or channels (e.g., Hansen & Hillyard, 1980;Hillyard et al, 1973) or inputs that appeared in the attended temporal intervals (e.g., Astheimer & Sanders, 2009;Lange et al, 2003;Lange & Röder,. 2006;Sanders & Astheimer, 2008).…”

Local and global auditory processing: Behavioral and ERP evidence

“…Attention can be directed to specific points in time such that people are faster and more accurate given valid than invalid temporal cues (Coull, Frith, Büchel, & Nobre, 2000;Coull & Nobre, 1998;Griffin, Miniussi, & Nobre, 2002;Miniussi, Wilding, Coull, & Nobre, 1999). Furthermore, temporally selective attention has been shown to modulate early auditory processing in a manner similar to spatially selective attention; sounds presented at attended times elicit larger amplitude auditory onset ERP components (Lange, Rösler, & Röder, 2003;Sanders & Astheimer, 2006). However, it is also important to distinguish between auditory selective attention designs in which listeners use a simple feature to determine which sounds they will attend (including the studies cited above) and designs in which listeners are asked to attend to different features while processing the same sounds.…”

Time and the Brain: How Subjective Time Relates to Neural Time

“…Intuition suggests that knowing when something will happen helps us to focus resources at that expected point in time to enhance our behavior. By now, many studies indicate that we can use temporal information flexibly and across multiple sensory modalities to orient at-tention selectively to specific intervals (Griffin et al, 2001;Lange et al, 2003;Correa et al, 2004). Positron emission tomography and fMRI studies have shown that control of temporal orienting in speeded-response tasks involves brain areas that participate in spatial orienting of attention as well as areas that participate in motor control (Coull and Nobre, 1998;Coull et al, 2000), including posterior parietal cortex, in which cellular correlates of temporal predictability have been identified (Janssen and Shadlen, 2005).…”