EEG alpha and pupil diameter reflect endogenous auditory attention switching and listening effort

Haro, Stephanie; Rao, Hrishikesh M.; Quatieria, Thomas F.; Smalt, Christopher J.

doi:10.1111/ejn.15616

Cited by 22 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Effortful listening to speech in noise engages heightened arousal as well as increased demands on attention, working memory, and linguistic processing (Peelle, 2018). Unravelling these various aspects - in particular separating arousal-related effects from those related to the allocation of cognitive resources - is a key challenge for the field (Zekveld et al, 2014; White & Langdon, 2021; Ritz et al, 2021; Haro et al, 2022; McGarrigle et al, 2021). Correlations between subjective, behavioral, and physiological measures of listening effort have not always yielded consistent results (Alhanbali et al, 2019), implying that different approaches may be capturing distinct facets of this construct.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pupil dilation and microsaccades provide complementary insights into the dynamics of arousal and instantaneous attention during effortful listening

Contadini-Wright

Magami

Mehta

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Listening in noisy environments requires effort - the active engagement of attention and other cognitive abilities, as well as increased arousal. The ability to separately quantify the contribution of these components is key to understanding the dynamics of effort and how it may change across listening situations and in certain populations. We concurrently measured two types of ocular data in young participants (both sexes) - Pupil dilation (PD) (thought to index arousal aspects of effort) and Microsaccades (MS) (hypothesized to reflect automatic visual exploratory sampling) whilst listeners were performing a speech-in-noise task under high- (HL) and low- (LL) perceptual load conditions. Sentences were manipulated so that the behaviourally relevant information (keywords) appeared at the end (Exp1) or beginning (Exp2) of the sentence, resulting in different temporal demands on focused attention. In line with previous reports, PD effects were associated with increased dilation under load. We observed a sustained difference between HL and LL conditions, consistent with increased phasic and tonic arousal. Importantly we show that MS rate was also modulated by perceptual load, manifested as a reduced MS rate in HL relative to LL. Critically, in contrast to the sustained difference seen for PD, MS effects were localised in time, specifically during periods when demands on auditory attention were greatest. These results demonstrate that auditory selective attention interfaces with the mechanisms controlling MS-generation, establishing MS as an informative measure, complementary to PD, with which to quantify the temporal dynamics of auditory attentional processing under effortful listening conditions.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pupil dilation and microsaccades provide complementary insights into the dynamics of arousal and instantaneous attention during effortful listening

Contadini-Wright

Magami

Mehta

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Two additional metrics that are associated with reduced sustained attention and were hypothesized to be increased in the ADHD group are level of alpha power and the frequency of spontaneous gaze-shifts. Higher alpha power is associated with reduced levels of attention/arousal, and alpha power is consistently found to increase in conditions of boredom, tiredness or prolonged time on tasks (Clarke et al, 2001; Dockree et al, 2007; Palva and Palva, 2007; Wöstmann et al, 2017; Boudewyn and Carter, 2018; Jin et al, 2019; Haro et al, 2022). Several studies have also found higher baseline alpha power in individuals with ADHD vs. controls (Barry et al, 2003; Johnstone et al, 2013; Bozhilova et al, 2022; Michelini et al, 2022), however results are not always consistent (Loo and Makeig, 2012; Johnstone et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selective attention and sensitivity to auditory disturbances in a virtually-real Classroom: Comparison of adults with and without AD(H)D

Levy,

Libman Hackmon,

Zvilichovsky

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Many people, and particularly those diagnosed with ADHD, report difficulties maintaining attention and proneness to distraction during classroom learning. However, the behavioral, neural and physiological basis of attention in realistic learning contexts is not well understood, since current clinical and scientific tools used for evaluating and quantifying the constructs of "distractibility" and "inattention", are removed from the real-life experience in organic classrooms. Here we introduce a novel Virtual Reality (VR) platform for studying students' brain activity and physiological responses as they immerse in realistic frontal classroom learning. Using this approach, we studied whether adults with and without ADHD (N=49) exhibit differences in neurophysiological metrics associated with sustained attention, such as speech-tracking of the teacher's voice, power of alpha-oscillations and levels of arousal, as well as responses to potential disturbances by background sound-events in the classroom. Under these ecological conditions, we find that adults with ADHD exhibit higher auditory neural response to background sounds relative to their control-peers, which also contributed to explaining variance in the severity of ADHD symptoms, together with higher power of alpha-oscillations and more frequent gaze-shifts around the classroom. These results are in-line with higher sensitivity to irrelevant stimuli in the environment and increased mind-wandering/boredom. At the same time, both groups exhibited similar learning outcomes and showed similar neural tracking of the teacher's speech. This suggests that in this context, attention may not operate as a zero-sum game and that allocating some resources to irrelevant stimuli does not always detract from performing the task at hand. Given the dire need for more objective, dimensional and ecologically-valid measures of attention and its real-life deficits, this work provides new insights into the neurophysiological manifestations of attention and distraction experienced in real-life contexts, while challenging some prevalent notions regarding the nature of attentional challenges experienced by those with ADHD.

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“…In future AAD studies with moving talkers, a higher degree of temporal resolution can be achieved by asking the subjects also to report the spatial trajectory of the conversation followed. Additionally, further research is needed to investigate the difference between endogenous and exogenous auditory attention switches and how they may be decoded differently 40 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain-controlled augmented hearing for spatially moving conversations in multi-talker environments

Choudhari,

Han,

Bickel

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Focusing on a specific conversation amidst multiple interfering talkers presents a significant challenge, especially for the hearing-impaired. Brain-controlled assistive hearing devices aim to alleviate this problem by separating complex auditory scenes into distinct speech streams and enhancing the attended speech based on the listener’s neural signals using auditory attention decoding (AAD). Departing from conventional AAD studies that relied on oversimplified scenarios with stationary talkers, we present a realistic AAD task that mirrors the dynamic nature of acoustic settings. This task involves focusing on one of two concurrent conversations, with multiple talkers taking turns and moving continuously in space with background noise. Invasive electroencephalography (iEEG) data were collected from three neurosurgical patients as they focused on one of the two moving conversations. We propose an enhanced brain-controlled assistive hearing system that combines AAD and a binaural speaker-independent speech separation model. The separation model unmixes talkers while preserving their spatial location and provides talker trajectories to the neural decoder to improve auditory attention decoding accuracy. Our subjective and objective evaluations show that the proposed system enhances speech intelligibility and facilitates conversation tracking while maintaining spatial cues and voice quality in challenging acoustic environments. This research demonstrates the potential of our approach in real-world scenarios and marks a significant step towards developing assistive hearing technologies that adapt to the intricate dynamics of everyday auditory experiences.TAKEAWAYS-Brain-controlled hearing device for scenarios with moving conversations in multi-talker settings, closely mimicking real-world listening environments-Developed a binaural speech separation model that separates speech of moving talkers while retaining their spatial locations, enhancing auditory perception and auditory attention decoding-Proposed system enhances speech intelligibility and reduces listening effort in realistic acoustic scenes

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EEG alpha and pupil diameter reflect endogenous auditory attention switching and listening effort

Cited by 22 publications

References 66 publications

Pupil dilation and microsaccades provide complementary insights into the dynamics of arousal and instantaneous attention during effortful listening

Pupil dilation and microsaccades provide complementary insights into the dynamics of arousal and instantaneous attention during effortful listening

Selective attention and sensitivity to auditory disturbances in a virtually-real Classroom: Comparison of adults with and without AD(H)D

Brain-controlled augmented hearing for spatially moving conversations in multi-talker environments

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