Interindividual variability in EEG correlates of attention and limits of functional mapping

Basile, Luis; Anghinah, Renato; Ribeiro, Pedro; Ramos, Renato T.; Piedade, Roberto; Ballester, Gerson; Brunetti, Enzo

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2007.05.001

Cited by 45 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 44 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Although a few areas were depicted by the analysis as putatively ''task-specific'', we were then already careful to state that the effect could well disappear, for instance, after sample increase, and the above comment on unrestricted literature searches. In an analogous way, when computing corrected-latency averages of beta oscillations and estimating their sources [3], we concluded that the absolutely major fraction of 'task-induced' beta activity is topographically identical to the pre-stimulus baseline beta (95% of power), thus not 'task-specific' but merely an increase in the ongoing activity. The putatively 'task-specific' much weaker component (in that case extracted as the second ICA component of the averaged data) could belong to the typical kind of result more prone to naturally vanish by lack of replicability, for instance, immerse in ''experimental error'' in a wide sense.…”

Section: Minor Relevance Of Within-individual Task-differencesmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…One interesting invasive study of beta activity in monkeys [33] shows increased beta coherence between frontal and parietal cortices during a kind of expecting attention (visual search), but only four areas were sampled by electrode implantation. As previously discussed by us [3], for studies in experimental animals, especially single cell recordings, to be comparable to ours, the prevalence of cells classified by response type to tasks, i.e., their distribution in different cortical areas, with a widespread sampling, would have to be explicitly compared across a number of animals. And according to the experience of Prof. J.M.…”

Section: Individual Variability In Active Association Areas and Functmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…The high degree of inter-individual variability found in the scalp distribution and estimated cortical sources of Slow Potentials (SPs) and beta oscillations in our previous studies [1][2][3][4]20] has raised the need for within-individual methods of analysis, task comparisons in particular, the main purpose of the present work. This type of variability, in the sets of cortical areas active across individuals, was once more found in our estimated sources of beta activity during the present visual attention and reasoning tasks: no single cortical area was seen to be active in all subjects.…”

Section: Individual Variability In Active Association Areas and Functmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The main finding of a series of studies in our Laboratory, both on the cortical topography of Slow Potentials (SPs) and taskinduced beta oscillations, has been the high inter-individual variability in the sets of cortical areas electrically active mainly during expecting attention [1][2][3][4]. This kind of variability in cortical distribution of non-sensory-motor activity, initially encountering some skepticism from the scientific community due to the challenge of strict cortical functional localization views, is now becoming increasingly accepted.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We believe that the increasing interest in this frequency range stems from the fact that it displays the space-time dimensions compatible with long range cortico-cortical communication, in particular synchronization between areas [17,18]. We have recently been able to analyze the cortical topographical distribution of beta activity, when increased/induced by simple attention tasks, due to new methodological approaches: Since induced beta activity is not time-locked to task events, it was originally observed only as 'power' changes, and its source modeling by familiar algorithms made possible only when we started to compute corrected-latency (spontaneous peak-centered) averaging [3]. However, in an analogous way to the limitation of conventional event-related averages to stimuluslocked activity, our corrected-latency averages appear to be limited to phase-locking between sources of oscillations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Lack of systematic topographic difference between attention and reasoning beta correlates

Basile

Alvarenga

Henrique

et al. 2012

International Journal of Psychophysiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Based on previous evidence for individual-specific sets of cortical areas active during simple attention tasks, in this work we intended to perform within individual comparisons of task-induced beta oscillations between visual attention and a reasoning task. Since beta induced oscillations are not time-locked to task events and were first observed by Fourier transforms, in order to analyze the cortical topography of attention induced beta activity, we have previously computed corrected-latency averages based on spontaneous peaks of band-pass filtered epochs. We then used Independent Component Analysis (ICA) only to single out the significant portion of averaged data, above noise levels. In the present work ICA served as the main, exhaustive means for decomposing beta activity in both tasks, using 128-channel EEG data from 24 subjects. Given the previous observed similarity between tasks by visual inspection and by simple descriptive statistics, we now intended another approach: to quantify how much each ICA component obtained in one task could be explained by a linear combination of the topographic patterns from the other task in each individual. Our hypothesis was that the major psychological difference between tasks would not be reflected as important topographic differences within individuals. Results confirmed the high topographic similarity between attention and reasoning beta correlates in that few components in each individual were not satisfactorily explained by the complementary task, and if those could be considered ''taskspecific'', their scalp distribution and estimated cortical sources were not common across subjects. These findings, along with those from fMRI studies preserving individual data and conventional neuropsychological and neurosurgical observations, are discussed in support of a new functional localization hypothesis: individuals use largely different sets of cortical association areas to perform a given task, but those individual sets do not change importantly across tasks that differ in major psychological processes.

show abstract

Section: Minor Relevance Of Within-individual Task-differencesmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Individual Variability In Active Association Areas and Functmentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Individual Variability In Active Association Areas and Functmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Lack of systematic topographic difference between attention and reasoning beta correlates

Basile

Alvarenga

Henrique

et al. 2012

International Journal of Psychophysiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Electroencephalography in naturalistic and semi‐naturalistic educational contexts: A systematic review

García‐Monge,

Rodríguez‐Navarro,

Bores‐García

et al. 2024

Review of Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This systematic review examines 76 studies that have utilised portable electroencephalographic (EEG) devices in naturalistic and semi‐naturalistic contexts. The review considers themes, purposes, contexts, application populations, device characteristics, and data use. The results show a dominance of studies focused on attention, in technology‐mediated semi‐naturalistic situations, in which records are made individually, with university students using low‐cost equipment with fewer than 15 channels. This review highlights an emerging field within educational research that has not yet been fully integrated into educational practice. However, these first experiences can gradually generate a body of knowledge that will facilitate future applications, together with the development of better and more accessible devices. The use of these devices in educational contexts raises ethical concerns, particularly the influence on teaching decisions by opaque commercial algorithms that may oversimplify assessments of specific cognitive processes and fail to adapt to individual student characteristics. Context and implicationsRationale for this study: Portable EEG devices are emerging tools that offer new insights into cognitive processes in learning situations.Why the new findings are important: The findings of this study demonstrate the potential of EEG to monitor aspects such as attention and cognitive load in real time, which could enhance the personalisation of educational strategies.Implications for educators, researchers and policy makers: This study has implications for educators, researchers and policy makers, as it illustrates how neurotechnology can be integrated into educational settings and emphasises the need for more naturalistic studies to maximise its impact. It also highlights the ethical challenges associated with the use of commercial algorithms in educational decision‐making.

show abstract

Higher similarity in beta topography between tasks than subjects

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We have recently provided evidence for highly idiosyncratic topographic distributions of beta oscillations (as well as slow potentials) across individuals. More recently, by emphasizing the analysis of similarity instead of differences across tasks, we concluded that differences between an attention task and quiet resting may be negligible or at least unsystematic across subjects. Due to the possibility that individual differences could be due to noise in a wide sense or some inherent instability of beta activity, we designed a replication study to explicitly test whether pairs of individuals matched for head size and shape would still present less similar beta topography than each individual between sessions or tasks. We used independent component analysis (ICA) for an exhaustive decomposition of beta activity in a visual attention task and in quiet resting, recorded by 256-channel EEG in 20 subjects, on two separate days. We evaluated whether each ICA component obtained in one task and in one given individual could be explained by a linear regression model based on the topographic patterns of the complementary task (correlation between one component with a linear combination of components from complementary conditions), of the same task in a second session and of a matched individual. Results again showed a high topographic similarity between conditions, as previously seen between reasoning and simple visual attention beta correlates. From an overall number of 16 components representing brain activity obtained for the tasks (out of 60 originally computed where the remaining were considered noise), over 92% could satisfactorily be explained by the complementary task. Although the similarity between sessions was significantly smaller than between tasks on each day, the similarity between sessions was statistically higher than that between subjects in a highly significant way. We discuss the possible biases of group spatial averaging and the emphasis on differences as opposed to similarities, and noise in a wide sense, as the main causes of hardly replicable findings on task-related forms of activity and the inconclusive state of a universal functional mapping of cortical association areas.

show abstract

Interindividual variability in EEG correlates of attention and limits of functional mapping

Cited by 45 publications

References 44 publications

Lack of systematic topographic difference between attention and reasoning beta correlates

Lack of systematic topographic difference between attention and reasoning beta correlates

Electroencephalography in naturalistic and semi‐naturalistic educational contexts: A systematic review

Higher similarity in beta topography between tasks than subjects

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About