Neural signature of inattentional deafness

Abstract

Inattentional deafness is the failure to hear otherwise audible sounds (usually alarms) that may occur under high workload conditions. One potential cause for its occurrence could be an attentional bottleneck that occurs when task demands are high, resulting in lack of resources for processing of additional tasks. In this fMRI experiment, we explore the brain regions active during the occurrence of inattentional deafness using a difficult perceptual-motor task in which the participants fly through a simulated Red Bull air race course and at the same time push a button on the joystick to the presence of audio alarms. Participants were instructed to focus on the difficult piloting task and to press the button on the joystick quickly when they noticed an audio alarm. The fMRI results revealed that audio misses relative to hits had significantly greater activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus IFG and the superior medial frontal cortex. Consistent with an attentional bottleneck, activity in these regions was also present for poor flying performance (contrast of gates missed versus gates passed for the flying task). A psychophysiological interaction analysis from the IFG identified reduced effective connectivity to auditory processing regions in the right superior temporal gyrus for missed audio alarms relative to audio alarms that were heard. This study identifies a neural signature of inattentional deafness in an ecologically valid situation by directly measuring differences in brain activity and effective connectivity between audio alarms that were not heard compared to those that were heard. Hum Brain Mapp 38:5440-5455, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Disruption in neural phase synchrony is related to identification of inattentional deafness in real‐world setting

“…For instance, experiments conducted in flight simulators, reveal that perfectly audible critical warning alarms could fail to reach awareness (Dehais, Tessier, Christophe, & Reuzeau, ; Dehais et al, , ). In these contexts, the visual modality is thought to suppress hearing via the implementation of gating mechanisms at the visuo‐auditory integrative stage (Lebib, Papo, de Bode, & Baudonnière, ; Molloy et al, ) via direct visuo‐auditory connections or through higher level attentional systems (Durantin, Dehais, Gonthier, Terzibas, & Callan, ).…”

“…Within the context of inattentional deafness, which is the lack of awareness of an auditory alarm, it is maintained that under high load conditions or those requiring focused attention to the primary task, that attentional modulation of secondary tasks is attenuated or perhaps even the networks involved with the secondary tasks are selectively inhibited (Durantin et al, ). This is consistent with decreased N1 ERP amplitude found under high workload conditions in response to auditory stimuli (Molloy et al, ; Scannella et al, ).…”

“…In our previous functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI study (Durantin et al, ), the activity of brain regions (inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and superior medial frontal cortex/presupplementary motor area (pre‐SMA)) associated with the attentional bottleneck (Dux, Ivanoff, Asplund, & Marois, ; Szameitat, Vanloo, & Muller, ; Tombu et al, ) were found to be a neural signature of inattentional deafness. These brain regions were active to a greater extent for poor performance for both auditory alarm detection (participants have to press a button to the presence of audio alarms—misses > hits) and the primary piloting task (participants have to fly through a simulated Red Bull air race course—gates missed > gates passed).…”

“…It is suggested that when the processing load in the primary task is too high, these attentional bottleneck regions act to preserve selective attention to brain processes involved with the primary visual piloting task while attenuating attentional resources to nonprimary tasks (based on Craik's () hypothesis, concerning the limited processing capacity of the brain). In support of this hypothesis, reduced connectivity was found from the IFG (attentional bottleneck region) to the auditory processing regions of the superior temporal gyrus (STG) during occurrence of inattentional deafness (Durantin et al, ). However, unlike the magnetoencephalography (MEG) study conducted by (Molloy et al, ), our fMRI study did not reveal reduced activity in auditory brain processing regions as a result of inattentional deafness.…”

Are pilots prepared for a cyber-attack? A human factors approach to the experimental evaluation of pilots' behavior

“…In a recent analysis of alerting systems' role in aviation accidents, Mumaw (2017) found that pilots quite often failed to detect or even understand incoming visual or auditory alerts (see also Bliss, 2003). Poorly designed alarms are particularly worrisome in that they can greatly increase stress or distract pilots (Peryer et al, 2005;Doll et al, 1983) thereby failing to establish sufficient awareness-an effect that is especially prominent during flight phases that put severe demands on the pilots (Durantin et al, 2017). In contrast, correct and trustworthy alarms can reduce not only pilots' cognitive load but also establish an appropriate picture of the situation and hence enhance their performance.…”