Protecting visual short-term memory during maintenance: Attentional modulation of target and distractor representations

Vissers, Marlies E.; Gulbinaite, Rasa; Bos, Tijl van den; Slagter, Heleen A.

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-03995-0

Cited by 23 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…Accordingly, the findings from Fukuda and Vogel (), along with the findings from the current study, suggest that the filtering mechanism in general seems to be determined very early in the processing stream. While most of the studies on WM investigate its capacity storage component, in recent years there has been a growing literature demonstrating the importance of controlling what enters WM in determining performance (Allen, Baddeley, & Hitch, ; Feldmann‐Wüstefeld & Vogel, ; Robison & Unsworth, ; Unsworth & Robison, ; Vissers, Gulbinaite, van den Bos, & Slagter, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filtering performance in visual working memory is improved by reducing early spatial attention to the distractors

Allon

Luria

2019

Psychophysiology

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We investigated the underlying processes that enable improving filtering irrelevant items from entering visual working memory (WM). To this end, participants performed a bilateral change‐detection task in which either targets or targets along with distractors (i.e., the filtering condition) appeared in the memory array while ERPs were recorded. In the cue‐present condition, we provided a spatial cue coupled with a temporal cue regarding where and when the distractors would appear. On some of the filtering trials, after the offset of the memory array, task‐irrelevant probes were briefly flashed either at the locations of the targets or at the locations of the distractors. This enabled measuring whether reactivating the filtering settings resulted in reducing spatial attentional resources to the distractors, allocating additional spatial attentional resources to the targets, or both, as was measured by the P1/N1 amplitude. Results revealed that, relative to the cue‐absent condition, in the cue‐present condition the P1/N1 amplitude was reduced for probes at the distractors and was similar for probes at the targets. In addition, the reduction in the P1/N1 amplitude was accompanied by a reduced filtering cost in accuracy performance in the cue‐present condition relative to the cue‐absent condition. These findings suggest that reactivating the distractor filtering settings improved filtering performance in visual WM by reducing the allocation of spatial attention to the distractors already at early processing stages, and not by allocating additional spatial attentional resources to the targets.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filtering performance in visual working memory is improved by reducing early spatial attention to the distractors

Allon

Luria

2019

Psychophysiology

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“…Won et al, 2016), and SSVEPs are overall robust using a wide array of frequencies (at least 1 to 50 Hz; Herrmann, 2001;Zhu et al, 2010). However, some spatial attention studies have found no attentional modulation of SSVEPs in the beta band (Antonov et al, 2020;Gulbinaite et al, 2019), or have found effects only for the second harmonic of beta band frequencies (Garcia et al, 2013;Kim et al, 2007;Vissers et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given that some work has reported significant effects only for the second harmonic (e.g., Kim et al, 2007;Vissers et al, 2017), we likewise examined SSVEP amplitude at 48 Hz and 60 Hz, with the caveat that the 60 Hz harmonic is contaminated by line noise (Appendices I and J). We found no significant attention effects for either second harmonic frequency.…”

Section: Non-pre-registered Control Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Steady-state visually evoked potentials and feature-based attention: Pre-registered null results and a focused review of methodological considerations

Adam

Chang

Rangan

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Feature-based attention is the ability to selectively attend to a particular feature (e.g., attend to red but not green items while looking for the ketchup bottle in your refrigerator), and steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs) measured from the human electroencephalogram (EEG) signal have been used to track the neural deployment of feature-based attention. Although many published studies suggest that we can use trial-by-trial cues to enhance relevant feature information (i.e., greater SSVEP response to the cued color), there is ongoing debate about whether participants may likewise use trial-by-trial cues to ignore a particular feature. Here, we report the results of a pre-registered study in which participants either were cued to attend or to ignore a color. Counter to prior work, we found no attention-related modulation of the SSVEP response in either cue condition. However, positive control analyses revealed that participants paid some degree of attention to the cued color (i.e., we observed a greater P300 component to targets in the attended versus the unattended color). In light of these unexpected null results, we conducted a focused review of methodological considerations for studies of feature-based attention using SSVEPs. In the review, we quantify potentially important stimulus parameters that have been used in the past (e.g., stimulation frequency; trial counts) and we discuss the potential importance of these and other task factors (e.g., feature-based priming) for SSVEP studies.

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“…In consequence, amplitude reductions would indicate that neuronal resources are utilised in a more efficient way. Thus, the meditation-specific pattern of improved MOT performance in conjunction with reduced SSVEP amplitudes is likely to result from an increased ability to ignore irrelevant distractors or to quickly disengage from them, preserving only relevant items in visual short-term memory 39 . It is likely to reflect efficiency gains that results from the training of interacting brain networks of attention during meditation which transfers to generalised improvements of attentional functions without meditation 21 , 25 , 59 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Interestingly, evidence from cognitive neuroscience demonstrates the close interplay between attention and working memory, highlighting the important role of selective attention in encoding information in working memory 37 , 38 . In addition, the efficiency of allocating attentional resources to goal-relevant rather than irrelevant, distracting information predicts working memory performance 39 . Fukuda and Vogel 40 demonstrate that the ability to rapidly disengage from distracting information is an important contributor to high-capacity working memory performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mindful breath awareness meditation facilitates efficiency gains in brain networks: A steady-state visually evoked potentials study

Schöne

Gruber

Graetz

et al. 2018

Sci Rep

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The beneficial effects of mindfulness-based therapeutic interventions have stimulated a rapidly growing body of scientific research into underlying psychological processes. Resulting evidence indicates that engaging with mindfulness meditation is associated with increased performance on a range of cognitive tasks. However, the mechanisms promoting these improvements require further investigation. We studied changes in behavioural performance of 34 participants during a multiple object tracking (MOT) task that taps core cognitive processes, namely sustained selective visual attention and spatial working memory. Concurrently, we recorded the steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP), an EEG signal elicited by the continuously flickering moving objects, and indicator of attentional engagement. Participants were tested before and after practicing eight weeks of mindful breath awareness meditation or progressive muscle relaxation as active control condition. The meditation group improved their MOT-performance and exhibited a reduction of SSVEP amplitudes, whereas no such changes were observed in the relaxation group. Neither group changed in self-reported positive affect and mindfulness, while a marginal increase in negative affect was observed in the mindfulness group. This novel way of combining MOT and SSVEP provides the important insight that mindful breath awareness meditation may lead to refinements of attention networks, enabling more efficient use of attentional resources.

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Protecting visual short-term memory during maintenance: Attentional modulation of target and distractor representations

Cited by 23 publications

References 86 publications

Filtering performance in visual working memory is improved by reducing early spatial attention to the distractors

Filtering performance in visual working memory is improved by reducing early spatial attention to the distractors

Steady-state visually evoked potentials and feature-based attention: Pre-registered null results and a focused review of methodological considerations

Mindful breath awareness meditation facilitates efficiency gains in brain networks: A steady-state visually evoked potentials study

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