Distraction in a continuous-stimulation detection task

Event-related potential (ERP) correlates of distraction are usually investigated in the oddball paradigm following a discrete, trial-by-trial stimulation protocol. In this design, participants perform a discrimination task while oddball stimuli deviate in a task-irrelevant stimulus feature. In our experiment, participants detected gaps in a continuous tone while infrequent frequency glides served as distracting events. Glides preceding a gap by 150ms delayed the response to the gap and elicited the ERP sequence of N1, probably MMN, P3a, and reorienting negativity, suggesting that these responses reflect distraction-related processes which are neither task- nor stimulation-specific. When participants watched a silent movie and the auditory stimulation was task-irrelevant, glides preceding a gap by 150ms enhanced the amplitude of the gap-elicited N1. However, when the auditory stimulation was task-relevant, the gap-elicited N1 was attenuated. These results show that the glides drew attention away from the ongoing task, both from watching the silent movie and from detecting gaps.

[1]  T. Picton,et al.  The N1 wave of the human electric and magnetic response to sound: a review and an analysis of the component structure. , 1987, Psychophysiology.

[2]  S. Hillyard,et al.  Electrical Signs of Selective Attention in the Human Brain , 1973, Science.

[3]  E. Schröger,et al.  Specific or general? The nature of attention set changes triggered by distracting auditory events , 2008, Brain Research.

[4]  I. Winkler,et al.  Age-related differences in distraction and reorientation in an auditory task , 2009, Neurobiology of Aging.

[5]  Francisco Barceló,et al.  Task Switching and Novelty Processing Activate a Common Neural Network for Cognitive Control , 2006, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[6]  C. Escera,et al.  The cognitive locus of distraction by acoustic novelty in the cross-modal oddball task , 2008, Cognition.

[7]  L. Schiebinger,et al.  Commentary on Risto Naatanen (1990). The role of attention in auditory information processing as revealed by event-related potentials and other brain measures of cognitive fenctiono BBS 13s201-2888 , 1991 .

[8]  Erich Schröger,et al.  Response repetition vs. response change modulates behavioral and electrophysiological effects of distraction. , 2005, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[9]  E. Schröger,et al.  Primary motor area contribution to attentional reorienting after distraction , 2008, Neuroreport.

[10]  E. Schröger,et al.  Two separate mechanisms underlie auditory change detection and involuntary control of attention , 2006, Brain Research.

[11]  Minna Huotilainen,et al.  Event-related potential correlates of sound duration: similar pattern from birth to adulthood , 2001, Neuroreport.

[12]  Jeffrey R. Binder,et al.  Attentional Modulation in the Detection of Irrelevant Deviance: A Simultaneous ERP/fMRI Study , 2006, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[13]  I. Winkler,et al.  Top-down control over involuntary attention switching in the auditory modality , 2003, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[14]  C. C. Wood,et al.  Scalp distributions of event-related potentials: an ambiguity associated with analysis of variance models. , 1985, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[15]  S. Berti.  Cognitive control after distraction: event-related brain potentials (ERPs) dissociate between different processes of attentional allocation. , 2008, Psychophysiology.

[16]  E. Schröger,et al.  A comparison of auditory and visual distraction effects: behavioral and event-related indices. , 2001, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[17]  R Näätänen,et al.  Temporal constraints of auditory event synthesis: evidence from ERPs , 1998, Neuroreport.

[18]  D. Friedman,et al.  The novelty P3: an event-related brain potential (ERP) sign of the brain's evaluation of novelty , 2001, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[19]  K. Reinikainen,et al.  Event-related potentials to repetition and change of auditory stimuli. , 1992, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[20]  C. Escera,et al.  Electrical responses reveal the temporal dynamics of brain events during involuntary attention switching , 2001, The European journal of neuroscience.

[21]  I. Winkler,et al.  Do N1/MMN, P3a, and RON form a strongly coupled chain reflecting the three stages of auditory distraction? , 2008, Biological Psychology.

[22]  E. Schröger,et al.  Disentangling effects of auditory distraction and of stimulus-response sequence. , 2009, Psychophysiology.

[23]  I. Winkler,et al.  Involuntary Attention and Distractibility as Evaluated with Event-Related Brain Potentials , 2000, Audiology and Neurotology.

[24]  Erich Schröger,et al.  Auditory distraction: event-related potential and behavioral indices , 2000, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[25]  R. Näätänen.  The role of attention in auditory information processing as revealed by event-related potentials and other brain measures of cognitive function , 1990, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[26]  Stefan Berti,et al.  Behavioral and event-related potential distraction effects with regularly occurring auditory deviants. , 2007, Psychophysiology.

[27]  R. Näätänen,et al.  Neuromagnetic responses of the human auditory cortex to short frequency glides , 1991, Neuroscience Letters.

[28]  R. Verleger.  Event-related potentials and cognition: A critique of the context updating hypothesis and an alternative interpretation of P3 , 1988, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[29]  J. Polich.  Updating P300: An integrative theory of P3a and P3b , 2007, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[30]  R. Ilmoniemi,et al.  Pitch change of a continuous tone activates two distinct processes in human auditory cortex: a study with whole-head magnetometer. , 1995, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[31]  Neil A. Macmillan,et al.  Detection Theory: A User's Guide , 1991 .

[32]  David Friedman,et al.  Cross-form conceptual relations between sounds and words: effects on the novelty P3. , 2003, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[33]  Rolf Verleger,et al.  P3b: Towards some decision about memory , 2008, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[34]  M. Yamaguchi,et al.  A pitch glide activates an intermediate response between auditory N1 and mismatch negativity. , 1999, Neuroreport.

[35]  Stefan Berti,et al.  Object switching within working memory is reflected in the human event-related brain potential , 2008, Neuroscience Letters.

[36]  E. Schröger,et al.  The development of involuntary and voluntary attention from childhood to adulthood: A combined behavioral and event-related potential study , 2006, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[37]  Wouter De Baene,et al.  Stimulus ambiguity elicits response conflict , 2008, Neuroscience Letters.

[38]  E. Schröger,et al.  Auditory distraction with different presentation rates: an event-related potential and behavioral study , 2003, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[39]  R. Ilmoniemi,et al.  Processing of novel sounds and frequency changes in the human auditory cortex: magnetoencephalographic recordings. , 1998, Psychophysiology.

[40]  E. Donchin,et al.  Is the P300 component a manifestation of context updating? , 1988, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[41]  I. Winkler.  Interpreting the Mismatch Negativity , 2007 .

[42]  C. Escera,et al.  Role of Mismatch Negativity and Novelty-P3 in Involuntary Auditory Attention , 2007 .

[43]  E. Schröger,et al.  Attentional orienting and reorienting is indicated by human event‐related brain potentials , 1998, Neuroreport.

[44]  E. Schröger,et al.  Behavioral and electrophysiological effects of task-irrelevant sound change: a new distraction paradigm. , 1998, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[45]  R. Näätänen,et al.  Early selective-attention effect on evoked potential reinterpreted. , 1978, Acta psychologica.