Attentional distractor interference may be diminished by concurrent working memory load in normal participants and traumatic brain injury patients

Liaño, Beatriz Gil-Gómez de; Umiltà, Carlo; Stablum, Franca; Tebaldi, F.; Cantagallo, Anna

doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2010.08.009

Cited by 14 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The differential impact of LPFC lesion on the facilitatory and inhibitory components of auditory attention suggests selective enhancement and suppression of the neural activity observed in auditory cortical regions according to sound relevance (Bidet-Caulet et al 2007) would be controlled by distinct facilitatory and inhibitory attentional mechanisms. This result is consistent with recent findings showing that enhancement and suppression are differentially affected by aging (Gazzaley et al 2005(Gazzaley et al , 2008 and cognitive load manipulations (Rissman et al 2009;Bidet-Caulet et al 2010;Gil-Gomez de Liano et al 2010), as well as coupled with distinct networks (Chadick and Gazzaley 2011). The present results provide evidence that, facilitatory signals enabling enhancement of task-relevant sound processing in auditory cortices originate in the LPFC.…”

Section: )supporting

confidence: 93%

“…Recent evidence in the visual modality suggests that enhancement and suppression are controlled by functionally distinct mechanisms; for example, they are differentially affected by aging (Gazzaley et al 2005(Gazzaley et al , 2008 and cognitive load manipulations (Rissman et al 2009;Gil-Gomez de Liano et al 2010). Furthermore, in a previous EEG study of auditory selective attention, we manipulated the cognitive load to test whether facilitatory and inhibitory mechanisms can operate independently (Bidet-Caulet et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Impaired Facilitatory Mechanisms of Auditory Attention After Damage of the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex

et al. 2014

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There is growing evidence that auditory selective attention operates via distinct facilitatory and inhibitory mechanisms enabling selective enhancement and suppression of sound processing, respectively. The lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) plays a crucial role in the top-down control of selective attention. However, whether the LPFC controls facilitatory, inhibitory, or both attentional mechanisms is unclear. Facilitatory and inhibitory mechanisms were assessed, in patients with LPFC damage, by comparing event-related potentials (ERPs) to attended and ignored sounds with ERPs to these same sounds when attention was equally distributed to all sounds. In control subjects, we observed 2 late frontally distributed ERP components: a transient facilitatory component occurring from 150 to 250 ms after sound onset; and an inhibitory component onsetting at 250 ms. Only the facilitatory component was affected in patients with LPFC damage: this component was absent when attending to sounds delivered in the ear contralateral to the lesion, with the most prominent decreases observed over the damaged brain regions. These findings have 2 important implications: (i) they provide evidence for functionally distinct facilitatory and inhibitory mechanisms supporting late auditory selective attention; (ii) they show that the LPFC is involved in the control of the facilitatory mechanisms of auditory attention.

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Section: )supporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impaired Facilitatory Mechanisms of Auditory Attention After Damage of the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex

et al. 2014

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“…High working memory load has repeatedly been shown to either increase or reduce distractibility, depending on whether the contents of the working memory task overlap with the processing of the target or the distractor in a selective attention task, respectively (Kim et al, 2005; Park et al, 2007; de Liaño et al, 2010). High working memory load involving maintaining a set of letters leads to greater processing of the irrelevant color of a Stroop color word when the meaning of the word has to be attended (and the color ignored), but to reduced processing of the irrelevant word when the color has to be attended (and word meaning ignored).…”

Section: Working Memory Load and Distractibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…High working memory load involving maintaining a set of letters leads to greater processing of the irrelevant color of a Stroop color word when the meaning of the word has to be attended (and the color ignored), but to reduced processing of the irrelevant word when the color has to be attended (and word meaning ignored). High load on a working memory task for spatial location has no effect on distractor processing in either case (Kim et al, 2005; de Liaño et al, 2010). Similarly, when the working memory task involves memorizing either faces or houses, and the selective attention task also requires attending to faces and ignoring houses, or vice versa, distractor effects are increased when the working memory items are of the same category as the targets in the attention task, but reduced when they are the same as the distractors (Park et al, 2007).…”

Section: Working Memory Load and Distractibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond perceptual load and dilution: a review of the role of working memory in selective attention

Fockert

2013

Front. Psychol.

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The perceptual load and dilution models differ fundamentally in terms of the proposed mechanism underlying variation in distractibility during different perceptual conditions. However, both models predict that distracting information can be processed beyond perceptual processing under certain conditions, a prediction that is well-supported by the literature. Load theory proposes that in such cases, where perceptual task aspects do not allow for sufficient attentional selectivity, the maintenance of task-relevant processing depends on cognitive control mechanisms, including working memory. The key prediction is that working memory plays a role in keeping clear processing priorities in the face of potential distraction, and the evidence reviewed and evaluated in a meta-analysis here supports this claim, by showing that the processing of distracting information tends to be enhanced when load on a concurrent task of working memory is high. Low working memory capacity is similarly associated with greater distractor processing in selective attention, again suggesting that the unavailability of working memory during selective attention leads to an increase in distractibility. Together, these findings suggest that selective attention against distractors that are processed beyond perception depends on the availability of working memory. Possible mechanisms for the effects of working memory on selective attention are discussed.

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“…Previous researchers had suggested that there could be a strong interplay of attentional demands and memory load on executive functioning processes (McCabe et al 2010). For example, Kim et al (2005) and de Liaño et al (2010) found that interference effects from distractors could be attenuated under high working memory load, suggesting that under the right conditions affective flanker effects were nullified instead. In a more recent finding, Scharinger et al (2015) found that increasing memory load resulted in increased activation on one's attentional network, making task performance less susceptible to distractor information.…”

Section: Analysis 1: Affective Versus Non-affective Flanker Distractomentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiential and Strategic Emotional Intelligence Are Implicated When Inhibiting Affective and Non-Affective Distractors: Findings from Three Emotional Flanker N-Back Tasks

Lim

Birney

2021

J. Intell.

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Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to a set of competencies to process, understand, and reason with affective information. Recent studies suggest ability measures of experiential and strategic EI differentially predict performance on non-emotional and emotionally laden tasks. To explore cognitive processes underlying these abilities further, we varied the affective context of a traditional letter-based n-back working-memory task. In study 1, participants completed 0-, 2-, and 3-back tasks with flanking distractors that were either emotional (fearful or happy faces) or non-emotional (shapes or letters stimuli). Strategic EI, but not experiential EI, significantly influenced participants’ accuracy across all n-back levels, irrespective of flanker type. In Study 2, participants completed 1-, 2-, and 3-back levels. Experiential EI was positively associated with response times for emotional flankers at the 1-back level but not other levels or flanker types, suggesting those higher in experiential EI reacted slower on low-load trials with affective context. In Study 3, flankers were asynchronously presented either 300 ms or 1000 ms before probes. Results mirrored Study 1 for accuracy rates and Study 2 for response times. Our findings (a) provide experimental evidence for the distinctness of experiential and strategic EI and (b) suggest that each are related to different aspects of cognitive processes underlying working memory.

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Attentional distractor interference may be diminished by concurrent working memory load in normal participants and traumatic brain injury patients

Cited by 14 publications

References 38 publications

Impaired Facilitatory Mechanisms of Auditory Attention After Damage of the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex

Impaired Facilitatory Mechanisms of Auditory Attention After Damage of the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex

Beyond perceptual load and dilution: a review of the role of working memory in selective attention

Experiential and Strategic Emotional Intelligence Are Implicated When Inhibiting Affective and Non-Affective Distractors: Findings from Three Emotional Flanker N-Back Tasks

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