Auditory attention in childhood and adolescence: An event-related potential study of spatial selective attention to one of two simultaneous stories

Abstract

Auditory selective attention is a critical skill for goal-directed behavior, especially where noisy distractions may impede focusing attention. To better understand the developmental trajectory of auditory spatial selective attention in an acoustically complex environment, in the current study we measured auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) in human children across five age groups: 3–5 years; 10 years; 13 years; 16 years; and young adults using a naturalistic dichotic listening paradigm, characterizing the ERP morphology for nonlinguistic and linguistic auditory probes embedded in attended and unattended stories. We documented robust maturational changes in auditory evoked potentials that were specific to the types of probes. Furthermore, we found a remarkable interplay between age and attention-modulation of auditory evoked potentials in terms of morphology and latency from the early years of childhood through young adulthood. The results are consistent with the view that attention can operate across age groups by modulating the amplitude of maturing auditory early-latency evoked potentials or by invoking later endogenous attention processes. Development of these processes is not uniform for probes with different acoustic properties within our acoustically dense speech-based dichotic listening task. In light of the developmental differences we demonstrate, researchers conducting future attention studies of children and adolescents should be wary of combining analyses across diverse ages.

Neuroplasticity of selective attention: Research foundations and preliminary evidence for a gene by intervention interaction

“…However, in studies using the dichotic listening paradigm described above, the selective attention effect has been observed as positive in amplitude in early childhood, mimicking the morphology of the auditory ERPs that are positive in amplitude for the probes in both the attended and the unattended stories in young children. As discussed in previous studies (24,25,27), we argue that this difference in morphology mainly stems from the maturation of the auditory cortex and that the selective attention effect that emerges around 100 ms in children reflects a developing early selection and sensory gain mechanism.…”

Parasympathetic and Sympathetic Activity Are Associated with Individual Differences in Neural Indices of Selective Attention in Adults

“…Auditory selective attention task. We used the same auditory attention ERP paradigm as our previous studies with child and adult participants (Karns, Isbell, Giuliano, & Neville, 2015;Neville et al, 2013;Stevens et al, 2009;Sanders et al, 2006;Coch et al, 2005). Participants were cued to selectively attend to one of two simultaneously presented children's stories differing in location (left/right loudspeaker), narrator's voice (a male or female reading the entire story aloud), and content.…”

“…Task demands involve sitting still and listening to a narrator within a crowded auditory environment, much like one might be asked to do within an academic or professional context, or even when enjoying leisure time activities. A number of studies have demonstrated that this task is suitable for measuring selective attention from three years of age to adulthood (Karns, Isbell, Giuliano, & Neville, 2015;Sanders. Stevens, Coch, & Neville, 2006), including samples at risk for chronic stress exposure and from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds (Neville et al, 2013;Stevens, Lauinger, & Neville, 2009).…”

Parasympathetic and sympathetic activity are associated with individual differences in neural indices of selective attention in adults

“…We used the same auditory attention ERP paradigm as our previous studies with child and adult participants (Coch, Sanders, & Neville, 2005;Karns et al, 2015;Neville et al, 2013;Sanders et al, 2006;Stevens et al, 2009). Participants were cued to selectively attend to one of two simultaneously presented children's stories differing in location (left/right loudspeaker), narrator's voice (a male or female reading the entire story aloud), and content.…”

“…Task demands involve sitting still and listening to a narrator within a crowded auditory environment, much like common academic, professional, and leisure time contexts. This task is a reliable index of selective attention from 3 years of age to adulthood (Karns, Isbell, Giuliano, & Neville, 2015;Sanders, Stevens, Coch, & Neville, 2006), including samples from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds (Neville et al, 2013;Stevens, Lauinger, & Neville, 2009).…”