Effects of non-invasive brain stimulation on attention: Current debates, cognitive studies and novel clinical applications

Harvey, Monika; Kerkhoff, Georg

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.06.020

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Although our older adults failed to show any lateralised biases on the landmark and line bisection tasks, similar to many previous findings [ 9 – 20 ], there were no significant age-related differences when each task was probed using independent samples t-tests. We had initially predicted that, if lane-keeping behaviour is determined by perceptual attention asymmetries, our older adults would prove less lateralised than the younger group on all tasks.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Given that our results showed a positioning towards the opposite side, it is unlikely that this prior experience substantially influenced behaviour on the lane position task. It is also important to note that we observed a considerable number of older adults who, individually, did maintain a leftward bias in the landmark and line bisection tasks similar to the young group (see [ 9 , 10 , 22 ]). These older adults may represent a highly-functioning subset of the population, given that older participants are often self-selective in volunteering for lab-based experiments, and full-profile cognitive testing was unfortunately not undertaken here.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…We have previously demonstrated consistent within-task spatial biases when 5 tasks were tested on two separate days, yet failed to find between-task consistency in young adults [ 7 ] (see also [ 3 ] and [ 8 ]). Relative to young adults, healthy older adults typically exhibit a group-level rightward shift of spatial bias, with either no spatial asymmetry, or a mild preference for the right hemispace ([ 9 – 20 ] but see [ 21 , 22 ] for maintained leftward biases in older age). This behavioural shift may represent diminished right hemisphere control of spatial attention in older adults [ 10 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Right-lateralised lane keeping in young and older British drivers

et al. 2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Young adults demonstrate a small, but consistent, asymmetry of spatial attention favouring the left side of space (“pseudoneglect”) in laboratory-based tests of perception. Conversely, in more naturalistic environments, behavioural errors towards the right side of space are often observed. In the older population, spatial attention asymmetries are generally diminished, or even reversed to favour the right side of space, but much of this evidence has been gained from lab-based and/or psychophysical testing. In this study we assessed whether spatial biases can be elicited during a simulated driving task, and secondly whether these biases also shift with age, in line with standard lab-based measures. Data from 77 right-handed adults with full UK driving licences (i.e. prior experience of left-lane driving) were analysed: 38 young (mean age = 21.53) and 39 older adults (mean age = 70.38). Each participant undertook 3 tests of visuospatial attention: the landmark task, line bisection task, and a simulated lane-keeping task. We found leftward biases in young adults for the landmark and line bisection tasks, indicative of pseudoneglect, and a mean lane position towards the right of centre. In young adults the leftward landmark task biases were negatively correlated with rightward lane-keeping biases, hinting that a common property of the spatial attention networks may have influenced both tasks. As predicted, older adults showed no group-level spatial asymmetry on the landmark nor the line bisection task, but they maintained a mean rightward lane position, similar to young adults. The 3 tasks were not inter-correlated in the older group. These results suggest that spatial biases in older adults may be elicited more effectively in experiments involving complex behaviour rather than abstract, lab-based measures. More broadly, these results confirm that lateral biases of spatial attention are linked to driving behaviour, and this could prove informative in the development of future vehicle safety and driving technology.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Right-lateralised lane keeping in young and older British drivers

et al. 2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Furthermore, it would be worth investigating whether increased amount of the spatial-priming (multiple session) could enhance the observed effects i.e., changes in the spatial bias and/or selectivity. Future work could also investigate the clinical applicability of such protocols in rehabilitation of visuospatial disorders, in particular if the effect is found to be long lasting (see Harvey & Kerkhoff, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In another study, the TVA framework was used to assess the effectiveness of a meditation-based intervention, and demonstrated that the affected components were unrelated to a change in attentional parameters (Jensen et al, 2012). Finally, a recent study by Moos and colleagues (2012) employed the TVA model to measure changes in attentional parameters following application of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), an emerging approach for cognitive intervention in both healthy and clinical populations (for recent review see Filmer, Dux & Mattingley, 2014;Santarnecchi et al, 2015;Harvey & Kerkhoff, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond time and space: The effect of a lateralized sustained attention task and brain stimulation on spatial and selective attention

Shalev

Wandel

Dockree

et al. 2018

Cortex

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Theory of Visual Attention (TVA) provides a mathematical formalisation of the "biased competition" account of visual attention. Applying this model to individual performance in a free recall task allows the estimation of 5 independent attentional parameters: visual short-term memory (VSTM) capacity, speed of information processing, perceptual threshold of visual detection; attentional weights representing spatial distribution of attention (spatial bias), and the top-down selectivity index. While the TVA focuses on selection in space, complementary accounts of attention describe how attention is maintained over time, and how temporal processes interact with selection. A growing body of evidence indicates that different facets of attention interact and share common neural substrates. The aim of the current study was to modulate a spatial attentional bias via transfer effects, based on a mechanistic understanding of the interplay between spatial, selective and temporal aspects of attention. Specifically, we examined here: (i) whether a single administration of a lateralized sustained attention task could prime spatial orienting and lead to transferable changes in attentional weights (assigned to the left vs right hemi-field) and/or other attentional parameters assessed within the framework of TVA (Experiment 1); (ii) whether the effects of such spatial-priming on TVA parameters could be further enhanced by bi-parietal high frequency transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) (Experiment 2). Our results demonstrate that spatial attentional bias, as assessed within the TVA framework, was primed by sustaining attention towards the right hemi-field, but this spatial-priming effect did not occur when sustaining attention towards the left. Furthermore, we show that bi-parietal high-frequency tRNS combined with the rightward spatial-priming resulted in an increased attentional selectivity. To conclude, we present a novel, theory-driven method for attentional modulation providing important insights into how the spatial and temporal processes in attention interact with attentional selection.

show abstract