Search results for "attention"
showing 10 items of 934 documents
An emotional Stroop task with faces and words. A comparison of young and older adults
2017
Abstract Antecedents Given the contradictions of previous studies on the changes in attentional responses produced in aging a Stroop emotional task was proposed to compare young and older adults to words or faces with an emotional valence. Method The words happy or sad were superimposed on faces that express the emotion of happiness or sadness. The emotion expressed by the word and the face could agree or not (cued and uncued trials, respectively). 85 young and 66 healthy older adults had to identify both faces and words separately, and the interference between the two types of stimuli was examined. Results An interference effect was observed for both types of stimuli in both groups. There …
Dysfunctional cortical inhibition in adult ADHD: neural correlates in auditory event-related potentials.
2013
In recent times, the relevance of an accurate diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults has been the focus of several studies. No longer considered a pathology exclusive to children and adolescents, and taking into account its social implications, developing enhanced support tools for the current diagnostic procedure becomes a priority. Here we present a method for the objective assessment of ADHD in adults using chirp-evoked, paired auditory late responses (ALRs) combined with a two-dimensional ALR denoising scheme to extract correlates of intracortical inhibition. Our method allows for an effective single-sweep denoising, thus requiring less trials to obtain r…
Effects of Selective Attention on Syntax Processing in Music and Language
2010
Abstract The present study investigated the effects of auditory selective attention on the processing of syntactic information in music and speech using event-related potentials. Spoken sentences or musical chord sequences were either presented in isolation, or simultaneously. When presented simultaneously, participants had to focus their attention either on speech, or on music. Final words of sentences and final harmonies of chord sequences were syntactically either correct or incorrect. Irregular chords elicited an early right anterior negativity (ERAN), whose amplitude was decreased when music was simultaneously presented with speech, compared to when only music was presented. However, t…
Speech- and sound-segmentation in dyslexia: evidence for a multiple-level cortical impairment
2006
Developmental dyslexia involves deficits in the visual and auditory domains, but is primarily characterized by an inability to translate the written linguistic code to the sound structure. Recent research has shown that auditory dysfunctions in dyslexia might originate from impairments in early pre-attentive processes, which affect behavioral discrimination. Previous studies have shown that whereas dyslexic individuals are deficient in discriminating sound distinctions involving consonants or simple pitch changes, discrimination of other sound aspects, such as tone duration, is intact. We hypothesized that such contrasts that can be discriminated by dyslexic individuals when heard in isolat…
Genetic and environmental contributions to the inverse association between specific autistic traits and experience seeking in adults
2015
Autistic traits are characterized by social and communication problems, restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities. The relation between autistic traits and personality characteristics is largely unknown. This study focused on the relation between five specific autistic traits measured with the abridged version of the Autism Spectrum Quotient ("social problems," "preference for routine," "attentional switching difficulties," "imagination impairments," "fascination for numbers and patterns") and Experience Seeking (ES) in a general population sample of adults, and subsequently investigated the genetic and environmental etiology between these traits.…
Wertheim’s hypothesis on ‘highway hypnosis’: empirical evidence from a study on motorway and conventional road driving
2003
This paper aims to study the phenomenon known as 'highway hypnosis' or 'driving without attention mode', which has been defined as a state showing sleepiness signs and attention slip resulting from driving a motor vehicle for a long period in a highly predictable environment with low event occurrence, this being the case with motorways and very familiar roads [Highway hypnosis: a theoretical analysis. In: Gale, A.G., Brown, I.D., Haslegrave, C.M., Moorhead, I., Taylor, S. (Eds.), Vision in Vehicles-III. Elsevier, North-Holland, pp. 467-472]. According to Wertheim's hypothesis on 'highway hypnosis', long-term driving on motorways and conventional roads, e.g. main roads, secondary roads--impl…
Driving on the motorway: the effect of alternating speed on driver's activation level and mental effort
2002
When most of the driving tasks are performed automatically, a driver's level of alertness may decline, as has been pointed out in the study of the phenomenon called 'highway hypnosis'. One possible countermeasure is to periodically vary the speed (Wertheim 1978), but the authors have not found any studies that directly assess the effectiveness of this countermeasure. The objective of our study has been to provide empirical evidence regarding the effects of this strategy on the level of driver activation on a motorway route in real traffic. In the present study activation level as indexed by a relative measure based on slow EEG activity tended to be significantly higher when speed was modifi…
The Attentional Demand of Automobile Driving Revisited: Occlusion Distance as a Function of Task- Relevant Event Density in Realistic Driving Scenari…
2014
Objective: We studied the utility of occlusion distance as a function of task-relevant event density in realistic traffic scenarios with self-controlled speed. Background: The visual occlusion technique is an established method for assessing visual demands of driving. However, occlusion time is not a highly informative measure of environmental task-relevant event density in self-paced driving scenarios because it partials out the effects of changes in driving speed. Method: Self-determined occlusion times and distances of 97 drivers with varying backgrounds were analyzed in driving scenarios simulating real Finnish suburban and highway traffic environments with self-determined vehicle speed…
Driving habits and risk factors for traffic accidents among sleep apnea patients - a European multi-centre cohort study
2014
Obstructive sleep apnea is associated with increased motor vehicle accident risk, and improved detection of patients at risk is of importance. The present study addresses potential risk factors in the European Sleep Apnea Database and includes patients with suspected obstructive sleep apnea [n = 8476, age 51.5 (12.5) years, body mass index 31.0 (6.6) kg m(-2) , 82.4% driver's licence holders]. Driving distance (km year(-1) ), driver's licence type, sleep apnea severity, sleepiness and comorbidities were assessed. Previously validated risk factors for accident history: Epworth Sleepiness Scale ≥16; habitual sleep time ≤5 h; use of hypnotics; and driving ≥15 000 km year(-1) were analysed acro…
Impaired regulation of emotion: Neural correlates of reappraisal and distraction in bipolar disorder and unaffected relatives
2015
Deficient emotion regulation has been proposed as a crucial pathological mechanism in bipolar disorder (BD). We therefore investigated emotion regulation impairments in BD, the related neural underpinnings and their etiological relevance for the disorder. Twenty-two euthymic patients with bipolar-I disorder and 17 unaffected first-degree relatives of BD-I patients, as well as two groups of healthy gender-, age- and education-matched controls (N=22/17, respectively) were included. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while applying two different emotion regulation techniques, reappraisal and distraction, when presented with emotional images. BD patients and relatives …