Biology subjects

Matusz, P. J.

Publications and source records attributed to Matusz, P. J..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2020

Uncovering the mechanisms of real-world attentional control over the course of primary education

Schooling may shape childrens abilities to control their attention, but it is unclear if this impact extends from control over visual objects to encompass multisensory objects, which are more typical of everyday environments. We compared children across three primary school grades ([country] 1st, 3rd, and 5th grade) on their performance on a game-like audio-visual attentional control task, while recording their EEG. Behavioral markers of visual attentional control were present from 3rd grade (after 2 years of schooling), whereas multisensory attentional control was not detected in any group. However, multivariate whole-brain EEG analyses ( electrical neuroimaging) revealed stable patterns of brain activity that indexed both types of attentional control - visual control in all groups, and multisensory attentional control from 3rd grade onwards. Multivariate EEG approaches can uncover otherwise undetectable mechanisms of attentional control over visual and multisensory objects and characterize how they differ at different educational stages. Lay AbstractWe measured how visual and audiovisual distractors differ in capturing the attention of 1st- to 5th-graders while recording the childrens brain activity. Brain activity results showed that all children were sensitive to visual distraction, and from 3rd grade onwards, children were also sensitive to audiovisual distraction. These results deepen our understanding of how school children control their attention in everyday environments, which are made up of information that stimulates multiple senses at a time.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

How we pay attention in naturalistic settings

Research on attentional control has largely focused on single senses and the importance of behavioural goals in controlling attention. However, everyday situations are multisensory and contain regularities, both likely influencing attention. We investigated how visual attentional capture is simultaneously impacted by top-down goals, the multisensory nature of stimuli, and the contextual factors of stimulis semantic relationship and temporal predictability. Participants performed a multisensory version of the Folk et al. (1992) spatial cueing paradigm, searching for a target of a predefined colour (e.g. a red bar) within an array preceded by a distractor. We manipulated: 1) stimulis goal-relevance via distractors colour (matching vs. mismatching the target), 2) stimulis multisensory nature (colour distractors appearing alone vs. with tones), 3) the relationship between the distractor sound and colour (arbitrary vs. semantically congruent) and 4) the temporal predictability of distractor onset. Reaction-time spatial cueing served as a behavioural measure of attentional selection. We also recorded 129-channel event-related potentials (ERPs), analysing the distractor-elicited N2pc component both canonically and using a multivariate electrical neuroimaging framework. Behaviourally, arbitrary target-matching distractors captured attention more strongly than semantically congruent ones, with no evidence for context modulating multisensory enhancements of capture. Notably, electrical neuroimaging of surface-level EEG analyses revealed context-based influences on attention to both visual and multisensory distractors, in how strongly they activated the brain and type of activated brain networks. For both processes, the context-driven brain response modulations occurred long before the N2pc time-window, with topographic (network-based) modulations at ~30ms, followed by strength-based modulations at ~100ms post-distractor onset. Our results reveal that both stimulus meaning and predictability modulate attentional selection, and they interact while doing so. Meaning, in addition to temporal predictability, is thus a second source of contextual information facilitating goal-directed behaviour. More broadly, in everyday situations, attention is controlled by an interplay between ones goals, stimulis perceptual salience, meaning and predictability. Our study calls for a revision of attentional control theories to account for the role of contextual and multisensory control.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

The development of attentional control mechanisms in multisensory environments

Outside the laboratory, people need to pay attention to relevant objects that are typically multisensory, but it remains poorly understood how the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms develop. We investigated when adult-like mechanisms controlling ones attentional selection of visual and multisensory objects emerge across childhood. Five-, 7-, and 9-year-olds were compared with adults in their performance on a computer game-like multisensory spatial cueing task, while 129-channel EEG was simultaneously recorded. Markers of attentional control were behavioural spatial cueing effects and the N2pc ERP component (analysed traditionally and using a multivariate electrical neuroimaging framework). In behaviour, adult-like visual attentional control was present from age 7 onwards, whereas multisensory control was absent in all children groups. In EEG, multivariate analyses of the activity over the N2pc time-window revealed stable brain activity patterns in children. Adult-like visual-attentional control EEG patterns were present age 7 onwards, while multisensory control activity patterns were found in 9-year-olds (albeit behavioural measures showed no effects). By combining rigorous yet naturalistic paradigms with multivariate signal analyses, we demonstrated that visual attentional control seems to reach an adult-like state at ~7 years, before adult-like multisensory control, emerging at ~9 years. These results enrich our understanding of how attention in naturalistic settings develops. HighlightsO_LIBy age 7, children showed adult-like task-set contingent attentional capture in behaviour C_LIO_LIChildrens behavioural data did not show evidence for attentional enhancement for multisensory objects, but 9-year-olds EEG topographic patterns elicited by multisensory vs. purely visual distractors differed reliably C_LIO_LITraditional visual attentional event-related potential (ERP) analyses, such as the N2pc, did not detect attentional enhancement for multisensory objects in adults, and visual or multisensory attention in children C_LIO_LIMultivariate analyses of ERPs, such as electrical neuroimaging, are more sensitive to the change of attentional control processes over development C_LI

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Selective attention to sound features mediates cross-modal activation of visual cortices

Contemporary schemas of brain organization now include multisensory processes both in low-level cortices as well as at early stages of stimulus processing. Evidence has also accumulated showing that unisensory stimulus processing can result in cross-modal effects. For example, task-irrelevant and lateralized sounds can activate visual cortices; a phenomenon referred to as the auditory-evoked contralateral occipital positivity (ACOP). Some claim this is an example of automatic attentional capture in visual cortices. Other results, however, indicate that context may play a determinant role. Here, we investigated whether selective attention to spatial features of sounds is a determining factor in eliciting the ACOP. We recorded high-density auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) while participants selectively attended and discriminated sounds according to four possible stimulus attributes: location, pitch, speaker identity or syllable. Sound acoustics were held constant, and their location was always equiprobable (50% left, 50% right). The only manipulation was to which sound dimension participants attended. We analysed the AEP data from healthy participants within an electrical neuroimaging framework. The presence of sound-elicited activations of visual cortices depended on the to-be-discriminated, goal-based dimension. The ACOP was elicited only when participants were required to discriminate sound location, but not when they attended to any of the non-spatial features. These results provide a further indication that the ACOP is not automatic. Moreover, our findings showcase the interplay between task-relevance and spatial (un)predictability in determining the presence of the cross-modal activation of visual cortices.

neuroscience↗