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  4. Real-time EEG Feedback on Alpha Power Lateralization Leads to Behavioral Improvements in a Covert Attention Task
 
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research article

Real-time EEG Feedback on Alpha Power Lateralization Leads to Behavioral Improvements in a Covert Attention Task

Schneider, Christoph  
•
Pereira, Michael  
•
Tonin, Luca  
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January 1, 2020
Brain Topography

Visual attention can be spatially oriented, even in the absence of saccadic eye-movements, to facilitate the processing of incoming visual information. One behavioral proxy for this so-called covert visuospatial attention (CVSA) is the validity effect (VE): the reduction in reaction time (RT) to visual stimuli at attended locations and the increase in RT to stimuli at unattended locations. At the electrophysiological level, one correlate of CVSA is the lateralization in the occipital α-band oscillations, resulting from α-power increases ipsilateral and decreases contralateral to the attended hemifield. While this α-band lateralization has been considerably studied using electroencephalography (EEG) or magnetoencephalography (MEG), little is known about whether it can be trained to improve CVSA behaviorally. In this cross-over sham-controlled study we used continuous real-time feedback of the occipital α-lateralization to modulate behavioral and electrophysiological markers of covert attention. Fourteen subjects performed a cued CVSA task, involving fast responses to covertly attended stimuli. During real-time feedback runs, trials extended in time if subjects reached states of high α-lateralization. Crucially, the ongoing α-lateralization was fed back to the subject by changing the color of the attended stimulus. We hypothesized that this ability to self-monitor lapses in CVSA and thus being able to refocus attention accordingly would lead to improved CVSA performance during subsequent testing. We probed the effect of the intervention by evaluating the pre-post changes in the VE and the α-lateralization. Behaviorally, results showed a significant interaction between feedback (experimental–sham) and time (pre-post) for the validity effect, with an increase in performance only for the experimental condition. We did not find corresponding pre-post changes in the α-lateralization. Our findings suggest that EEG-based real-time feedback is a promising tool to enhance the level of covert visuospatial attention, especially with respect to behavioral changes. This opens up the exploration of applications of the proposed training method for the cognitive rehabilitation of attentional disorders.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1007/s10548-019-00725-9
Web of Science ID

WOS:000511765300005

Author(s)
Schneider, Christoph  
•
Pereira, Michael  
•
Tonin, Luca  
•
Millan, Jose del R.  
Date Issued

2020-01-01

Publisher

SPRINGER

Published in
Brain Topography
Volume

33

Issue

1

Start page

48

End page

59

Subjects

Clinical Neurology

•

Neurosciences

•

Neurosciences & Neurology

•

covert visuospatial attention

•

brain-computer interface

•

eeg

•

closed-loop

•

alpha band lateralization

•

hemispatial neglect

•

human visual-cortex

•

spatial attention

•

visuospatial attention

•

parietal

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suppression

•

mechanisms

•

absence

•

bias

Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
CNBI  
LNCO  
Available on Infoscience
April 5, 2020
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/167960
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