I must have missed that: Alpha-band oscillations track attention to spoken language
I must have missed that: Alpha-band oscillations track attention to spoken language
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DOI：
10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.05.024
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发表时间：
2018-08-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Carter, C. S.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Boudewyn, M. A.;Carter, C. S.
在理解过程中，注意对语境心理表征的构建起着至关重要的作用。我们研究了听力理解过程中注意力暂时丧失对神经活动和行为的影响。受试者听两个完整的故事，同时记录脑电图，然后完成多项选择理解问题。倾听被注意力探测器周期性地打断，参与者被问到在探测器出现之前他们的注意力是否集中在故事上。结果表明：（1）被试在任务外花费了大量的时间，超过30%的被试对注意失误进行了认可;（2）被试对注意失误进行认可的被试，在理解问题中查询前探测信息的准确性降低;（3）在注意力缺失的认可之前的预探测期，其特征是上述百分比较高-与认可任务或分散注意力听力之前相比，α波段（8-12 Hz）的阈值振荡;（4）当被试对理解问题做出“我不知道”的回答时，他们的脑电图记录显示，与正确回答或不正确猜测相比，在理解问题所询问的信息的原始呈现期间的阈值α振荡。这些结果将α波段神经活动的变化与听力理解过程中的走神联系起来，进而降低理解准确性。这表明alpha可以用来跟踪语言理解过程中的注意力投入，并说明成功的语言理解对注意力的依赖。
Attention is critical to the construction of mental representations of language context during comprehension. We investigated the consequences of momentary lapses in attention during listening comprehension on neural activity and behavior. Participants listened to two full-length stories while EEG was recorded, and afterwards completed multiple choice comprehension questions. Listening was periodically interrupted by attention probes, in which participants were asked whether their attention immediately preceding the probe's appearance was focused on the story. The results showed that (1) participants spent a substantial amount of time off-task, endorsing attention lapses on over 30% of probes; (2) for probes on which an attention lapse was endorsed, later accuracy on comprehension questions querying pre-probe information was decreased; (3) the pre-probe period just before the endorsement of an attention lapse was characterized by a greater percentage of above-threshold oscillations in the alpha-band (8-12 Hz) compared to just prior to the endorsement of on-task or split-attention listening; and (4) when participants made "I have no idea" responses to comprehension questions, their EEG record revealed a greater percentage of above-threshold alpha oscillations during the original presentation of the information queried by the comprehension questions, compared to correct responses or incorrect guesses. These results connect changes in neural activity in the alpha band to episodes of mind-wandering during listening comprehension, and in turn to decreased comprehension accuracy. This demonstrates how alpha can be used to track attentional engagement during language comprehension, and illustrates the dependence of successful language comprehension on attention.