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Non-spatial skills differ in the front and rear peri-personal space
Elena Aggius-Vella1, Monica Gori2, Silvia Animali3
1Unit for Visually Impaired People (U-VIP), Center for Human Technologies, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genoa, Italy; Institute for Mind, Brain and Technology, Ivcher School of Psychology, Inter-Disciplinary Center (IDC), Herzeliya, Israel.
Neuropsychologia
|September 8, 2020
Summary
Pupils dilate to rare sounds, with greater dilation for task-relevant targets. This pupillary response is stronger for sounds in front versus rear space, indicating spatial modulation of attention.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive neuroscience
- Auditory perception
- Spatial processing
Background:
- The peri-personal space is a critical interface for interacting with the environment.
- Auditory stimuli play a significant role in alerting individuals to relevant events.
- Understanding how the brain processes spatial and task-relevant auditory information is essential.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate pupillary and behavioral responses to auditory oddball stimuli.
- To examine the influence of stimulus location (front vs. rear peri-personal space) on these responses.
- To determine if task relevance and spatial location differentially modulate attention.
Main Methods:
- Participants responded to auditory oddball stimuli presented in front and rear peri-personal space.
- Behavioral responses (e.g., reaction time, accuracy) were recorded.
- Pupillary responses (dilation) were measured as an index of cognitive and emotional processing.
Main Results:
- Pupils dilated in response to both rare target and distractor stimuli.
- Target stimuli elicited stronger pupillary dilation than distractor stimuli, suggesting a task relevance effect.
- Pupillary dilation to target stimuli was significantly greater for sounds originating in the front compared to the rear peri-personal space.
- Behavioral performance was matched across spatial locations, highlighting the dissociation between behavioral and pupillary measures.
Conclusions:
- Pupillary responses reflect the processing of auditory stimuli, with enhanced dilation for task-relevant targets.
- The brain differentially engages attentional resources across subregions of peri-personal space, even for non-spatial alerting.
- Auditory attention is spatially modulated, with greater allocation to stimuli in the front peri-personal space.
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