Auditory spatial attention gradients and cognitive control as a function of vigilance

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psychology

Background:

• Attention involves selection and effort, but their resource demands are debated.
• It's unclear if early and later cognitive processing stages share resources for attention and effort.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if attention selectivity and effort rely on common cognitive resources.
• To differentiate resource allocation for early versus later cognitive processing during sustained attention.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed an auditory spatial attention task over time.
• Assessed effort via vigilance decrement and spatial processing.
• Measured psychophysiology: cerebral blood flow, pupil dilation, blink rate, and used diffusion decision modeling.

Main Results:

• Attention gradients (early processing) were stable over time.
• Catch trial accuracy and cerebral blood flow velocity decreased over time, suggesting vigilance decrement.
• Information accumulation rate and non-decision time decreased, with more liberal response criteria.

Conclusions:

• Findings suggest dissociations between resources for attention selectivity and effort.
• Vigilance decrement and declines in cerebral blood flow indicate effort declined while selection remained intact.
• Different attentional systems may underlie selectivity and effort during sustained cognitive tasks.