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Involuntary shifts of spatial attention contribute to behavioral crossmodal distraction - Evidence from oscillatory alpha power and reaction time data

View ORCID ProfileAnnekathrin Weise, View ORCID ProfileThomas Hartmann, View ORCID ProfileFabrice Parmentier, View ORCID ProfileNathan Weisz, View ORCID ProfilePhilipp Ruhnau
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.29.161992
Annekathrin Weise
1CCNS and Division of Physiological Psychology, Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
2Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany
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  • For correspondence: annekathrinweise@gmail.com
Thomas Hartmann
1CCNS and Division of Physiological Psychology, Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
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Fabrice Parmentier
3Neuropsychology & Cognition Group, Department of Psychology and Institute of Health Sciences (iUNICS), University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Spain
4Balearic Islands Health Research Institute (IdISBa), Palma, Spain
5Department of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
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Nathan Weisz
1CCNS and Division of Physiological Psychology, Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria
6Neuroscience Institute, Christian Doppler University Hospital, Paracelsus Medical University, Salzburg Austria
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Philipp Ruhnau
7Department of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany
8Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences, Otto-von-Guericke-University, Magdeburg, Germany
9School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
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Abstract

Imagine you are focusing on the traffic on a busy street to ride your bike safely when suddenly you hear an ambulance siren. This unexpected sound involuntarily captures your attention and interferes with ongoing performance. We tested whether this type of behavioral distraction involves a spatial shift of attention. We measured behavioral distraction and magnetoencephalographic alpha power during a crossmodal paradigm that combined an exogenous cueing task and a distraction task. In each trial, a task-irrelevant sound preceded a visual target (left or right). The sound was usually the same animal sound (i.e., standard sound). Rarely, it was replaced by an unexpected environmental sound (i.e., deviant sound). Fifty percent of the deviants occurred on the same side as the target, and 50% occurred on the opposite side. Participants responded to the location of the target. As expected, responses were slower to targets that followed a deviant compared to a standard, reflecting behavioral distraction. Crucially, this distraction was mitigated by the spatial relationship between the targets and the deviants: responses were faster when targets followed deviants on the same versus different side, indexing a spatial shift of attention. This was further corroborated by a posterior alpha power modulation that was higher in the hemisphere ipsilateral (vs. contralateral) to the location of the attention-capturing deviant. We suggest that this alpha power lateralization reflects a spatial attention bias. Overall, our data support the contention that spatial shifts of attention contribute to behavioral deviant distraction.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted July 22, 2021.
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Involuntary shifts of spatial attention contribute to behavioral crossmodal distraction - Evidence from oscillatory alpha power and reaction time data
Annekathrin Weise, Thomas Hartmann, Fabrice Parmentier, Nathan Weisz, Philipp Ruhnau
bioRxiv 2020.06.29.161992; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.29.161992
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Involuntary shifts of spatial attention contribute to behavioral crossmodal distraction - Evidence from oscillatory alpha power and reaction time data
Annekathrin Weise, Thomas Hartmann, Fabrice Parmentier, Nathan Weisz, Philipp Ruhnau
bioRxiv 2020.06.29.161992; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.29.161992

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