Rhythms of Attentional Exploration and Selection

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Niko Busch
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 389690186

• Final Report Year: 2023

Final Report Abstract

Is our perception a continuous stream, or like a series of snapshots like a movie clip? And is sustained attention like a continuous spotlight or like a blinking stroboscope? For the past 15 years, researchers in neuroscience and cognitive psychology have been working on the idea of "perceptual moments", by which our perception and our attention oscillate between favorable and less favorable moments. However, three major issues remained to be addressed. (1) What are the mechanisms explaining these rhythmic fluctuations in our perception/attention? Do we have a degraded representation of our environment? Are our response strategies changing? (2) What is the functional link between behavioral rhythms and neural rhythms, and (3) Is there a causal link between the two? Our Franco- German ANR-DFG project, highly relevant in the current scientific context, has endeavored to answer these three questions thanks to a multimodal approach grounded in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, using a combination of psychophysics, EEG, and brain stimulation. In short, we found a functional dissociation between two distinct rhythms. Specifically, attention rhythmically explores the environment at the theta frequency, alternating from one stimulus to another every ∼200 ms. Once attention is focused on a position, it samples information rhythmically at the alpha frequency, favoring perceptual processing every ∼100 ms. This deeper understanding of the spatio-temporal dynamics of visual attention is essential for understanding the temporal limits of human performance in demanding visual tasks, in activities ranging from security screening to online education, and for enhancing human performance in these areas.

Publications

• Alpha-band sensory entrainment alters the duration of temporal windows in visual perception. Scientific Reports, 8(1).
  Ronconi, Luca; Busch, Niko A. & Melcher, David
  
• Attention explores space periodically at the theta frequency. Journal of Vision, 19(5), 22.
  Senoussi, Mehdi; Moreland, James C.; Busch, Niko A. & Dugué, Laura
  
• Neural oscillations, excitability and perceptual decisions. Journal of Vision, 19(10), 5c.
  Busch, Niko
  
• Perceptual rhythms are driven by oscillations in visual precision. Journal of Vision, 20(11), 1164.
  Michel, René; Dugué, Laura & Busch, Niko A.
  
• Spontaneous Brain Oscillations and Perceptual Decision-Making. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(8), 639-653.
  Samaha, Jason; Iemi, Luca; Haegens, Saskia & Busch, Niko A.
  
• Testing the effect of tACS over parietal cortex in modulating endogenous alpha rhythm and temporal integration windows in visual perception. European Journal of Neuroscience, 55(11-12), 3438-3450.
  Ronconi, Luca; Melcher, David; Junghöfer, Markus; Wolters, Carsten H. & Busch, Niko A.
  
• Distinct contributions of alpha and theta rhythms to perceptual and attentional sampling. European Journal of Neuroscience, 55(11-12), 3025-3039.
  Michel, René; Dugué, Laura & Busch, Niko A.
  
• Rhythmic sampling revisited: Experimental paradigms and neural mechanisms. European Journal of Neuroscience, 55(11-12), 3010-3024.
  Kienitz, Ricardo; Schmid, Michael C. & Dugué, Laura
  
• Theta rhythmic attentional enhancement of alpha rhythmic perceptual sampling. Talk at the Conference of Experimental Psychologists (TeaP), Ulm, Germany. (2021)
  Michel, R., Dugué, L. & Busch, N. A.
  
• Rhythms in cognition: The evidence revisited. European Journal of Neuroscience, 55(11-12), 2991-3009.
  Keitel, Christian; Ruzzoli, Manuela; Dugué, Laura; Busch, Niko A. & Benwell, Christopher S. Y.
  
• The impact of analytic choices in dense sampling analysis pipelines. Poster at the Conference of Experimental Psychologists (TeaP), Cologne, Germany. (2022)
  Michel, R., Balestrieri, E. & Busch, N. A.
  
• The impact of analytic choices on detectability of behavioral oscillations in dense sampling studies. Poster at the annual meeting of Vision Sciences Society (VSS), St. Pete Beach, Florida, USA. (2022)
  Michel, R., Balestrieri, E., Recht, R., Dugué, L. & Busch, N. A.
  
• α Phase-Amplitude Tradeoffs Predict Visual Perception. eneuro, 9(1), ENEURO.0244-21.2022.
  Fakche, Camille; VanRullen, Rufin; Marque, Philippe & Dugué, Laura