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Lag-1 sparing is a common exception to the attentional blink, where a target presented directly after T1 can be identified and reported accurately. Prior work has proposed potential mechanisms for lag 1 sparing, including the boost and bounce model and the attentional gating model. Here, we apply a rapid serial visual presentation task to investigate the temporal limitations of lag 1 sparing by testing three distinct hypotheses. We found that endogenous engagement of attention to T2 requires between 50 and 100 ms. Critically, faster presentation rates yielded lower T2 performance, whereas decreased image duration did not impair T2 detection and report. These observations were reinforced by subsequent experiments controlling for short-term learning and capacity-dependent visual processing effects. Thus, lag-1 sparing was limited by the intrinsic dynamics of attentional boost engagement rather than by earlier perceptual bottlenecks such as insufficient exposure to images in the stimulus stream or visual processing capacity limitations. Taken together, these findings support the boost and bounce theory over earlier models that focus only on attentional gating or visual short-term memory storage, informing our understanding of how the human visual system deploys attention under challenging temporal constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore an intensely debated problem in neuroscience, psychology and philosophy: the degree to which the "phenomenological consciousness" of the experience of a stimulus is separable from the "access consciousness" of its reportability. Specifically, it has been proposed that these two measures are dissociated from one another in one, or both directions. However, even if it was agreed that reportability and experience were doubly dissociated, the limits of dissociation logic mean we would not be able to conclusively separate the cognitive processes underlying the two. We take advantage of computational modelling and recent advances in state-trace analysis to assess this dissociation in an attentional/experiential blink paradigm. These advances in state-trace analysis make use of Bayesian statistics to quantify the evidence for and against a dissociation. Further evidence is obtained by linking our finding to a prominent model of the attentional blink – the Simultaneous Type/Serial Token model. Our results show evidence for a dissociation between experience and reportability, whereby participants appear able to encode stimuli into working memory with little, if any, conscious experience of them. This raises the possibility of a phenomenon that might be called sight-blind recall, which we discuss in the context of the current experience/reportability debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated whether binaural beat stimulation could accelerate the training outcome in an attentional blink (AB) task. The AB refers to the lapse in detecting a target T2 in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) after the identification of a preceding target T1. Binaural beats (BB) are assumed to entrain neural oscillations and support cognitive function. Participants were assigned into two groups and presented with BB sounds while performing the AB task on three subsequent days in a cross-over design. Group A was presented with 40-Hz BB during the first day and 16 Hz during the second day, while the order of beat frequencies was reversed in Group B. No sound was presented on the third day. MEG recordings confirmed a strong entrainment of gamma oscillations during 40-Hz BB stimulation and smaller gamma entrainment with 16-Hz BB. The rhythm of the visual stimulation elicited 10-Hz oscillations in occipital MEG sensors which were of similar magnitude for both BB frequencies. The AB performance did not increase within a session. However, participants improved between sessions, with overall improvement equal in both groups. Group A improved more after the first day than the second day. In contrast, group B gained more from the 40 Hz stimulation on the second day than from 16-Hz stimulation on the first day. Taken together, 40-Hz BB stimulation during training accelerates the training outcome. The improvement becomes evident not immediately, but after consolidation during sleep. Therefore, auditory beats stimulation is a promising method of non-invasive brain stimulation for enhancing training and learning which is well-suited to rehabilitation training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although autistic and anxious traits are positively correlated, high levels of autistic traits are associated with poorer emotional guidance of attention (EGA) whilst high levels of anxious traits are associated with greater EGA. In order to better understand how these two trait dimensions influence EGA, we simultaneously examined the effects of anxiety and autistic traits in neurotypical adults on target identification in an attentional blink task. Analyses indicated that implicit EGA is attenuated in individuals with higher levels of autistic traits, but largely unaffected by variation in anxious traits. Our results suggest that anxiety plays a comparatively limited role in modulating implicit EGA and reinforces the importance of disentangling correlated individual differences when exploring the effects of personality, including emotional predisposition, on attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal attention enhances the perceptual representation of a stimulus at a particular point in time. The number of possible attentional episodes in a given period is limited, but whether observers' confidence reflects such limitations is still unclear. To investigate this issue, we adapted an "Attentional Blink" paradigm, presenting observers with a rapid visual stream of letters containing two targets cued for subsequent perceptual reports and confidence judgments. We found three main results. First, when two targets fell within the same attentional episode, the second target underwent a strong under-confidence bias. In other words, confidence neglected that a single attentional episode can benefit to both targets. Second, despite this initial bias, confidence was strongly correlated with response probability. Third, as confidence was yoked to the evidence used in perceptual reports, it remains blind to delays in response selection for the second target. Notably, the second target was often mistaken with a later item associated with higher confidence. These results suggest that confidence does not perfectly evaluate the limits of temporal attention in challenging situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptive behaviour requires the ability to process goal-relevant events at the expense of irrelevant ones. However, perception of a relevant visual event can transiently preclude access to consciousness of subsequent events — a phenomenon called attentional blink (AB). Here we investigated involvement of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in conscious access, by using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to potentiate or reduce neural excitability in the context of an AB task. In a sham-controlled experimental design, we applied between groups anodal or cathodal tDCS over the left DLPFC, and examined whether this stimulation modulated the proportion of stimuli that were consciously reported during the AB period. We found that tDCS over the left DLPFC affected the proportion of consciously perceived target stimuli. Moreover, anodal and cathodal tDCS had opposing effects, and exhibited different temporal patterns. Anodal stimulation attenuated the AB, enhancing conscious report earlier in the AB period. Cathodal stimulation accentuated the AB, reducing conscious report later in the AB period. These findings support the notion that the DLPFC plays a role in facilitating information transition from the unconscious to the conscious stage of processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients with schizophrenia are known to have impairments in sensory processing. In order to understand the specific temporal perception deficits of schizophrenia, we investigated and determined to what extent impairments in temporal integration can be dissociated from attention deployment using Attentional Blink (AB). Our findings showed that there was no evident deficit in the deployment of attention in patients with schizophrenia. However, patients showed an increased temporal integration deficit within a hundred-millisecond timescale. The degree of such integration dysfunction was correlated with the clinical manifestations of schizophrenia. There was no difference between individuals with/without schizotypal personality disorder in temporal integration. Differently from previous studies using the AB, we did not find a significant impairment in deployment of attention in schizophrenia. Instead, we used both theoretical and empirical approaches to show that previous findings (using the suppression ratio to correct for the baseline difference) produced a systematic exaggeration of the attention deficits. Instead, we modulated the perceptual difficulty of the task to bring the baseline levels of target detection between the groups into closer alignment. We found that the integration dysfunction rather than deployment of attention is clinically relevant, and thus should be an additional focus of research in schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video game play induces a generalized recovery of a range of spatial visual functions in the amblyopic brain. Here we ask whether video game play also alters temporal processing in the amblyopic brain. When visual targets are presented in rapid succession, correct identification of the first target (T1) can interfere with identification of the second (T2). This is known as the 'attentional blink'. We measured the attentional blink in each eye of adults with amblyopia before and after 40 hours of active video game play, using a rapid serial visual presentation technique. After videogame play, we observed a ~40% reduction in the attentional blink (identifying T2 200 ms after T1) seen through the amblyopic eye and this improvement in performance transferred substantially to the untrained fellow sound eye. Our experiments show that the enhanced performance cannot be simply explained by eye patching alone, or to improved visual acuity, but is specific to videogame experience. Thus, videogame training might have important therapeutic applications for amblyopia and other visual brain disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]