Suppression of EEG Gamma Activity May Cause the Attentional Blink

The attentional blink (AB) is an impairment of attention, which occurs when subjects have to report a target stimulus (T2) following a previous target (T1) with a short delay (up to 600 ms). Theories explaining the AB assume that processing of T2 is more vulnerable to decay or substitution, as long...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Consciousness and cognition 2002-03, Vol.11 (1), p.114-122
Main Authors: Fell, Jürgen, Klaver, Peter, Elger, Christian E., Fernández, Guillén
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attention - physiology
Behavioral psychophysiology
Biological and medical sciences
Blinking
Electroencephalography
Electrophysiology
ERP
evoked and induced response
Evoked Potentials
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
gamma activity
Humans
Key Words: attentional blink
Models, Neurological
Perceptual Masking
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Time Factors
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The attentional blink (AB) is an impairment of attention, which occurs when subjects have to report a target stimulus (T2) following a previous target (T1) with a short delay (up to 600 ms). Theories explaining the AB assume that processing of T2 is more vulnerable to decay or substitution, as long as attention is allocated to T1. Existing models of the AB, however, do not account for the fact that T2 detection accuracy reaches the minimum when T2 is presented after about 300 ms and not immediately following T1. Therefore, a new model is suggested, which is based on chronometrical considerations together with recent neurophysiological findings concerning the relation between the P3 event-related potential and the AB, the interaction between P3 and gamma oscillations, and the significance of the early evoked gamma band response. We hypothesize that suppression of the early gamma response to T2, accompanying the P3 related to T1, causes the AB.
ISSN:1053-8100
1090-2376
DOI:10.1006/ccog.2001.0536