The electrophysiological effect of working memory load on involuntary attention in an auditory-visual distraction paradigm: an ERP study.
Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to examine the electrophysiological effect of working memory (WM) load on involuntary attention caused by a task-irrelevant sound in an auditory-visual distraction paradigm. The different WM loads were manipulated by requiring subjects to remember the order of either three digits (low-load condition) or seven digits (high-load condition), and the irrelevant auditory stimuli consisted of repetitive standard sounds (80%) and environmental novel sounds (20%). We found that the difference waves (novel-minus-standard) showed significant MMN and Novelty-P3 components in the two WM load conditions. The amplitude of MMN increased with increasing the WM load, which indicated a more engaged change detection process under high-load condition. Then, the amplitude of Novelty-P3 was attenuated under high-load condition, which indicated a much reduced involuntary orienting of attention to novel sounds when increasing the WM load. These results indicated the top-down control of involuntary attention might be mainly active at the early change detection stage and the control of the later involuntary orienting of attention might be passive.
Lv
Jie-Yu
JY
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, China.
Wang
Ting
T
Qiu
Jiang
J
Feng
Si-Hai
SH
Tu
Shen
S
Wei
Dong-Tao
DT
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004585:Electrooculography / Q000379:methods; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult