title: Modulation of auditory attention by training: evidence from dichotic listening.
abstract: We studied the effects of training on auditory attention in healthy adults with a speech perception task involving dichotically presented syllables. Training involved bottom-up manipulation (facilitating responses from the harder-to-report left ear through a decrease of right-ear stimulus intensity), top-down manipulation (focusing attention on the left-ear stimuli through instruction), or their combination. The results showed significant training-related effects for top-down training. These effects were evident as higher overall accuracy rates in the forced-left dichotic listening (DL) condition that sets demands on attentional control, as well as a response shift toward left-sided reports in the standard DL task. Moreover, a transfer effect was observed in an untrained auditory-spatial attention task involving bilateral stimulation where top-down training led to a relatively stronger focus on left-sided stimuli. Our results indicate that training of attentional control can modulate the allocation of attention in the auditory space in adults. Malleability of auditory attention in healthy adults raises the issue of potential training gains in individuals with attentional deficits.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland. anna.soveri@abo.fi
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Soveri
authors.forename: Jussi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tallus
authors.forename: Matti
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Laine
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Nyberg
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bäckman
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hugdahl
authors.forename: Jyrki
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tuomainen
authors.forename: René
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Westerhausen
authors.forename: Heikki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hämäläinen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D004007:Dichotic Listening Tests / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D046709:Pattern Recognition, Physiological / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult