EEG predictors of covert vigilant attention.
OBJECTIVE
The present study addressed the question whether neurophysiological signals exhibit characteristic modulations preceding a miss in a covert vigilant attention task which mimics a natural environment in which critical stimuli may appear in the periphery of the visual field.


METHODS
Subjective, behavioural and encephalographic (EEG) data of 12 participants performing a modified Mackworth Clock task were obtained and analysed offline. The stimulus consisted of a pointer performing regular ticks in a clockwise sequence across 42 dots arranged in a circle. Participants were requested to covertly attend to the pointer and press a response button as quickly as possible in the event of a jump, a rare and random event.


RESULTS
Significant increases in response latencies and decreases in the detection rates were found as a function of time-on-task, a characteristic effect of sustained attention tasks known as the vigilance decrement. Subjective sleepiness showed a significant increase over the duration of the experiment. Increased activity in the α-frequency range (8-14 Hz) was observed emerging and gradually accumulating 10 s before a missed target. Additionally, a significant gradual attenuation of the P3 event-related component was found to antecede misses by 5 s.


CONCLUSIONS
The results corroborate recent findings that behavioural errors are presaged by specific neurophysiological activity and demonstrate that lapses of attention can be predicted in a covert setting up to 10 s in advance reinforcing the prospective use of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology for the detection of waning vigilance in real-world scenarios. Combining these findings with real-time single-trial analysis from BCI may pave the way for cognitive states monitoring systems able to determine the current, and predict the near-future development of the brain's attentional processes.
Neurotechnology Group, Berlin Institute of Technology, Berlin, Germany.
Adrien
A
Martel
Sven
S
Dähne
Benjamin
B
Blankertz
D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D003463:Cues; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity