title: Eliminating the Attentional Blink through Binaural Beats: A Case for Tailored Cognitive Enhancement.
abstract: Enhancing human cognitive performance is a topic that continues to spark scientific interest. Studies into cognitive-enhancement techniques often fail to take inter-individual differences into account, however, which leads to underestimation of the effectiveness of these techniques. The current study investigated the effect of binaural beats, a cognitive-enhancement technique, on attentional control in an attentional blink (AB) task. As predicted from a neurocognitive approach to cognitive control, high-frequency binaural beats eliminated the AB, but only in individuals with low spontaneous eye-blink rates (indicating low striatal dopamine levels). This suggests that the way in which cognitive-enhancement techniques, such as binaural beats, affect cognitive performance depends on inter-individual differences.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Psychological Research, Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University , Leiden , Netherlands.
authors.forename: Susan A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Reedijk
authors.affiliation: Institute for Psychological Research, Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University , Leiden , Netherlands.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bolders
authors.affiliation: Institute for Psychological Research, Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University , Leiden , Netherlands.
authors.forename: Lorenza S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Colzato
authors.affiliation: Institute for Psychological Research, Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University , Leiden , Netherlands.
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hommel
keywords: attention; attentional blink; binaural beats; cognitive enhancement; dopamine; neurotransmitters