title: Cognitive mechanisms associated with auditory sensory gating.
abstract: Sensory gating is a neurophysiological measure of inhibition that is characterised by a reduction in the P50 event-related potential to a repeated identical stimulus. The objective of this work was to determine the cognitive mechanisms that relate to the neurological phenomenon of auditory sensory gating. Sixty participants underwent a battery of 10 cognitive tasks, including qualitatively different measures of attentional inhibition, working memory, and fluid intelligence. Participants additionally completed a paired-stimulus paradigm as a measure of auditory sensory gating. A correlational analysis revealed that several tasks correlated significantly with sensory gating. However once fluid intelligence and working memory were accounted for, only a measure of latent inhibition and accuracy scores on the continuous performance task showed significant sensitivity to sensory gating. We conclude that sensory gating reflects the identification of goal-irrelevant information at the encoding (input) stage and the subsequent ability to selectively attend to goal-relevant information based on that previous identification.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Physiology, and Pharmacology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Bournemouth University, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, Poole, Dorset BH12 5BB, UK. Electronic address: phills@bournemouth.ac.uk.
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Hills
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK.
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Dick
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK.
authors.forename: S P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bright
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology*; D055139:Sensory Gating / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Electroencephalogram; Event-related potential (ERP) P50; Inhibition; Sensory gating