In daily life, our brains constantly face a challenge: filtering the important from the irrelevant. Whether looking for a friend in a crowd or trying to focus on a conversation in a noisy coffee shop, selective attention is key to success. But how do we prepare when we know in advance whether the context will have more or fewer distractions?
A recent study from the University of Granada in the Human Neuroscience Lab of the CIMCYC investigated how our brain anticipates different levels of competition between stimuli. In other words, they analyzed what happens when we expect several stimuli that simultaneously compete for our attention (high competition) or when we expect a sequential presentation (low competition). Using electroencephalography (EEG), the researchers examined brain activity in both scenarios, exploring how we prepare for different attentional demands.
Participants performed a task in which they had to identify the gender of a face or a name while ignoring distracting stimuli. Before each task, the experimental block indicated whether they should prepare for high or low competition. The results revealed that, although the brain anticipates and prepares in both contexts, the neural mechanisms it uses seem to be different.
In both cases, specific patterns of brain activity were observed, they anticipatorily encoded the category to be selected (faces or names), and whose strength intensified as the moment of response approached. However, these patterns of activity were not common between the high and low competition contexts, suggesting that the brain uses different neural codes depending on the expected challenge.
In addition, the researchers found an increase in theta wave activity (a type of brain oscillation related to cognitive control) in the high competition context. Interestingly, this theta activity was not linked to the specific preparation patterns, indicating that they represent different proactive processes. In contrast, increased theta oscillation power influenced performance, being associated with faster responses in highly competitive contexts.
In conclusion, this work reveals how our brain prepares based on anticipated demands and also suggests that more general mechanisms of cognitive control (such as theta waves) and specific encoding of the content to be selected (reflected in neural encoding patterns) act independently but complementarily.
Referencia
Aguado-López, B., Palenciano, A. F., Peñalver, J. M., Díaz-Gutiérrez, P., López-García, D., Avancini, C., Ciria, L. F., & Ruz, M. (2024). Proactive selective attention across competition contexts. Cortex, 176, 113-128.
Contacto
Blanca Aguado López: @email
Ana F. Palenciano: @email
María Ruz: @email