16 research outputs found
Selective Attention and Audiovisual Integration: Is Attending to Both Modalities a Prerequisite for Early Integration?
Interactions between multisensory integration and attention were studied using a combined audiovisual streaming design and a rapid serial visual presentation paradigm. Event-related potentials (ERPs) following audiovisual objects (AV) were compared with the sum of the ERPs following auditory (A) and visual objects (V). Integration processes were expressed as the difference between these AV and (A + V) responses and were studied while attention was directed to one or both modalities or directed elsewhere. Results show that multisensory integration effects depend on the multisensory objects being fully attended—that is, when both the visual and auditory senses were attended. In this condition, a superadditive audiovisual integration effect was observed on the P50 component. When unattended, this effect was reversed; the P50 components of multisensory ERPs were smaller than the unisensory sum. Additionally, we found an enhanced late frontal negativity when subjects attended the visual component of a multisensory object. This effect, bearing a strong resemblance to the auditory processing negativity, appeared to reflect late attention-related processing that had spread to encompass the auditory component of the multisensory object. In conclusion, our results shed new light on how the brain processes multisensory auditory and visual information, including how attention modulates multisensory integration processes
The James Webb Space Telescope Mission
Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies,
expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling
for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least .
With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000
people realized that vision as the James Webb Space Telescope. A
generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of
the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the
scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000
team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image
quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief
history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing
program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite
detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space
Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure
Building a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive drivers of performance under pressure: An international multi-panel Delphi study
IntroductionThe ability to perform optimally under pressure is critical across many occupations, including the military, first responders, and competitive sport. Despite recognition that such performance depends on a range of cognitive factors, how common these factors are across performance domains remains unclear. The current study sought to integrate existing knowledge in the performance field in the form of a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive mechanisms that underlie performance under pressure.MethodsInternational experts were recruited from four performance domains [(i) Defense; (ii) Competitive Sport; (iii) Civilian High-stakes; and (iv) Performance Neuroscience]. Experts rated constructs from the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework (and several expert-suggested constructs) across successive rounds, until all constructs reached consensus for inclusion or were eliminated. Finally, included constructs were ranked for their relative importance.ResultsSixty-eight experts completed the first Delphi round, with 94% of experts retained by the end of the Delphi process. The following 10 constructs reached consensus across all four panels (in order of overall ranking): (1) Attention; (2) Cognitive Control—Performance Monitoring; (3) Arousal and Regulatory Systems—Arousal; (4) Cognitive Control—Goal Selection, Updating, Representation, and Maintenance; (5) Cognitive Control—Response Selection and Inhibition/Suppression; (6) Working memory—Flexible Updating; (7) Working memory—Active Maintenance; (8) Perception and Understanding of Self—Self-knowledge; (9) Working memory—Interference Control, and (10) Expert-suggested—Shifting.DiscussionOur results identify a set of transdisciplinary neuroscience-informed constructs, validated through expert consensus. This expert consensus is critical to standardizing cognitive assessment and informing mechanism-targeted interventions in the broader field of human performance optimization
Fearful face detection sensitivity in healthy adults correlates with anxiety-related traits.
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2B-Alert App 2.0: personalized caffeine recommendations for optimal alertness
Study Objectives: If properly consumed, caffeine can safely and effectively mitigate the effects of sleep loss on alertness. However, there are no tools to determine the amount and time to consume caffeine to maximize its effectiveness. Here, we extended the capabilities of the 2B-Alert app, a unique smartphone application that learns an individual’s trait-like response to sleep loss, to provide personalized caffeine recommendations to optimize alertness. Methods: We prospectively validated 2B-Alert’s capabilities in a 62-hour total sleep deprivation study in which 21 participants used the app to measure their alertness throughout the study via the psychomotor vigilance test (PVT). Using PVT data collected during the first 36 hours of the sleep challenge, the app learned the participant’s sleep-loss response and provided personalized caffeine recommendations so that each participant would sustain alertness at a pre-specified target level (mean response time of 270 milliseconds) during a 6-hour period starting at 44 hours of wakefulness, using the least amount of caffeine possible. Starting at 42 hours, participants consumed 0 to 800 mg of caffeine, per the app recommendation. Results: 2B-Alert recommended no caffeine to five participants, 100–400 mg to 11 participants, and 500–800 mg to five participants. Regardless of the consumed amount, participants sustained the target alertness level ~80% of the time. Conclusions: 2B-Alert automatically learns an individual’s phenotype and provides personalized caffeine recommendations in real time so that individuals achieve a desired alertness level regardless of their sleep-loss susceptibility.Public domain articleThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]
Sleep extension reduces fatigue in healthy, normally-sleeping young adults
Objective: To assess the effects of one week of sleep extension on mood, fatigue and subjective
sleepiness in normal-sleeping young adults. Methods: Twenty-seven adults (age 24.4±5.4 years, 11
female) participated. At-home baseline sleep/wake patterns were recorded with wrist actigraphy for
14 days. This was followed by two nights of in-lab baseline sleep with 8 hours time in bed (TIB),
then 7 nights with TIB extended to 10 hours (2100-0700 hours). Fatigue, mood, and sleepiness
were assessed following the 2nd and 9th nights of in-laboratory sleep (i.e., 2 nights with 8hTIB and
7 nights with 10 hours TIB, respectively) using the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment
Metric and Karolinska Sleepiness Scale. Paired t-tests were used to compare mood, fatigue, and
sleepiness ratings between conditions. Results: At-home wrist actigraphy revealed a mean nightly
total sleep time (TST) of 7.53 +/- 0.88 hours of sleep per night. Mean in-lab baseline sleep
duration (7.76 +/- 0.59) did not differ from at-home sleep. However, during sleep extension, mean
TST was 9.36 +/- 0.37 hours per night, significantly more than during the in-lab baseline (p <
.001). Following sleep extension, fatigue ratings were significantly reduced, relative to baseline (p
= .03). However, sleep extension had no other significant effects on subjective ratings of mood or
sleepiness. Conclusions: Sleep extension resulted in reduced fatigue in healthy, normal-sleeping
young adults, although subjective sleepiness and mood were not improved. Implications include
the possibility that (a) the effects of sleep extension on various aspects of mood depend upon the
extent to which those aspects of mood are made salient by the study design and methodology; and
(b) sleep extension may prove beneficial to fatigue-related conditions such as “burnout.
The COMT Val158Met polymorphism and temporal lobe morphometry in healthy adults
We examined the relationship between COMT Val158Met genotype and temporal lobe volumes, including the caudate as a control region. 31 healthy subjects completed 1.5T brain MRI and genotyping. After controlling for demographics, Val158 allele homozygotes exhibited significantly smaller temporal lobe and hippocampal volumes, with a trend for smaller amygdala volumes