Colzato Lorenza S, Steenbergen Laura, Sellaro Roberta
Cognitive Psychology Unit and Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University Institute for Psychological Research, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333 AK, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Department of Cognitive Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Exp Brain Res. 2017 Jul;235(7):2125-2131. doi: 10.1007/s00221-017-4957-9. Epub 2017 Apr 13.
Binaural beats represent the auditory experience of an oscillating sound that occurs when two sounds with neighboring frequencies are presented to one's left and right ear separately. Binaural beats have been shown to impact information processing via their putative role in increasing neural synchronization. Recent studies of feature-repetition effects demonstrated interactions between perceptual features and action-related features: repeating only some, but not all features of a perception-action episode hinders performance. These partial-repetition (or binding) costs point to the existence of temporary episodic bindings (event files) that are automatically retrieved by repeating at least one of their features. Given that neural synchronization in the gamma band has been associated with visual feature bindings, we investigated whether the impact of binaural beats extends to the top-down control of feature bindings. Healthy adults listened to gamma-frequency (40 Hz) binaural beats or to a constant tone of 340 Hz (control condition) for ten minutes before and during a feature-repetition task. While the size of visuomotor binding costs (indicating the binding of visual and action features) was unaffected by the binaural beats, the size of visual feature binding costs (which refer to the binding between the two visual features) was considerably smaller during gamma-frequency binaural beats exposure than during the control condition. Our results suggest that binaural beats enhance selectivity in updating episodic memory traces and further strengthen the hypothesis that neural activity in the gamma band is critically associated with the control of feature binding.
双耳节拍代表一种振荡声音的听觉体验，当两个频率相邻的声音分别呈现给人的左耳和右耳时就会出现这种体验。研究表明，双耳节拍通过其在增强神经同步方面的假定作用来影响信息处理。最近关于特征重复效应的研究表明，感知特征和与动作相关的特征之间存在相互作用：仅重复感知 - 动作事件的一些而非所有特征会妨碍表现。这些部分重复（或绑定）成本表明存在临时的情节性绑定（事件文件），通过重复其至少一个特征可自动检索这些绑定。鉴于伽马波段的神经同步与视觉特征绑定有关，我们研究了双耳节拍的影响是否扩展到特征绑定的自上而下控制。健康成年人在特征重复任务之前和期间，听伽马频率（40赫兹）的双耳节拍或340赫兹的恒定音调（对照条件）十分钟。虽然视运动绑定成本的大小（表明视觉和动作特征的绑定）不受双耳节拍的影响，但在伽马频率双耳节拍暴露期间，视觉特征绑定成本的大小（指两个视觉特征之间的绑定）比对照条件下要小得多。我们的结果表明，双耳节拍增强了更新情节记忆痕迹的选择性，并进一步强化了伽马波段神经活动与特征绑定控制密切相关的假设。
