Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (ISAE), Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse, France.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2018 Jun;39(6):2596-2608. doi: 10.1002/hbm.24026. Epub 2018 Feb 26.
Individuals often have reduced ability to hear alarms in real world situations (e.g., anesthesia monitoring, flying airplanes) when attention is focused on another task, sometimes with devastating consequences. This phenomenon is called inattentional deafness and usually occurs under critical high workload conditions. It is difficult to simulate the critical nature of these tasks in the laboratory. In this study, dry electroencephalography is used to investigate inattentional deafness in real flight while piloting an airplane. The pilots participating in the experiment responded to audio alarms while experiencing critical high workload situations. It was found that missed relative to detected alarms were marked by reduced stimulus evoked phase synchrony in theta and alpha frequencies (6-14 Hz) from 120 to 230 ms poststimulus onset. Correlation of alarm detection performance with intertrial coherence measures of neural phase synchrony showed different frequency and time ranges for detected and missed alarms. These results are consistent with selective attentional processes actively disrupting oscillatory coherence in sensory networks not involved with the primary task (piloting in this case) under critical high load conditions. This hypothesis is corroborated by analyses of flight parameters showing greater maneuvering associated with difficult phases of flight occurring during missed alarms. Our results suggest modulation of neural oscillation is a general mechanism of attention utilizing enhancement of phase synchrony to sharpen alarm perception during successful divided attention, and disruption of phase synchrony in brain networks when attentional demands of the primary task are great, such as in the case of inattentional deafness.
当注意力集中在其他任务上时，个体通常会降低在现实世界环境中（例如，麻醉监测、驾驶飞机）听到警报的能力，有时会产生灾难性的后果。这种现象称为注意力不集中性聋，通常发生在高临界工作负荷条件下。在实验室中很难模拟这些任务的关键性质。在这项研究中，使用干脑电图来研究在驾驶飞机时真实飞行中的注意力不集中性聋。参与实验的飞行员在经历高临界工作负荷情况时，对音频警报做出反应。结果发现，与检测到的警报相比，错过的警报表现出刺激诱发的相位同步在θ和α频率（6-14 Hz）从刺激开始后 120 到 230 毫秒之间减少。将警报检测性能与神经相位同步的试验间相干性测量相关联表明，检测到的和错过的警报具有不同的频率和时间范围。这些结果与选择性注意过程一致，该过程积极扰乱了与主要任务（在这种情况下是驾驶）不相关的感觉网络中的振荡相干性，在高临界负载条件下。这一假设得到了飞行参数分析的支持，分析表明，在错过警报期间发生的飞行困难阶段，与操纵相关的更大机动。我们的结果表明，神经振荡的调制是一种注意力的一般机制，利用相位同步的增强来提高在成功的分散注意力期间对警报的感知，并在主要任务的注意力需求很大时（如在注意力不集中性聋的情况下）破坏脑网络中的相位同步。
