Gherri Elena, White Felicity, Ambron Elisabetta
Dipartimento di Filosofia e Comunicazione, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Human Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2022 Jul 13;13:934573. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.934573. eCollection 2022.
Recent evidence has identified the N140cc lateralized component of event-related potentials as a reliable index of the deployment of attention to task-relevant items in touch. However, existing ERP studies have presented the tactile search array to participants' limbs, most often to the hands. Here, we investigated distractor interference effects when the tactile search array was presented to a portion of the body that is less lateralized and peripheral compared to the hands. Participants were asked to localize a tactile target presented among distractors in a circular arrangement to their back. The N140cc was elicited contralateral to the target when the singleton distractor was absent. Its amplitude was reduced when the singleton distractor was present and contralateral to the target, suggesting that attention was directed at least in part to the distractor when the singletons are on opposite sides. However, similar N140cc were observed when the singleton distractor was ipsilateral to the target compared to distractor absent trials. We suggest that when target and singleton distractor are ipsilateral, the exact localization of the target requires the attentional processing of all items on the same side of the array, similar to distractor absent trials. Together, these observations replicate the distractor interference effects previously observed for the hands, suggesting that analogous mechanisms guide attentional selectivity across different body parts.
最近的证据表明，事件相关电位的N140cc侧化成分是将注意力部署到触觉任务相关项目的可靠指标。然而，现有的ERP研究将触觉搜索阵列呈现给参与者的四肢，最常见的是手部。在此，我们研究了将触觉搜索阵列呈现给身体上比手部侧化程度更低且更靠近外周的部分时的干扰项干扰效应。要求参与者在呈圆形排列于其背部的干扰项中定位一个触觉目标。当不存在单一干扰项时，N140cc在目标对侧引出。当存在单一干扰项且其位于目标对侧时，其波幅降低，这表明当单一干扰项位于相对侧时，注意力至少部分指向了干扰项。然而，与不存在干扰项的试验相比，当单一干扰项与目标同侧时，观察到了类似的N140cc。我们认为，当目标和单一干扰项同侧时，目标的精确定位需要对阵列同侧的所有项目进行注意力加工，这与不存在干扰项的试验类似。总之，这些观察结果重复了先前在手部观察到的干扰项干扰效应，表明类似的机制指导着不同身体部位的注意力选择性。
