Methods of Plasticity Research, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, 1-80502-784644-50205-B15 2TT, Zurich, Switzerland.
Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany.
Cereb Cortex. 2023 Mar 21;33(7):3478-3489. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhac285.
Spatially selective modulation of alpha power (8-14 Hz) is a robust finding in electrophysiological studies of visual attention, and has been recently generalized to auditory spatial attention. This modulation pattern is interpreted as reflecting a top-down mechanism for suppressing distracting input from unattended directions of sound origin. The present study on auditory spatial attention extends this interpretation by demonstrating that alpha power modulation is closely linked to oculomotor action. We designed an auditory paradigm in which participants were required to attend to upcoming sounds from one of 24 loudspeakers arranged in a circular array around the head. Maintaining the location of an auditory cue was associated with a topographically modulated distribution of posterior alpha power resembling the findings known from visual attention. Multivariate analyses allowed the prediction of the sound location in the horizontal plane. Importantly, this prediction was also possible, when derived from signals capturing saccadic activity. A control experiment on auditory spatial attention confirmed that, in absence of any visual/auditory input, lateralization of alpha power is linked to the lateralized direction of gaze. Attending to an auditory target engages oculomotor and visual cortical areas in a topographic manner akin to the retinotopic organization associated with visual attention.
空间选择性调制 alpha 功率（8-14 Hz）是视觉注意力电生理研究中的一个有力发现，最近已被推广到听觉空间注意力。这种调制模式被解释为反映了一种自上而下的机制，用于抑制来自未注意声音方向的分心输入。本研究对听觉空间注意力的研究通过证明 alpha 功率调制与眼球运动动作密切相关，扩展了这一解释。我们设计了一个听觉范式，要求参与者注意来自头部周围 24 个扬声器组成的圆形阵列中即将出现的声音。保持听觉提示的位置与类似于从视觉注意力中已知的发现相似的后 alpha 功率的地形调制分布相关。多元分析允许预测水平面上的声音位置。重要的是，当从捕获扫视活动的信号中得出时，也可以进行这种预测。听觉空间注意力的对照实验证实，在没有任何视觉/听觉输入的情况下，alpha 功率的侧化与注视的侧化方向相关。注意听觉目标以类似于与视觉注意力相关的视网膜组织的拓扑方式吸引眼球运动和视觉皮质区。
