Department of Psychology, University of Lübeck, Ratzeburger Allee 160, 23562 Lübeck, Germany; Center of Brain, Behavior and Metabolism, University of Lübeck, Ratzeburger Allee 160, 23562 Lübeck, Germany.
Department of Psychology, University of Lübeck, Ratzeburger Allee 160, 23562 Lübeck, Germany; Center of Brain, Behavior and Metabolism, University of Lübeck, Ratzeburger Allee 160, 23562 Lübeck, Germany.
Prog Neurobiol. 2023 Jul;226:102458. doi: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2023.102458. Epub 2023 Apr 22.
Human environments comprise various sources of distraction, which often occur unexpectedly in time. The proneness to distraction (i.e., distractibility) is posited to be independent of attentional sampling of targets, but its temporal dynamics and neurobiological basis are largely unknown. Brain oscillations in the theta band (3 - 8 Hz) have been associated with fluctuating neural excitability, which is hypothesised here to explain rhythmic modulation of distractibility. In a pitch discrimination task (N = 30) with unexpected auditory distractors, we show that distractor-evoked neural responses in the electroencephalogram and perceptual susceptibility to distraction were co-modulated and cycled approximately 3 - 5 times per second. Pre-distractor neural phase in left inferior frontal and insular cortex regions explained fluctuating distractibility. Thus, human distractibility is not constant but fluctuates on a subsecond timescale. Furthermore, slow neural oscillations subserve the behavioural consequences of a hitherto largely unexplained but ever-increasing phenomenon in modern environments - distraction by unexpected sound.
人类环境包含各种分散注意力的来源，这些来源往往是时间上意外出现的。易分散注意力（即分心）被认为与对目标的注意力采样无关，但它的时间动态和神经生物学基础在很大程度上是未知的。θ波段（3-8 Hz）的脑振荡与神经兴奋性的波动有关，这里假设它可以解释分心的节奏调制。在一项具有意外听觉干扰物的音高辨别任务中（N=30），我们表明，脑电图中干扰物引起的神经反应和对干扰的感知易感性是共同调制的，大约每秒循环 3-5 次。左额下回和脑岛皮层区域的预干扰神经相位解释了分心的波动。因此，人类的分心不是恒定的，而是在亚秒级的时间尺度上波动。此外，慢神经振荡支持了现代环境中一个迄今为止在很大程度上未被解释但却日益增加的现象——意外声音引起的分心的行为后果。
