Helliesen, Tord (2022) Tracking Attention Through Time. Master thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
Temporal attention refers to directing attention to a certain location at a specific point in time. It has been suggested that attention can be measured through steady state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP), which refers to an increase in frequency power in the brain that coincides with the frequency of a flickering stimulus. Previous studies have found that the SSVEP can reflect attention modulation, meaning the difference between attended and non-attended stimuli. It has also been found that SSVEP can be used to investigate temporal attention. We aim to investigate the temporal dynamics of temporal attention. We used SSVEP in an attentional task and a timing task to track how the SSVEP changes across the duration of a trial. We applied and compared three different methods of SSVEP analysis, namely a Region of Interest (ROI) selection, a selection of electrodes with the highest signal-to-noise ratio (BE), and rhythmic entrainment source separation (RESS). We did not find any significant attention modulation in any of the methods. We did find that RESS weights were more distributed in non-occipital areas, which was not reflected in the electrode selection of the best electrode method. We also found that RESS resulted in higher SSVEP power and SNR overall. We suggest that these results may indicate that SSVEP signals from temporal attention drift through attentional networks throughout the scalp, rather solely being reflected in occipital regions. We also suggest that temporal attention might manifest as a transient response, rather than a sustained power increase. Our findings call into question the notion that temporal attention is characterized by a sustained increase in power. They also emphasize the influence specific types of SSVEP analysis methods may have on the findings of a study.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
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| Supervisor name: | Kruijne, W. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | Cognitive Psychology and Psychophysiology (CPP) [Master Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 01 Sep 2022 09:28 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Sep 2022 09:28 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/1406 |
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