Study reveals how the mind narrows consideration over time

How we focus our consideration earlier than we even see an object issues. For instance, once we search for one thing transferring within the sky, our expectation can be very completely different if the thing is a chicken flying previous or a baseball coming straight at us.

But it is unclear whether or not our mind’s consideration focuses first on a broad attribute of the anticipated object, resembling motion, or a selected characteristic – such because the route of motion up or down.

Researchers from the Center for Mind and Brain on the University of California, Davis, addressed this by analyzing electrical mind exercise with machine-learning strategies whereas human volunteers ready to see coloured dots transferring on a display. The research discovered that the mind’s consideration focus begins with a broad class, then narrows all the way down to the precise characteristic of curiosity. The research was revealed Aug. 19 in The Journal of Neuroscience. 

Our research tells us that our brains first put together to focus consideration by activating neurons representing the broad class of the anticipated object after which shortly sharpens that focus. This implies that the mind’s consideration mechanisms are organized in a hierarchy such that it prepares for perceiving a stimulus by narrowing the main focus of our consideration over time.”

George R. Mangun, a Distinguished Professor of psychology and neurology and co-director, UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain

Clocking mind exercise

Researchers mixed electroencephalogram, or EEG, knowledge with eye monitoring and machine studying to review “anticipatory attention,” which is consideration that permits an individual to organize to understand upcoming sensory occasions. The EEG knowledge displays the mind’s electrical exercise all the way down to the millisecond utilizing electrodes worn on the scalp. 

The research passed off in 2024 utilizing 25 contributors between 19 and 39 years of age.

The analysis group measured how lengthy it took the mind to prepare to concentrate to coloured dots transferring on the display. The objective was to study whether or not the mind’s consideration first ready for a broad characteristic class of an object of curiosity, resembling colour or motion, earlier than consideration could possibly be narrowed to a selected characteristic, resembling a selected colour or route of motion.

The timer started with a clean display when researchers cued contributors to search for solely a blue or inexperienced dot, or for a dot transferring up or down. The timer stopped when the dots appeared. 

“When attention is directed to the color of the moving dots, it suppresses attention to the direction of motion, and vice versa,” mentioned Sreenivasan Meyyappan, an assistant mission scientist on the Center for Mind and Brain and the research’s lead creator. “This broad focus of attention is then narrowed further to suppress the irrelevant colors as well, supporting processing of the specific color or motion of interest.”

The machine-learning software program separated mind exercise for every of the final and particular options. It revealed a distinction measured in milliseconds. A millisecond is a thousandth of a second. 

Anticipatory consideration to the dot’s basic class – colour or route of movement- took 240 milliseconds on common to determine within the mind. Attention to the dot’s particular characteristic – blue or inexperienced, or up and down – took longer, with a median time of 400 milliseconds. 

“The control systems involved in attention are broadly tuning the brain first, and then narrowing it down,” mentioned Mangun. “It’s like a pilot flying a plane toward Europe and then toward the end zooming in on Rotterdam and not Berlin.”

Building a extra full image of how the mind works can present necessary insights associated to mind well being, mentioned Mangun. For instance, future analysis would possibly discover that folks with disordered consideration, resembling these with attention-deficit hyperactivity dysfunction or autism, expertise delays in narrowing the main focus of consideration.

“Understanding more about how the brain focuses its attention would tell us what parts of the system are not operating properly and might lead to different perceptual or behavioral symptoms down the line, and therefore different treatment approaches” mentioned Mangun.

Mingzhou Ding, Distinguished Professor and J. Crayton Pruitt Family Professor of biomedical engineering on the University of Florida, is a further co-author on this research.

The analysis was supported by National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.