Primary motor area contribution to attentional reorienting after distraction.

Full Abstract

The anatomical structures involved in distraction-related processing in the auditory domain were investigated using magnetoencephalography. Participants performed a duration-discrimination task on a sequence of 200 and 400 ms long tones. Infrequent (12%) task-irrelevant pitch changes resulted in slower discriminative responses and more errors. Event-related potentials to these changes show an increased N1, a mismatch negativity, a P3a, and a reorienting negativity. The event-related magnetic fields revealed focal activities in superior and medial temporal areas in the N1/mismatch negativity time range. No significant activity was found in the P3a interval. In the reorienting negativity interval, significant activity was located in the primary motor area. This suggests that action-selection-related activity also contributes to attentional reorientation after distraction.

Author information

Author/s: Horváth, János (J); Maess, Burkhard (B); Berti, Stefan (S); Schröger, Erich (E);

Affiliation: Institute for Psychology I, University of Leipzig, Germany. horvath(-atsign-)cogpsyphy.hu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Neuroreport (Neuroreport), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Mar; vol 19 (issue 4) : pp 443-6

Dates: Created 2008/02/21; Completed 2008/06/13;

PMID: 18287943, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

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