A small study has tested the eminent Donald Hebb’s hypothesis that visual imagery results from the reactivation of neural activity associated with viewing images, and that the re-enactment of eye-movement patterns helps both imagery and neural reactivation.
I've reported before on the idea that the drop in working memory capacity commonly seen in old age is related to the equally typical increase in distractability. Studies of brain activity have also indicated that lower WMC is correlated with greater storage of distractor information. So those with higher WMC, it's thought, are better at filtering out distraction and focusing only on the pertinent information. Older adults may show a reduced WMC, therefore, because their ability to ignore distraction and irrelevancies has declined.
Why does that happen?
A new study has found that errors in perceptual decisions occurred only when there was confused sensory input, not because of any ‘noise’ or randomness in the cognitive processing. The finding, if replicated across broader contexts, will change some of our fundamental assumptions about how the brain works.
More evidence that even an 8-week meditation training program can have measurable effects on the brain comes from an imaging study. Moreover, the type of meditation makes a difference to how the brain changes.
We know that emotion affects memory. We know that attention affects perception (see, e.g., Visual perception heightened by meditation training; How mindset can improve vision). Now a new study ties it all together. The study shows that emotionally arousing experiences affect how well we see them, and this in turn affects how vividly we later recall them.
An imaging study has revealed that when people were shown a composite image with a face surrounded by "place" images, such as a house, and asked to identify the gender of the face, those in whom a bad mood had been induced didn’t process the places in the background. However, those in a good mood took in both the focal and background images. These differences in perception were coupled with differences in activity in the parahippocampal place area. Increasing the amount of information is of course not necessarily a good thing, as it may result in more distraction.
Schmitz, T. W., De Rosa, E., & Anderson, A. K. (2009). Opposing Influences of Affective State Valence on Visual Cortical Encoding. J. Neurosci., 29(22), 7199-7207. Retrieved from http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/29/22/7199
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/uot-pww060309.php
Perceiving a simple touch may depend as much on memory, attention, and expectation as on the stimulus itself. A study involving macaque monkeys has found that the monkeys’ perception of a touch (varied in intensity) was more closely correlated with activity in the medial premotor cortex (MPC), a region of the brain's frontal lobe known to be involved in making decisions about sensory information, than activity in the primary somatosensory cortex (which nevertheless accurately recorded the intensity of the sensation). MPC neurons began to fire before the stimulus even touched the monkeys' fingertips — presumably because the monkey was expecting the stimulus.
de Lafuente, V., & Romo, R. (2005). Neuronal correlates of subjective sensory experience. Nat Neurosci, 8(12), 1698-1703. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nn1587
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-11/hhmi-tsi110405.php
A new baby has far more connections between neurons than necessary; from birth to about age 12 the brain trims 50% of these unnecessary connections while at the same time building new ones through learning and sensory stimulation — in other words, tailoring the brain to its environment. A mouse study has found that without enough sensory stimulation, infant mice lose fewer connections — indicating that connections need to be lost in order for appropriate ones to grow. The findings support the idea that parents should try to expose their children to a variety of sensory experiences.
Zuo, Y., Yang, G., Kwon, E., & Gan, W.-B. (2005). Long-term sensory deprivation prevents dendritic spine loss in primary somatosensory cortex. Nature, 436(7048), 261-265. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16015331
http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.htm3?article_id=218392607
Researchers have now identified the regions of the brain involved in processing what’s really going on, and what we think is going on. Macaque monkeys played a virtual reality video game in which the monkeys were tricked into thinking that they were tracing ellipses with their hands, although they actually were moving their hands in a circle. Monitoring of nerve cells revealed that the primary motor cortex represented the actual movement while the signals from cells in a neighboring area, called the ventral premotor cortex, were generating elliptical shapes. Knowing how the brain works to distinguish between action and perception will help efforts to build biomedical devices that can control artificial limbs, some day enabling the disabled to move a prosthetic arm or leg by thinking about it.
Schwartz, A. B., Moran, D. W., & Reina, A. (2004). Differential Representation of Perception and Action in the Frontal Cortex. Science, 303(5656), 380-383. Retrieved from http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/303/5656/380
http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/652.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-02/wuis-rpb020704.php
Carnegie Mellon scientists using magnetic resonance imaging found quite different brain activity patterns for reading and listening to identical sentences. During reading, the right hemisphere was not as active as expected, suggesting a difference in the nature of comprehension experienced when reading versus listening. When listening, there was greater activation in a part of Broca's area associated with verbal working memory, suggesting that there is more semantic processing and working memory storage in listening comprehension than in reading. This should not be taken as evidence that comprehension is better in one or other of these situations, merely that it is different. "Listening to an audio book leaves a different set of memories than reading does. A newscast heard on the radio is processed differently from the same words read in a newspaper."
Michael, E. B., Keller, T. A., Carpenter, P. A., & Just, M. A. (2001). fMRI investigation of sentence comprehension by eye and by ear: Modality fingerprints on cognitive processes. Human Brain Mapping, 13(4), 239-252. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.1036/abstract
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-08/cmu-tma081401.php
We talk about "chunking" all the time in the context of memory. But the process of breaking information down into manageable bits occurs, it seems, right from perception. Magnetic resonance imaging reveals that when people watched movies of common, everyday, goal-directed activities (making the bed, doing the dishes, ironing a shirt), their brains automatically broke these continuous events into smaller segments. The study also identified a network of brain areas that is activated during the perception of boundaries between events. "The fact that changes in brain activity occurred during the passive viewing of movies indicates that this is how we normally perceive continuous events, as a series of segments rather than a dynamic flow of action."
Zacks, J.M., Braver, T.S., Sheridan, M.A., Donaldson, D.I., Snyder, A.Z., Ollinger, J.M., Buckner, R.L. & Raichle, M.E. 2001. Human brain activity time-locked to perceptual event boundaries. Nature Neuroscience, 4(6), 651-5.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-07/aaft-bp070201.php
We choose what to pay attention to, what to remember. We give more weight to some things than others. Our perceptions and memories of events are influenced by our preconceptions, and by our moods. Researchers at Yale and New York University have recently published research indicating that the part of the brain known as the amygdala is responsible for the influence of emotion on perception. This builds on previous research showing that the amygdala is critically involved in computing the emotional significance of events. The amygdala is connected to those brain regions dealing with sensory experiences, and the theory that these connections allow the amygdala to influence early perceptual processing is supported by this research. Dr. Anderson suggests that “the amygdala appears to be critical for the emotional tuning of perceptual experience, allowing perception of emotionally significant events to occur despite inattention.”
Anderson, A. K., & Phelps, E. A. (2001). Lesions of the human amygdala impair enhanced perception of emotionally salient events. Nature, 411(6835), 305-309. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/35077083
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-05/NYU-Infr-1605101.php
A standard test of how we perceive local vs global features of visual objects uses Navon figures — large letters made up of smaller ones (see below for an example). As in the Stroop test when colors and color words disagree (RED), the viewer can focus either on the large letter or the smaller ones. When the viewer is faster at seeing the larger letter, they are said to be showing global precedence; when they’re faster at seeing the component letters, they are said to be showing local precedence.
Previous research has found practice improves your ability at distinguishing visual images that vary along one dimension, and that this learning is specific to the visual images you train on and quite durable. A new study extends the finding to more natural stimuli that vary on multiple dimensions.
A critical part of attention (and working memory capacity) is being able to ignore distraction. There has been growing evidence that meditation training (in particular mindfulness meditation) helps develop attentional control, and that this can start to happen very quickly.
For example:
There seem to be several factors involved in these improvements: better control of brainwaves; increased gray matter density in some brain regions; improved white-matter connectivity.
Thus, after ten weeks of Transcendental Meditation (TM) practice, students showed significant changes in brainwave patterns during meditation compared to eyes-closed rest for the controls. These changes reflected greater coherence and power in brainwave activity in areas that overlap with the default mode network (the brain’s ‘resting state’). Similarly, after an eight-week mindfulness meditation program, participants had better control of alpha brainwaves. Relatedly, perhaps, experienced Zen meditators have shown that, after interruptions designed to mimic spontaneous thoughts, they could bring activity in most regions of the default mode network back to baseline faster than non-meditators.
Thus, after an 8-week mindfulness meditation program, participants showed increased grey-matter density in the left hippocampus , posterior cingulate cortex, temporo-parietal junction , and cerebellum , as well as decreased grey-matter density in the amygdala . Similarly, another study found experienced meditators showed significantly larger volumes of the right hippocampus and the right orbitofrontal cortex, and to a lesser extent the right thalamus and the left inferior temporal gyrus.
These areas of the brain are all closely linked to emotion, and may explain meditators' improved ability in regulating their emotions.
Thus, long-term meditators showed pronounced differences in white-matter connectivity between their brains and those of age-matched controls, meaning that meditators’ brains were better able to quickly relay electrical signals. The brain regions linked by these white-matter tracts include many of those mentioned as showing increased gray matter density. Another study found that a mere 11 hours of meditation training (IBMT) produced measurable changes in the integrity and efficiency of white matter in the corona radiata (which links to the anterior cingulate cortex, an area where attention and emotion are thought to be integrated).
It’s an interesting question, the extent to which poor attentional control is a reflection of poor emotional regulation. Obviously there is more to distractability than that, but emotion and attention are clearly inextricably entwined. So, for example, a pilot study involving 10 middle school students with ADHD found that those who participated in twice-daily 10 minute sessions of Transcendental Meditation for three months showed a dramatic reduction in stress and anxiety and improvements in ADHD symptoms and executive function.
The effects of emotion regulation are of course wider than the effects on attention. Another domain they impact is that of decision-making. A study involving experienced Buddhist meditators found that they used different brain regions than controls when making decisions in a ‘fairness’ game. The differences reflected less input from emotional reactions and more emphasis on the actual benefits.
Similarly, brain scans taken while experienced and novice meditators meditated found that periodic bursts of disturbing noise had less effect on brain areas involved in emotion and decision-making for experienced meditators compared to novices — and very experienced meditators (at least 40,000 hours of experience) showed hardly any activity in these areas at all.
Attention is also entwined with perception, so it’s also interesting to observe that several studies have found improved visual perception attendant on meditation training and/or experience. Thus, participants attending a three-month meditation retreat, showed significant improvements in making fine visual distinctions, and ability to sustain attention.
But such benefits may depend on the style of meditation. A study involving experienced practitioners of two styles of meditation (Deity Yoga (DY) and Open Presence (OP)) found that DY meditators were dramatically better at mental rotation and visual memory tasks compared to OP practitioners and controls (and only if they were given the tasks immediately after meditating). Similarly, a study involving Tibetan Buddhist monks found that, during "one-point" meditation, monks were significantly better at maintaining their focus on one image, when two different images were presented to each eye. This superior attentional control was not found during compassion-oriented meditation. However, even under normal conditions the monks showed longer stable perception compared to meditation-naïve control subjects. And three months of intense training in Vipassana meditation produced an improvement in the ability of participants to detect the second of two visual signals half a second apart (the size of the improvement was linked to reduced brain activity to the first target — which was still detected with the same level of accuracy). Similarly, three months of intensive meditation training reduced variability in attentional processing of target tones.
You can read about these studies below in more detail. Three studies were mentioned here without having appeared in the news reports:
Lutz, A., Slagter, H. A., Rawlings, N. B., Francis, A. D., Greischar, L. L., & Davidson, R. J. (2009). Mental Training Enhances Attentional Stability: Neural and Behavioral Evidence. J. Neurosci., 29(42), 13418-13427. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1614-09.2009
Tang, Y.-Y., Lu, Q., Geng, X., Stein, E. A., Yang, Y., & Posner, M. I. (2010). Short-term meditation induces white matter changes in the anterior cingulate. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(35), 15649 -15652. doi:10.1073/pnas.1011043107
Travis, F., Haaga, D., Hagelin, J., Tanner, M., Arenander, A., Nidich, S., Gaylord-King, C., et al. (2010). A self-referential default brain state: patterns of coherence, power, and eLORETA sources during eyes-closed rest and Transcendental Meditation practice. Cognitive Processing, 11(1), 21-30. doi:10.1007/s10339-009-0343-2
Another study adds to research showing meditation training helps people improve their ability to focus and ignore distraction. The new study shows that three months of rigorous training in Vipassana meditation improved people's ability to stabilize attention on target tones, when presented with tones in both ears and instructed to respond only to specific tones in one ear. Marked variability in response time is characteristic of those with ADHD.
Lutz, A., Slagter, H. A., Rawlings, N. B., Francis, A. D., Greischar, L. L., & Davidson, R. J. (2009). Mental Training Enhances Attentional Stability: Neural and Behavioral Evidence. J. Neurosci., 29(42), 13418-13427. Retrieved from http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/29/42/13418
http://www.physorg.com/news177347438.html
Adding to the increasing evidence for the cognitive benefits of meditation, a new imaging study of 22 experienced meditators and 22 controls has revealed that meditators showed significantly larger volumes of the right hippocampus and the right orbitofrontal cortex, and to a lesser extent the right thalamus and the left inferior temporal gyrus. There were no regions where controls had significantly more gray matter than meditators. These areas of the brain are all closely linked to emotion, and may explain meditators' improved ability in regulating their emotions.
Luders, E., Toga, A. W., Lepore, N., & Gaser, C. (2009). The underlying anatomical correlates of long-term meditation: Larger hippocampal and frontal volumes of gray matter. NeuroImage, 45(3), 672-678. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6WNP-4VCH6WN-8/2/fa4f305302758ca5631926fc44a5350f
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/uoc--htb051209.php
And continuing on the subject of visual short-term memory, a study involving experienced practitioners of two styles of meditation: Deity Yoga (DY) and Open Presence (OP) has found that, although meditators performed similarly to nonmeditators on two types of visuospatial tasks (mental rotation and visual memory), when they did the tasks immediately after meditating for 20 minutes (while the nonmeditators rested or did something else), practitioners of the DY style of meditation showed a dramatic improvement compared to OP practitioners and controls. In other words, although the claim that regular meditation practice can increase your short-term memory capacity was not confirmed, it does appear that some forms of meditation can temporarily (and dramatically) improve it. Since the form of meditation that had this effect was one that emphasizes visual imagery, it does support the idea that you can improve your imagery and visual memory skills (even if you do need to ‘warm up’ before the improvement is evident).
Kozhevnikov, M., Louchakova, O., Josipovic, Z., & Motes, M. A. (2009). The enhancement of visuospatial processing efficiency through Buddhist Deity meditation. Psychological Science: A Journal of the American Psychological Society APS, 20(5), 645-653. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19476594
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090427131315.htm
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-04/afps-ssb042709.php
A pilot study involving 10 middle school students with ADHD has found that those who participated in twice-daily 10 minute sessions of Trancendental Meditation for three months showed a dramatic reduction in stress and anxiety and improvements in ADHD symptoms and executive function. The effect was much greater than expected. ADHD children have a reduced ability to cope with stress.
A second, recently completed study has also found that three months practice of the technique resulted in significant positive changes in brain functioning during visual-motor skills, especially in the circuitry of the brain associated with attention and distractibility. After six months practice, measurements of distractibility moved into the normal range.
Grosswald, S. J., Stixrud, W. R., Travis, F., & Bateh, M. A. (2008, December). Use of the Transcendental Meditation technique to reduce symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) by reducing stress and anxiety: An exploratory study. Current Issues in Education [On-line], 10(2). Available: http://cie.ed.asu.edu/volume10/number2/
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-12/muom-tmr122408.php
Another study comparing brain activity in experienced meditators and novices has looked at what happens when people meditating were interrupted by stimuli designed to mimic the appearance of spontaneous thoughts. The study compared 12 people with more than three years of daily practice in Zen meditation with 12 others who had never practiced meditation. It was found that, after interruption, experienced meditators were able to bring activity in most regions of the default mode network (especially the angular gyrus, a region important for processing language) back to baseline faster than non-meditators. The default mode network is associated with the occurrence of spontaneous thoughts and mind-wandering during wakeful rest. The findings indicate not only the attentional benefits of meditation, but also suggest a value for disorders characterized by excessive rumination or an abnormal production of task-unrelated thoughts, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety disorder and major depression.
Pagnoni, G., Cekic, M., & Guo, Y. (2008). “Thinking about Not-Thinking”: Neural Correlates of Conceptual Processing during Zen Meditation. PLoS ONE, 3(9), e3083 - e3083. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003083
Full text available at http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003083
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/eu-zts082908.php
More evidence of the benefits of meditation for attention comes from a study looking at the performance of novices taking part in an eight-week course that included up to 30 minutes of daily meditation, and experienced meditators who attended an intensive full-time, one-month retreat. Initially, the experienced participants demonstrated better executive functioning skills, the cognitive ability to voluntarily focus, manage tasks and prioritize goals. After the eight-week training, the novices had improved their ability to quickly and accurately move and focus attention, while the experienced participants, after their one-month intensive retreat, also improved their ability to keep attention "at the ready."
Jha, A. P., Krompinger, J., & Baime, M. J. (2007). Mindfulness training modifies subsystems of attention. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 7(2), 109-119. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17672382
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-06/uop-mtc062507.php
An imaging study comparing novice and experienced meditators found that experienced meditators showed greater activity in brain circuits involved in paying attention. But the most experienced meditators with at least 40,000 hours of experience showed a brief increase in activity as they started meditating, and then a drop to baseline, as if they were able to concentrate in an effortless way. Moreover, while the subjects meditated inside the MRI, the researchers periodically blasted them with disturbing noises. Among the experienced meditators, the noise had less effect on the brain areas involved in emotion and decision-making than among novice meditators. Among meditators with more than 40,000 hours of lifetime practice, these areas were hardly affected at all. The attention circuits affected by meditation are also involved in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Brefczynski-Lewis, J. A., Lutz, A., Schaefer, H. S., Levinson, D. B., & Davidson, R. J. (2007). Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(27), 11483-11488. Retrieved from http://www.pnas.org/content/104/27/11483.abstract
Full text is available at http://tinyurl.com/3d6wx4
http://www.physorg.com/news102179695.html
Paying attention to one thing can keep you from noticing something else. When people are shown two visual signals half a second apart, they often miss the second one — this effect is called the attentional blink. In a study involving 40 participants being trained in Vipassana meditation (designed to reduce mental distraction and improve sensory awareness), one group of 17 attended a 3 month retreat during which they meditated for 10–12 hours a day (practitioner group), and 23 simply received a 1-hour meditation class and were asked to meditate for 20 minutes daily for 1 week prior to each testing session (control group). The three months of intense training resulted in a smaller attentional blink and reduced brain activity to the first target (which was still detected with the same level of accuracy. Individuals with the most reduction in activity generally showed the most reduction in attentional blink size. The study demonstrates that mental training can result in increased attentional control.
Slagter, H. A., Lutz, A., Greischar, L. L., Francis, A. D., Nieuwenhuis, S., Davis, J. M., & Davidson, R. J. (2007). Mental Training Affects Distribution of Limited Brain Resources. PLoS Biol, 5(6), e138 - e138. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050138
Full text available at http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050138
http://www.physorg.com/news97825611.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/uow-mmf050407.php
Recent research has suggested that skilled meditation can alter certain aspects of the brain's neural activity. A new study has now found evidence that certain types of trained meditative practice can influence the conscious experience of visual perceptual rivalry, a phenomenon thought to involve brain mechanisms that regulate attention and conscious awareness. Perceptual rivalry arises normally when two different images are presented to each eye, and it is manifested as a fluctuation in the "dominant" image that is consciously perceived. The study involved 76 Tibetan Buddhist monks with training ranging from 5 to 54 years. Tested during the practice of two types of meditation: a "compassion"-oriented meditation (contemplation of suffering within the world), and "one-point" meditation (involving the maintained focus of attention on a single object or thought). Major increases in the durations of perceptual dominance were experienced by monks practicing one-point meditation, but not during compassion-oriented meditation. Additionally, under normal conditions the monks showed longer stable perception (average 4.1 seconds compared to 2.6 seconds for meditation-naïve control subjects). The findings suggest that processes particularly associated with one-point meditation can considerably alter the normal fluctuations in conscious state that are induced by perceptual rivalry.
Carter, O., Presti, D., Callistemon, C., Ungerer, Y., Liu, G., & Pettigrew, J. (2005). Meditation alters perceptual rivalry in Tibetan Buddhist monks. Current Biology, 15(11), R412-R413 - R412-R413. Retrieved from http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(05)00558-0
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/cp-mso060205.php
Memory begins with perception. We can’t remember what we don’t perceive, and our memory of things is influenced by how we perceive them.
Our ability to process visual scenes has been the subject of considerable research. How do we process so many objects? Some animals do it by severely limiting what they perceive, but humans can perceive a vast array of features. We need some other way of filtering the information. Moreover, it’s greatly to our advantage that we can process the environment extremely quickly. So that’s two questions: how do we process so much, and so fast?