Covert attention in touch: Behavioral and ERP evidence for costs and benefits

Forster, Bettina; Eimer, Martin · 2005 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2005.00268.x

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Summary

This study investigates the mechanisms underlying covert spatial attention in the somatosensory modality, specifically determining whether attentional effects are driven by enhanced processing at attended locations (benefits), suppressed processing at unattended locations (costs), or both. While behavioral and electrophysiological patterns of spatial attention are well-documented in vision and audition, where costs typically precede benefits, such dissociations had not been systematically examined in touch. The authors aimed to fill this gap by analyzing reaction times (RTs) and event-related potentials (ERPs) to identify the relative contributions and temporal dynamics of costs and benefits in tactile processing. The experiment involved 12 participants who performed a tactile detection task using a cue-target paradigm. Visual cues indicated the likely location of a subsequent tactile stimulus on the left or right index finger with 80% validity. Cues were either valid, invalid, or neutral (uninformative). Participants vocally responded to weak vibratory targets and ignored stronger nontargets. ERPs were recorded from tactile nontarget trials to avoid response artifacts. The researchers analyzed RTs and somatosensory ERP components, specifically the P100 and N140, as well as later sustained negativities. Statistical analyses compared valid versus invalid trials (overall attention effects), valid versus neutral trials (benefits), and neutral versus invalid trials (costs). Behavioral results demonstrated that both costs and benefits contributed to attentional modulation, but costs were significantly larger than benefits. RTs were fastest on valid trials (487 ms), intermediate on neutral trials (527 ms), and slowest on invalid trials (631 ms), yielding a benefit of 40 ms and a cost of 104 ms. ERP analysis revealed that overall attention effects manifested as enhanced negativity starting at the P100 latency and continuing through the N140 and later windows. Crucially, the modulation of the N140 component reflected equal contributions from both costs and benefits. However, at longer latencies (175–285 ms), the sustained attentional negativity was predominantly driven by costs, with minimal contribution from benefits. These findings indicate that tactile spatial attention operates differently than visual or auditory attention. In vision and audition, processing costs (suppression of unattended stimuli) typically precede processing benefits (enhancement of attended stimuli). In contrast, this study found that costs and benefits contribute simultaneously to early somatosensory processing (N140), with costs dominating later stages. This suggests that the neural mechanisms governing attentional selectivity in touch may be distinct from those in other sensory modalities, characterized by a stronger reliance on the suppression of irrelevant information rather than the enhancement of relevant signals.

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• multisensory crossmodal