The influence of the respiratory cycle on reaction times in sensory-cognitive paradigms

Johannknecht, Michelle; Kayser, Christoph · 2022 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-06364-8

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Summary

This study investigates the prevalence and magnitude of the relationship between the respiratory cycle and performance in typical sensory-cognitive tasks. While prior research suggests that brain activity and behavior covary with inhalation and exhalation, the relevance of these effects in standard laboratory paradigms remains unclear due to methodological inconsistencies and explicit breathing instructions in previous studies. The authors aimed to determine whether reaction times and accuracy systematically vary with respiratory state under naturalistic conditions, where participants breathe normally without specific constraints. The researchers recruited 42 adult volunteers who performed six behavioral paradigms probing sensory detection, discrimination, and short-term memory: two pitch discrimination tasks, a visual motion task, an emotion discrimination task, a visual memory task, and a sound detection task. Participants were instructed to breathe through their nose as usual. Respiratory airflow was recorded using temperature-sensitive resistors inserted into oxygen masks, allowing for high-resolution tracking of inhalation and exhalation phases. The study analyzed whether participants aligned their breathing to experimental events (stimulus onset or response submission) and whether behavioral metrics—specifically log-transformed reaction times (RTs) and fraction of correct responses (FCR)—covaried with the respiratory state. Statistical analyses employed mixed linear models to assess the influence of respiratory state and phase on performance, comparing model fits with and without respiratory predictors. The results demonstrated that participants spontaneously aligned their respiratory cycles to the experimental paradigm, tending to inhale around stimulus presentation and exhale when submitting responses. Crucially, reaction times consistently and significantly covaried with the respiratory cycle, differing between inhalation and exhalation phases. This effect was most pronounced when analyzed contingent on the respiratory state around the time of the participant’s response. In contrast, response accuracy showed little to no significant covariation with the respiratory cycle. The effect sizes of these respiration-behavior relations were found to be comparable to those observed in other typical experimental manipulations in sensory-cognitive tasks. These findings highlight the relevance of respiratory-behavioral relations in standard cognitive experiments, suggesting that respiration is a prominent factor influencing sensory-cognitive function. The study supports the notion that sensation is intricately linked to rhythmic bodily or interoceptive functions, with respiratory state acting as a continuous, subconscious modulator of perceptual processing speed. By demonstrating these effects under naturalistic breathing conditions, the authors underscore the importance of accounting for respiratory cycles in the design and analysis of behavioral neuroscience studies.

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