Ups & downs: Individual Differences in the Temporal Dynamics of Attention

Our attention is known to be intrinsically variable over time, especially when divided over multiple sources of information. Individuals differ in their ability to divide and focus attention on relevant information, so it is important to know which factors play a role in this ability, whether it can be trained or reflects fundamentally limitations that cannot be overcome. Typically, most people have great difficulty to identify the second of two targets when presented within 500 ms, a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (AB). We found evidence that the AB can be diminished by training one’s ability to time attention, but this learning ability is dependent on emotional disposition (depression) which was reflected in beta-gamma oscillation as measured with EEG. In a subsequent study, it was found that the oscillatory nature of attention can account for individual differences, explaining why some people show a large attentional blink (i.e. large blinkers) while others show no restrictions whatsoever (non-blinkers). We finally considered the self-relevance of the presented stimuli in the AB task. We revealed a processing advantage for highly self-relevant stimuli, which interestingly came at either a subsequent cost or benefit in temporal attention, dependent on one’s mental disposition. In conclusion, the current thesis could shed new light on the fundamental processing of temporal attention, suggesting that temporal attention is oscillatory and trainable, and can be modulated by depression. Our robust findings have the potential to be helpful in the preliminary screening and diagnosis of depression