Eliminating the Attentional Blink Through Binaural Beats: A Case for Tailored Cognitive Enhancement

Overview

Journal Front Psychiatry

Specialty Psychiatry

Date 2015 Jun 20

PMID 26089802

Citations 25

Authors

Susan A Reedijk

Anne Bolders

Lorenza S Colzato

Bernhard Hommel

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Enhancing human cognitive performance is a topic that continues to spark scientific interest. Studies into cognitive-enhancement techniques often fail to take inter-individual differences into account, however, which leads to underestimation of the effectiveness of these techniques. The current study investigated the effect of binaural beats, a cognitive-enhancement technique, on attentional control in an attentional blink (AB) task. As predicted from a neurocognitive approach to cognitive control, high-frequency binaural beats eliminated the AB, but only in individuals with low spontaneous eye-blink rates (indicating low striatal dopamine levels). This suggests that the way in which cognitive-enhancement techniques, such as binaural beats, affect cognitive performance depends on inter-individual differences.

Citing Articles

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