[From David Goldstein(2004.11.14.18:30 EST)]
[Bruce Nevin (11.13.2004 12:15 EST)]
Thanks for an interesting post.
There is a Psychologist, Les Fehmi, who has worked on the issues you are discussing for years. He has a website which discusses it: www.openfocus.com.
He talks about styles of attending and encourages a flexible open focus style. He identifies two dimensions of stye of attention. One dimension is narrow versus wide. The other is more absorbed (a person loses his/her sense of self) versus less absorbed. The styles of attention do correlate with the eeg. Dr. Fehmi has CS programs in which he teaches Open Focus and has designed eeg hardware to encourage Open Focus. His hardware monitors five sites on the scalp (FPz, Oz, T3, T4 and Cz). People are encouraged to increase the phase synchrony in the alpha range at these sites simultaneously.
In your post, you try to relate the eeg work you reference to pct. I have been thinking of this issue as well. The Open Focus exercises encourages one to be simulataneous aware at the lower levels in the hierarrchy in as many sensory modalities as possible. The body is used as an object of meditation. One is asked to imagine configurations (including surfaces and volumes) and relationships (distances between configurations). For example, Can you imagine the distance between one eye and the other eye? Can you imagine the distance between the space inside your throat and the space inside your nose? Can you imagine the surface area of the skin that makes up your hand?
The second dimension (absorbtion versus its opposite) seems to relate to the relationship between the Reorganization system and the hierrarchy. When one is not aware of the observer self, this is absorbtion. I can recall the experience of playing the piano in front of an audience in an absorbed way and then becoming aware of myself doing this. It is usually at the latter time that an error would occur.
Thanks again for raising these issues.
David
···
----- Original Message -----
From:
Bruce Nevin
To: CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 12:16 PM
Subject: [UNKNOWN] Is attention subject to control of perception?
[From Bruce Nevin (11.13.2004 12:15 EST)]
Paying attention is a learnable skill.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2004/11/13/playing_their_way_to_improved_concentration/
“[P]ractice can teach a child what it feels like – and looks like – to pay attention.”
Some perceptions are being brought under control here. What perceptions?
It could be a perception of “concentrating”. It could be perceptions of various body states that accompany paying attention. If the former, the learned skill is completely transferrable to different contexts. If the latter, the portability of the skill depends upon how context-dependent the perceptions are.
Basic practices of meditation also have this purpose, and this effect. The context of meditation practice typically is controlled – quiet, sitting still, eliminating distractions. Yet the ability to focus attention appears to be transferred to uncontrolled contexts replete with distraction. This suggests that the skills that are learned and strengthened in meditation practice involve control of a perception of “concentrating” or of perceptions accompanying concentration that are not context-dependent.
They do say http://www.playattention.com/general-questions/#gen9 that transfer depends on assistance from the coach and the parents. Another commercial product: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,40475,00.html
This is based on research by Joel Lubar at the University of Tennessee http://psychology.utk.edu/people/lubar.html and Col. Louis Csoka for the US Army. Lubar’s work dates from the early 1970s, and has been published in 25 journal articles and book chapters and in the book Behavioral Approaches to Neurology , Academic Press, 1981. He compiled a list of peer-reviewed publications on this at http://www.drakeinstitute.com/home.phtml/add/2002-07-08-185122/.EEG measures depend upon “resonance” or synchronization of many neural systems within regions of the cortex.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9341967&dopt=Abstract
“… resonant loops between neocortical columns of cells known as local, regional, and global resonances. These resonances determine the specific EEG frequencies and are often activated by groups of cells in the thalamus known as pacemakers. There are complex excitatory and inhibitory interactions within the cortex and between the cortex and the thalamus that allow these loops to operate and provide the basis for learning. Neurofeedback is a technique for modifying these resonant loops, and hence, modifying the neurophysiological and neurological basis for learning and for the management of a number of neurologically based disorders.”Bill has disparaged this as equivalent to picking up RF emanations from the backplane of a computer. (Actually, spies have done exactly this. When I worked at BBN, I was told that trucks filled with equipment belonging to the USSR would very commonly “break down” on the highway near certain buildings in Langley, VA, and it would take a long time to get them back on the road again. Are there analogous attempts to factor simpler signals out of EEG records?)
But what is this resonance? Why should neural signals in many neurons become synchronized? How does this relate to the control of individual neural signals in control loops? Shouldn’t synchronization or resonance interfere with control?
According to a presentation on an Army website about Csoka’s stuff, www.internationalmta.org/2003/2003PowerPointFiles/A12-Cowan.ppt , their equipment detects the “brainwaves” from the “Executive Attention Network”. There is an inverse relation between alpha EEG signal and focus or concentration. In Barry Sterman’s EEG studies of Air Force pilots in B2 simulators, as they focussed on a particular aviation task, the alpha brainwave decreased. The more difficult the task, the greater the alpha suppression.
There was an alpha burst as focus ended, and then suppression as the next task began. This interspersed “microbreak” rest period is considered essential. “[T]here is evidence that this kind of cycling between concentration and the microbreak is a basic way in which the brain functions. For example, there are studies that show that when we read, there is a brief idling rhythm in the visual cortex when we come to the end of a line and move on to the next.” http://peakachievement.com/articles/Article%20-%20NasaAirForce/ARTICLE-air_force_and_nasa_research.htm
“[T]hese idling rhythms decrease right after a person is presented with a target to respond to, and then increase again when they finish processing their response to the stimulus. In the back of the brain, this idling rhythm was an 8-12 Hz. (alpha) burst that increased as they became more familiar with the task. As he looked at sites that were further forward in the brain, he saw that there was also an idling rhythm at 5 to 7 Hz” or theta.Elsewhere (http://peakachievement.com/articles/Article%20-%20NasaAirForce/ARTICLE-air_force_and_nasa_research.htm ) instead of “alpha brainwaves” they refer to “idling rhythms in the parietal lobe”.
But is it alpha or theta that is reduced during concentration?
“[A]s I and others concentrated, the voltage output decreased across the board, at all frequencies.” http://peakachievement.com/articles/Article%20-%20NasaAirForce/ARTICLE-air_force_and_nasa_research.htm “Dr. Sterman had actually noticed the same thing, from about 5 to 15 Hzall the frequencies that he measuredat virtually all the brainwave recording sites he tried. Technically, this is called event related desynchronization. In the frontal lobe, this suppression is followed by the return of the theta (5-7 Hz.) idling rhythm in about half a second, particularly after we see a target, rather than an unimportant control stimulus. When people learn to suppress the idling rhythms, their attention problems clear up.”
Here is what I think is the key insight out of this that they’re missing. It sounds like the synchronization or resonance that is measured as “brain waves” correlates with distraction, and that good control (corresponding with concentration) takes individual neurons out of resonance, weakening the net effect of a “brain wave”.
They make a distinction between concentration and alertness. The following is from the PPT presentation cited above:
Concentration: The degree of Single-pointed focus on a perception, thought, or image.
Zooming in.
Can be relaxed, very alert, or in-between.
The Zone.Alertness/Arousal: More intense stimulation, on the edge, excitement.
Summoning resources to respond.
Related to stimulation of the Reticular Activating System by many studies.
Enhances emotion.
Quick burnout if not conserved.This seems to me to be an important distinction. In our discussions, we have not clearly made this distinction. We have talked of attention in relation to readiness for action (arousal) and as correlated with (perhaps caused or directed by) error. This is at odds with the experience of meditators. It may say more about distraction than about concentration of attention.
In sum, it appears to me that when you’re not concentrating on something, neurons within each region of the brain synchronize with one another. When you are concentrating on a task, individual neurons track sensory input and intention (reference input), and such signals differ from one neuron to another, taking them out of the resonance of synchronization with other neurons. The noise in the brain of neurons at play diminishes when you focus on a task. “Suppression” of “brainwaves” is a side effect, but by making it something that you can effect consciously, with “biofeedback” from the sensors in this helmet or visor, you do whatever it takes to diminish the side effect. The result is concentrating better.
/Bruce Nevin