Finger Temperature: A Psychophysiological Assessment of the Attentional State

Bibliographic Details
Title: Finger Temperature: A Psychophysiological Assessment of the Attentional State
Authors: Rodrigo C. Vergara, Cristóbal Moënne-Loccoz, Camila Ávalos, José Egaña, Pedro E. Maldonado
Source: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Vol 13 (2019)
Publisher Information: Frontiers Media S.A., 2019.
Publication Year: 2019
Collection: LCC:Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Subject Terms: EEG, autonomic nervous activity, attention, finger temperature, oscillations, Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry, RC321-571
More Details: Attention is a key cognitive phenomenon that is studied to understand cognitive disorders or even to estimate workloads to prevent accidents. Usually, it is studied using brain activity, even though it has many psychophysiological correlates. In the present study, we aim to evaluate if finger temperature, as a surrogate of peripheral vasoconstriction, can be used to obtain similar and complementary information to electroencephalography (EEG) brain activity measurements. To conduct this, 34 participants were recruited and submitted to performing four tasks—one as a baseline, and three attentional tasks. These three attentional tasks measured sustained attention, resilience to distractors, and attentional resources. During the tasks, the room, forehead, tympanic, and finger temperatures were measured. Furthermore, we included a 32-channel EEG recording. Our results showed a strong monotonic association between the finger temperature and the Alpha and Beta EEG spectral bands. When predicting attentional performance, the finger temperature was complementary to the EEG spectral measurements, through the prediction of aspects of attentional performance that had not been assessed by spectral EEG activity, or through the improvement of the model’s fit. We also found that during the baseline task (non-goal-oriented task), the spectral EEG activity has an inverted correlation, as compared to a goal-oriented task. Our current results suggest that the psychophysiological assessment of attention is complementary to classic EEG approach, while also having the advantage of easy implementation of analysis tools in environments of reducing control (workplaces, student classrooms).
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
ISSN: 1662-5161
Relation: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00066/full; https://doaj.org/toc/1662-5161
DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2019.00066
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/31e49b2d7d164dc4b65bd8b57fd07ba6
Accession Number: edsdoj.31e49b2d7d164dc4b65bd8b57fd07ba6
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
More Details
ISSN:16625161
DOI:10.3389/fnhum.2019.00066
Published in:Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Language:English