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Regulation of arousal via online neurofeedback improves human performance in a demanding sensory-motor task

Our state of arousal can significantly affect our ability to make optimal decisions, judgments, and actions in real-world dynamic environments. The Yerkes–Dodson law, which posits an inverse-U relationship between arousal and task performance, suggests that there is a state of arousal that is optima...

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Autores principales: Faller, Josef, Cummings, Jennifer, Saproo, Sameer, Sajda, Paul
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6442591/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30862731
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817207116
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author Faller, Josef
Cummings, Jennifer
Saproo, Sameer
Sajda, Paul
author_facet Faller, Josef
Cummings, Jennifer
Saproo, Sameer
Sajda, Paul
author_sort Faller, Josef
collection PubMed
description Our state of arousal can significantly affect our ability to make optimal decisions, judgments, and actions in real-world dynamic environments. The Yerkes–Dodson law, which posits an inverse-U relationship between arousal and task performance, suggests that there is a state of arousal that is optimal for behavioral performance in a given task. Here we show that we can use online neurofeedback to shift an individual’s arousal from the right side of the Yerkes–Dodson curve to the left toward a state of improved performance. Specifically, we use a brain–computer interface (BCI) that uses information in the EEG to generate a neurofeedback signal that dynamically adjusts an individual’s arousal state when they are engaged in a boundary-avoidance task (BAT). The BAT is a demanding sensory-motor task paradigm that we implement as an aerial navigation task in virtual reality and which creates cognitive conditions that escalate arousal and quickly results in task failure (e.g., missing or crashing into the boundary). We demonstrate that task performance, measured as time and distance over which the subject can navigate before failure, is significantly increased when veridical neurofeedback is provided. Simultaneous measurements of pupil dilation and heart-rate variability show that the neurofeedback indeed reduces arousal. Our work demonstrates a BCI system that uses online neurofeedback to shift arousal state and increase task performance in accordance with the Yerkes–Dodson law.
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spelling pubmed-64425912019-04-05 Regulation of arousal via online neurofeedback improves human performance in a demanding sensory-motor task Faller, Josef Cummings, Jennifer Saproo, Sameer Sajda, Paul Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A PNAS Plus Our state of arousal can significantly affect our ability to make optimal decisions, judgments, and actions in real-world dynamic environments. The Yerkes–Dodson law, which posits an inverse-U relationship between arousal and task performance, suggests that there is a state of arousal that is optimal for behavioral performance in a given task. Here we show that we can use online neurofeedback to shift an individual’s arousal from the right side of the Yerkes–Dodson curve to the left toward a state of improved performance. Specifically, we use a brain–computer interface (BCI) that uses information in the EEG to generate a neurofeedback signal that dynamically adjusts an individual’s arousal state when they are engaged in a boundary-avoidance task (BAT). The BAT is a demanding sensory-motor task paradigm that we implement as an aerial navigation task in virtual reality and which creates cognitive conditions that escalate arousal and quickly results in task failure (e.g., missing or crashing into the boundary). We demonstrate that task performance, measured as time and distance over which the subject can navigate before failure, is significantly increased when veridical neurofeedback is provided. Simultaneous measurements of pupil dilation and heart-rate variability show that the neurofeedback indeed reduces arousal. Our work demonstrates a BCI system that uses online neurofeedback to shift arousal state and increase task performance in accordance with the Yerkes–Dodson law. National Academy of Sciences 2019-03-26 2019-03-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6442591/ /pubmed/30862731 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817207116 Text en Copyright © 2019 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle PNAS Plus
Faller, Josef
Cummings, Jennifer
Saproo, Sameer
Sajda, Paul
Regulation of arousal via online neurofeedback improves human performance in a demanding sensory-motor task
title Regulation of arousal via online neurofeedback improves human performance in a demanding sensory-motor task
title_full Regulation of arousal via online neurofeedback improves human performance in a demanding sensory-motor task
title_fullStr Regulation of arousal via online neurofeedback improves human performance in a demanding sensory-motor task
title_full_unstemmed Regulation of arousal via online neurofeedback improves human performance in a demanding sensory-motor task
title_short Regulation of arousal via online neurofeedback improves human performance in a demanding sensory-motor task
title_sort regulation of arousal via online neurofeedback improves human performance in a demanding sensory-motor task
topic PNAS Plus
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6442591/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30862731
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817207116
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