Controlling attention with brain waves

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69 points·hhs··9 comments

I'd like to know how this compares to neurofeedback therapy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback has been around for a long time and there seems to be conflicting results on its effects on attention. Is the study on a different type of neurofeedback therapy or is it supporting the effectiveness of current neurofeedback therapy?

I wanted to complain that there was no link to the paper but it's there on the right side. Hope this helps someone else: https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(19)30964-X

Mmm. Without the distinction between top-down attention and bottom-up saliency, this is impossible to interpret.

For example Itti, Koch, and Niebur have papers on a simple attention model: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/730558

You can not just do an experiment using top-down attention on one hemisphere and subsequently draw conclusions using a bottom-up salient object at the other hemisphere. At least not conclusions about the role of alpha waves in both - different (!) - scenarios.

Does attention has any correlation to IQ? I mean is it possible to have an IQ of 180, but perform with IQ 120 because of lack of attention?

Absolutely. 90% of HN readers do it everyday.

I'd assume so given that a large part of how IQ tests derive your score is based on how long it takes you.

Anecdata, sample size 1: When I was a teenager struggling in school because of attention issues, a psychiatrist had me take a test which suggested so. IQ and a few memory/recall-related tasks measured a bit higher when I was medicated with Adderall than without it.

Do you remember the % difference?

That should be controlled against simply repeating the test and simply giving "normal" people adderal during iq testing.

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