Enhanced executive attention efficiency after adaptive force control training: Behavioural and physiological results

Attention plays an important role in perception and cognition, and developing an effective method to train and improve attention is an essential and challenging task. In this study, fingertip-based adaptive force control tasks (AFCT) were explored for attention training, and the visual-channel task called an attention network test (ANT) was used to measure the level of attention before and after AFCT. The purposes of this study were to investigate whether AFCT can enhance the attention level on the ANT task and to elucidate the underlying electrophysiological mechanisms. The results showed that the efficiency of the executive control network during ANT was significantly improved by the AFCT training, indicating that the AFCT training may enhance the executive attention level during visual-channel tasks. To measure the behavioural performance during the AFCT training, we used tolerance, variance and duration of the forces to design a comprehensive score of behavioural performance (CSBP), and the electrophysiological mechanisms were also explored using electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. The AFCT and ANT results showed consistency in medial frontal theta activity and in connectivity strength at frontal-parietal regions in the alpha band. These results indicated that the observed attention improvement across tasks executed using different sensory channels may be due to the training of overlapping components of the relevant attention networks. Thus, this study provides further insight into the design of training tasks that stimulate multi-sensory channels, which can be used to improve attention and treat various attention deficit disorders.