Binaural beats have been used as a way of modifying cognition via auditory stimulation. A recent meta-analysis suggests that binaural beat stimulation can have a positive effect on attention (Garcia-Argibay et al., Psychologische Forschung 83:1124–1136, 2019a, Psychological Research Psychologische Forschung 83:357–372, 2019b), with the sample-weighted average effect size being about .58. This is an intriguing and potentially useful finding, both theoretically and practically. In this study, we focus on sustained attention. We delivered beta-frequency (16 Hz) binaural beat stimulation during a sustained attention task. In “Experiment 1”, reaction times were faster under beat stimulation than control stimulation in a between-subjects design. However, the effect was modest in magnitude, and model comparisons using Bayes Factors were indiscriminate between including and excluding the effect from the model. We followed this initial experiment with two concurrently administered follow-up experiments. In “Experiment 2”, we added thought probes to measure any changes in task engagement associated with binaural beat stimulation. “Experiment 2” revealed a different effect from “Experiment 1”: participants in the binaural beat condition exhibited a shallower vigilance decrement. However, the beat stimulation did not affect the thought probes responses. Combining data across the two experiments indicated rather strong evidence against the hypothesis that beta-frequency binaural beats can augment sustained attention, either via a general speeding of responding or a mitigation of the vigilance decrement. Finally, in “Experiment 3”, we investigated whether pupillary measures of arousal and/or task engagement would be affected by binaural beat stimulation. There was no evidence for such effects. Overall, we did not observe any consistent evidence that binaural beat stimulation can augment sustained attention or its subjective and physiological correlates.

双耳节拍已被用作通过听觉刺激来改变认知的一种方式。最近的一项荟萃​​分析表明，双耳节拍刺激可以对注意力产生积极影响（Garcia-Argibay 等人，Psychologische Forschung 83:1124–1136, 2019a, Psychological Research Psychologische Forschung 83:357–372, 2019b），样本加权平均效应大小约为 0.58。这是一个有趣且潜在有用的发现，无论是理论上还是实践上。在这项研究中，我们关注持续关注。我们在持续注意任务期间提供了 beta 频率 (16 Hz) 双耳节拍刺激。在“实验 1”中，在受试者间设计中，节拍刺激下的反应时间比对照刺激更快。然而，影响的幅度并不大，使用贝叶斯因子的模型比较在包括和排除模型效应之间是不分青红皂白的。我们在这个初始实验之后进行了两个同时进行的后续实验。在“实验 2”中，我们添加了思维探针来测量与双耳节拍刺激相关的任务参与的任何变化。“实验 2”揭示了与“实验 1”不同的效果：双耳节拍条件下的参与者表现出较浅的警惕性下降。然而，节拍刺激并不影响思维探针的反应。结合这两个实验的数据表明，有相当有力的证据表明，β 频率双耳节拍可以通过普遍加速响应或减轻警惕性下降来增强持续注意力的假设。最后，在“实验三”中，我们调查了瞳孔对唤醒和/或任务参与度的测量是否会受到双耳节拍刺激的影响。没有证据表明这种影响。总体而言，我们没有观察到任何一致的证据表明双耳节拍刺激可以增强持续注意力或其主观和生理相关性。