Background and Hypothesis The current study investigated the extent to which changes in attentional control contribute to performance on a visual perceptual discrimination task, on a trial-by-trial basis in a transdiagnostic clinical sample. Study Design Participants with schizophrenia (SZ; N = 58), bipolar disorder (N = 42), major depression disorder (N = 51), and psychiatrically healthy controls (N = 92) completed a visual perception task in which stimuli appeared briefly. The design allowed us to estimate the lapse rate and the precision of perceptual representations of the stimuli. Electroencephalograms (EEG) were recorded to examine pre-stimulus activity in the alpha band (8–13 Hz), overall and in relation to behavior performance on the task. Study Results We found that the attention lapse rate was elevated in the SZ group compared with all other groups. We also observed group differences in pre-stimulus alpha activity, with control participants showing the highest levels of pre-stimulus alpha when averaging across trials. However, trial-by-trial analyses showed within-participant fluctuations in pre-stimulus alpha activity significantly predicted the likelihood of making an error, in all groups. Interestingly, our analysis demonstrated that aperiodic contributions to the EEG signal (which affect power estimates across frequency bands) serve as a significant predictor of behavior as well. Conclusions These results confirm the elevated attention lapse rate that has been observed in SZ, validate pre-stimulus EEG markers of attentional control and their use as a predictor of behavior on a trial-by-trial basis, and suggest that aperiodic contributions to the EEG signal are an important target for further research in this area, in addition to alpha-band activity.

中文翻译：

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评估精神病和情绪障碍中注意力控制和感觉精确度的逐次试验电生理和行为标志物

背景和假设本研究在跨诊断临床样本中逐项试验的基础上，调查了注意力控制的变化对视觉知觉辨别任务表现的影响程度。研究设计患有精神分裂症（SZ；N = 58）、双相情感障碍（N = 42）、重度抑郁症（N = 51）和精神健康对照（N = 92）的参与者完成了视觉感知任务，其中刺激出现短暂。该设计使我们能够估计刺激感知表征的失效率和精度。记录脑电图 (EEG) 以检查 α 频段 (8-13 Hz) 的刺激前活动，总体以及与任务行为表现的关系。研究结果 我们发现，与所有其他组相比，SZ 组的注意力缺失率较高。我们还观察到刺激前 α 活性的组间差异，在对试验进行平均时，对照组参与者表现出最高水平的刺激前 α 活性。然而，逐项试验分析显示，在所有组中，参与者内刺激前 α 活性的波动显着预测了犯错误的可能性。有趣的是，我们的分析表明，脑电图信号的非周期性贡献（影响跨频段的功率估计）也可以作为行为的重要预测因子。结论 这些结果证实了在 SZ 中观察到的注意力缺失率升高，验证了注意力控制的刺激前脑电图标记及其在逐项试验的基础上作为行为预测因子的用途，并表明对脑电图的非周期性贡献除了 α 波段活动之外，信号也是该领域进一步研究的重要目标。