Skip to main content

Main menu

  • HOME
  • CONTENT
    • Early Release
    • Featured
    • Current Issue
    • Issue Archive
    • Collections
    • Podcast
  • ALERTS
  • FOR AUTHORS
    • Information for Authors
    • Fees
    • Journal Clubs
    • eLetters
    • Submit
    • Special Collections
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
    • Editorial Board
    • ECR Advisory Board
    • Journal Staff
  • ABOUT
    • Overview
    • Advertise
    • For the Media
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Feedback
    • Accessibility
  • SUBSCRIBE

User menu

  • Log out
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of Neuroscience
  • Log out
  • Log in
  • My Cart
Journal of Neuroscience

Advanced Search

Submit a Manuscript
  • HOME
  • CONTENT
    • Early Release
    • Featured
    • Current Issue
    • Issue Archive
    • Collections
    • Podcast
  • ALERTS
  • FOR AUTHORS
    • Information for Authors
    • Fees
    • Journal Clubs
    • eLetters
    • Submit
    • Special Collections
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
    • Editorial Board
    • ECR Advisory Board
    • Journal Staff
  • ABOUT
    • Overview
    • Advertise
    • For the Media
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Feedback
    • Accessibility
  • SUBSCRIBE
PreviousNext
Articles, Behavioral/Cognitive

Attention Strongly Modulates Reliability of Neural Responses to Naturalistic Narrative Stimuli

Jason J. Ki, Simon P. Kelly and Lucas C. Parra
Journal of Neuroscience 9 March 2016, 36 (10) 3092-3101; https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2942-15.2016
Jason J. Ki
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, City College of New York, New York, New York 10031, and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Jason J. Ki
Simon P. Kelly
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, City College of New York, New York, New York 10031, and
2School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Lucas C. Parra
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, City College of New York, New York, New York 10031, and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

Attentional engagement is a major determinant of how effectively we gather information through our senses. Alongside the sheer growth in the amount and variety of information content that we are presented with through modern media, there is increased variability in the degree to which we “absorb” that information. Traditional research on attention has illuminated the basic principles of sensory selection to isolated features or locations, but it provides little insight into the neural underpinnings of our attentional engagement with modern naturalistic content. Here, we show in human subjects that the reliability of an individual's neural responses with respect to a larger group provides a highly robust index of the level of attentional engagement with a naturalistic narrative stimulus. Specifically, fast electroencephalographic evoked responses were more strongly correlated across subjects when naturally attending to auditory or audiovisual narratives than when attention was directed inward to a mental arithmetic task during stimulus presentation. This effect was strongest for audiovisual stimuli with a cohesive narrative and greatly reduced for speech stimuli lacking meaning. For compelling audiovisual narratives, the effect is remarkably strong, allowing perfect discrimination between attentional state across individuals. Control experiments rule out possible confounds related to altered eye movement trajectories or order of presentation. We conclude that reliability of evoked activity reproduced across subjects viewing the same movie is highly sensitive to the attentional state of the viewer and listener, which is aided by a cohesive narrative.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Modern technology has brought about a monumental surge in the availability of information. There is a pressing need for ways to measure and characterize attentional engagement and understand the causes of its waxing and waning in natural settings. The present study demonstrates that the degree of an individual's attentional engagement with naturalistic narrative stimuli is strongly predicted by the degree of similarity of his/her neural responses to a wider group. The effect is so strong that it enables perfect classification of attentional state across individuals for some narrative stimuli. As modern information content continues to diversify, such direct neural metrics will become increasingly important to manage and evaluate its effects on both the healthy and disordered human brain.

  • attention
  • intersubject correlation
  • natural narrative

This article is freely available online through the J Neurosci Author Open Choice option.

View Full Text
Back to top

In this issue

The Journal of Neuroscience: 36 (10)
Journal of Neuroscience
Vol. 36, Issue 10
9 Mar 2016
  • Table of Contents
  • Table of Contents (PDF)
  • About the Cover
  • Index by author
  • Advertising (PDF)
  • Ed Board (PDF)
Email

Thank you for sharing this Journal of Neuroscience article.

NOTE: We request your email address only to inform the recipient that it was you who recommended this article, and that it is not junk mail. We do not retain these email addresses.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Attention Strongly Modulates Reliability of Neural Responses to Naturalistic Narrative Stimuli
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from Journal of Neuroscience
(Your Name) thought you would be interested in this article in Journal of Neuroscience.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Print
View Full Page PDF
Citation Tools
Attention Strongly Modulates Reliability of Neural Responses to Naturalistic Narrative Stimuli
Jason J. Ki, Simon P. Kelly, Lucas C. Parra
Journal of Neuroscience 9 March 2016, 36 (10) 3092-3101; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2942-15.2016

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Respond to this article
Request Permissions
Share
Attention Strongly Modulates Reliability of Neural Responses to Naturalistic Narrative Stimuli
Jason J. Ki, Simon P. Kelly, Lucas C. Parra
Journal of Neuroscience 9 March 2016, 36 (10) 3092-3101; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2942-15.2016
Twitter logo Facebook logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Introduction
    • Materials and Methods
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF

Keywords

  • attention
  • intersubject correlation
  • natural narrative

Responses to this article

Respond to this article

Jump to comment:

No eLetters have been published for this article.

Related Articles

Cited By...

More in this TOC Section

Articles

  • Memory Retrieval Has a Dynamic Influence on the Maintenance Mechanisms That Are Sensitive to ζ-Inhibitory Peptide (ZIP)
  • Neurophysiological Evidence for a Cortical Contribution to the Wakefulness-Related Drive to Breathe Explaining Hypocapnia-Resistant Ventilation in Humans
  • Monomeric Alpha-Synuclein Exerts a Physiological Role on Brain ATP Synthase
Show more Articles

Behavioral/Cognitive

  • Zooming in and out: Selective attention modulates color signals in early visual cortex for narrow and broad ranges of task-relevant features
  • Target selection signals causally influence human perceptual decision making
  • The molecular substrates of second-order conditioned fear in the basolateral amygdala complex
Show more Behavioral/Cognitive
  • Home
  • Alerts
  • Follow SFN on BlueSky
  • Visit Society for Neuroscience on Facebook
  • Follow Society for Neuroscience on Twitter
  • Follow Society for Neuroscience on LinkedIn
  • Visit Society for Neuroscience on Youtube
  • Follow our RSS feeds

Content

  • Early Release
  • Current Issue
  • Issue Archive
  • Collections

Information

  • For Authors
  • For Advertisers
  • For the Media
  • For Subscribers

About

  • About the Journal
  • Editorial Board
  • Privacy Notice
  • Contact
  • Accessibility
(JNeurosci logo)
(SfN logo)

Copyright © 2025 by the Society for Neuroscience.
JNeurosci Online ISSN: 1529-2401

The ideas and opinions expressed in JNeurosci do not necessarily reflect those of SfN or the JNeurosci Editorial Board. Publication of an advertisement or other product mention in JNeurosci should not be construed as an endorsement of the manufacturer’s claims. SfN does not assume any responsibility for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from or related to any use of any material contained in JNeurosci.