Self-Rated Attentiveness Interacts with Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation and Noise Stimulation in Reaction Time in a Go/No-Go Task

Abstract

Previous research has found that stimulating inattentive people with auditory white noise induces enhancement in cognitive performance. This enhancement is believed to occur due to a statistical phenomenon called stochastic resonance, where noise increases the probability of a signal passing the firing threshold in the neural cells. Here we investigate whether people with low attentiveness benefit to a larger extent than attentive people from stimulation by auditory white noise and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). The results show, for both auditory noise and tDCS stimulation, that the changes in performance relative to nonstimulation correlate with the degree of attentiveness in a Go/No-Go task, but not in a N-back task. These results suggest that the benefit of tDCS may interact with inattentiveness.