AUTHOR=Reedijk Susan A. , Bolders Anne , Colzato Lorenza S. , Hommel Bernhard 

TITLE=Eliminating the Attentional Blink through Binaural Beats: A Case for Tailored Cognitive Enhancement

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=Volume 6 - 2015

YEAR=2015

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2015.00082

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2015.00082

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=Enhancing human cognitive performance is a topic that continues to spark scientific interest. Studies into cognitive enhancement techniques often fail to take inter-individual differences into account, however, which leads to underestimation of the effectiveness of these techniques. The current study investigated the effect of binaural beats, a cognitive enhancement technique, on attentional control in an attentional blink task. As predicted from a neurocognitive approach to cognitive control, high-frequency binaural beats eliminated the attentional blink, but only in individuals with low spontaneous eye-blink rates (indicating low striatal dopamine levels). This suggests that the way in which cognitive enhancement techniques, such as binaural beats, affect cognitive performance depends on inter-individual differences.