High dream recall frequency is associated with an increase of both bottom-up and top-down attentional processes.
Perrine Ruby, Rémy Masson, Benoit Chatard, Roxane Hoyer, Laure Bottemanne, Raphael Vallat, Aurélie Bidet-Caulet
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) August 22, 2022 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab445 (opens in new tab) via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractPeople who frequently recall their dreams show larger brain responses to unexpected sounds, even when actively paying attention to a task, indicating enhanced bottom-up processing of irrelevant auditory stimuli. They also exhibit larger brain signals related to expecting and responding to target sounds, suggesting greater top-down attention recruitment. Despite these differences, their behavioral performance on attention tasks is not impaired, though it may come at a higher cognitive cost. The findings propose that in high dream recallers, increased bottom-up processing may facilitate dream recall by promoting awakening during sleep, while enhanced top-down processes may support dream recall through greater awareness or short-term memory stability of dream content.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 37 |
| Population | High and low dream recallers |
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Keywords | Cnv P3 Audition Distraction |
| Key finding | High dream recallers show larger event-related potentials to distracting sounds and to target expectancy and target sounds than low dream recallers, indicating enhanced bottom-up and top-down attentional processing without behavioral performance differences. |
Abstract
Event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with the involuntary orientation of (bottom-up) attention toward an unexpected sound are of larger amplitude in high dream recallers (HR) than in low dream recallers (LR) during passive listening, suggesting different attentional functioning. We measured bottom-up and top-down attentional performance and their cerebral correlates in 18 HR (11 women, age = 22.7 years, dream recall frequency = 5.3 days with a dream recall per week) and 19 LR (10 women, age = 22.3, DRF = 0.2) using EEG and the Competitive Attention Task. Between-group differences were found in ERPs but not in behavior. The results show that HR present larger ERPs to distracting sounds than LR even during active listening, arguing for enhanced bottom-up processing of irrelevant sounds. HR also presented larger contingent negative variation during target expectancy and P3b to target sounds than LR, speaking for an enhanced recruitment of top-down attention. The attentional balance seems preserved in HR since their performances are not altered, but possibly at a higher resource cost. In HR, increased bottom-up processes would favor dream recall through awakening facilitation during sleep and enhanced top-down processes may foster dream recall through increased awareness and/or short-term memory stability of dream content.