How EEG activity changes during tasks requiring sustained attention?

Emri, Zsuzsa, Károly, Antal (2026) How EEG activity changes during tasks requiring sustained attention? In: Agria Média 2025 : „Oktatás 5.0: Az ember és a technológia harmóniája”. Eger, Eszterházy Károly Katolikus Egyetem (Digitális Technológia Intézet). pp. 52-60.

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Absztrakt (kivonat)

Several studies have investigated neurophysiological variables indicating the quality of reading and have found a relationship between performance on reading tests and frontal EEG theta and beta powers, as well as the degree of correlation between frontal and posterior EEG activities. Frontal beta activity indicates alertness and the development of effective cognitive control, while an increase in theta activity implies the use of working memory. A strong correlation between frontal and posterior areas indicates efficient communication between secondary visual areas that aid reading and frontal areas responsible for maintaining attention. In this study, we investigated changes in EEG activity that may be related to reading quality and recall of the read text. We recorded the EEG activity of 20 high school students (aged 16-19) using the Emotiv Epoc+ device. The reading tasks were history lessons, appearing on a laptop screen. The first lesson was preceded by relaxation, while the second by a series of mathematical tasks. Following each reading, participants completed a task sheet related to the text. At the end of the task series, students rated the difficulty of the tasks, and their performance, anxiety and fatigue. After removing artifacts, the EEG recordings were divided into frequency bands. We determined the power of each frequency band and the correlation between the frontal and posterior electrodes on both sides in the theta and beta bands. For the first history text, students' performance and perceived task difficulty showed a negative correlation, while for the second text, no such correlation was found. None of the EEG characteristics correlated with students' self-reported fatigue. Beta activity was higher during the second reading tasks and showed no correlation with the task difficulty or performance. During the first reading the correlation of the theta activities between the frontal and posterior areas was higher than during the second reading task on both side, while on the right side in addition to this we found higher level correlation in the beta band as well. The decreased level of correlation between frontal and posterior areas indicated the weakening of the communication between them and negatively correlated with the score of the math tasks. Our measurements revealed differences in EEG activity during the two reading tasks, indicating that with fatigue working memory use and, especially on the right side, communication between frontal and posterior areas became less effective. Beta and theta band powers and the level of correlation between frontal and posterior areas therefore promising parameters to be used for monitoring attention during reading.

Mű típusa:	Könyvrészlet - Book section
Szerző:	Szerző neve Email MTMT azonosító ORCID azonosító Közreműködés Emri, Zsuzsa NEM RÉSZLETEZETT NEM RÉSZLETEZETT NEM RÉSZLETEZETT Szerző Károly, Antal NEM RÉSZLETEZETT NEM RÉSZLETEZETT NEM RÉSZLETEZETT Szerző
Kapcsolódó URL-ek:	Befoglaló kötet
Kulcsszavak:	EEG, beta activity, reading comprehension, theta activity
Nyelv:	angol
DOI azonosító:	10.17048/AM.2025.52
Felhasználó:	Tibor Gál
Dátum:	02 Szep 2026 12:36
Utolsó módosítás:	02 Szep 2026 12:36
URI:	http://publikacio.uni-eszterhazy.hu/id/eprint/9390

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