# Side-specific implicit training of attentional disengagement and reorienting

## TL;DR

This study introduces a new training method to improve attentional disengagement from specific sides, which could help treat attentional deficits in brain-damaged patients.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel side-specific and implicit training paradigm for improving attentional disengagement.

## Key findings

- The training specifically accelerated attentional disengagement from predictive cues.
- The effect persisted even when cues became unpredictive again.
- The training relied on learning cue predictiveness, not just target probabilities.

## Abstract

Some patients with parietal brain damage have problems disengaging their attention from ipsilesional stimuli. Although this disengage deficit has been described in the framework of the neglect syndrome, where it is particularly pronounced, no current treatment addresses this issue directly and side-specifically. In this study we propose a paradigm that could serve as such a training and – as a proof of concept – test its effects on the attentional allocation of healthy participants. We trained 36 participants between 20 and 35 years of age in a spatial orienting paradigm in which cues on one side were predictive of the opposite side, while the cues on the opposite side were neutral. We then compared reaction times before, during, and after this training. We could show that (1) this side-specific training specifically accelerated attentional disengagement from the predictive cues, (2) this effect persisted even when cues became unpredictive again, (3) it could be achieved implicitly, i.e., without the participants’ knowledge of the true cue-target-relationship, and that (4) it indeed relied on the learning of the cue’s predictiveness of the target location and not pure target occurrence probabilities. These results not only contribute to our knowledge about the spatial orienting of attention but might also form the basis for a new approach to treating the disengage deficit.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00221-025-07049-0.