Rafael Román-Caballero

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• PhD
• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Granada

Sustained attention is crucial for daily functioning, yet research on vigilance development has yielded inconsistent findings. These discrepancies arise partly from the use of tasks with different vigilance demands and from limitations in the indices of sensitivity and response criterion used. This study examines vigilance development in a large sa...

The ability to process visual information is not the same in the left and right visual fields. Extensive literature has consistently shown that young, healthy human adults exhibit a visuospatial bias towards the left hemifield compared to the right hemifield (pseudoneglect). This leftward bias has traditionally been demonstrated through horizontal...

When synthesizing the results of multiple studies, meta-analysts typically assess publication bias using different models. However, none of those methods clearly outperforms the others and the inferences drawn from them are therefore subject to substantial uncertainty. One approach proposes to solve discrepancies between publication-bias methods by...

Entrainment theories propose that attention inherently oscillates between moments of attentional enhancement and disengagement. Consequently, perceptual and response benefits have been reported in tasks with a rhythmic structure. In the present study, we report two preregistered auditory experiments attempting to replicate previous supporting behav...

When synthesizing the results of multiple studies, meta-analysts typically assess publication bias using different models. However, none of those methods clearly outperforms the others and the inferences drawn from them are therefore subject to substantial uncertainty. One approach proposes to solve discrepancies between publication-bias methods by...

When synthesizing the results of multiple studies, meta-analysts typically assess publication bias using assumption-based models. However, the lack of convergence between methods is common. The performance of all publication-bias methods is sensitive to the specific conditions of the meta-analysis and one approach proposes to solve discrepancies by...

Entrainment theories, such as the Dynamic Attending Theory, extend this idea by proposing that attention acts as an oscillatory system that alternates between moments of attentional enhancement and instants of attentional disengagement. Consequently, perceptual and response benefits have been reported in tasks with a rhythmic structure, presumably...

Access to musical training depends on various factors, such as socioeconomic status and musical background of families, and the child's interest in learning music (related to their openness to experience). In the present study, we show an additional source of selection bias that has gone unnoticed: the relative age of children within the same cohor...

Concepts such as "neuro-doping" have contributed to an expansion in the area of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and its impact over physical performance in recent years. This umbrella review examines meta-analyses to evaluate tDCS's impact on exercise performance in healthy individuals. We identified 9 meta-analyses that met our incl...

Recent evidence suggests that musical practice could be a promising cognitive training activity that could promote attentional functioning. However, findings with adult samples have shown that musical training might have a specific impact only over some attentional processes (e.g., phasic alertness, sustained attention, and vigilance). On the other...

Concepts such as "neuro-doping" or brain doping have contributed to an expansion in the area of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and its impact over exercise and physical performance in recent years. Here we assess the evidence supporting the healthy population using an umbrella review of meta-analyses investigating the role of tDCS t...

La música es, para la gran mayoría de personas, fundamental en sus vidas. Nos aporta grandes beneficios, muchos de ellos relacionados con nuestra atención. Debido a su dimensión emocional, la música afecta al sistema de redes atencionales, ayudándonos a desenvolvernos en nuestro entorno e influyendo en nuestra manera de atender. Ante el natural det...

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to perform planned actions in a future moment and it is of fundamental importance for an independent and autonomous lifestyle from development to late adulthood. Deficits in episodic memory and executive functions, which are involved in PM are characteristic features of mild cognitive impairment (M...

Given the immature cognitive abilities of infants at birth, caregivers connect with them by producing stereotyped infant-directed (ID) forms of speech and songs in which the acoustic features are modified. Although ID vocalisations are fundamental for establishing social and affective bonds, key aspects of infant–caregiver interactions are still po...

It has often been reported that mental exertion, presumably leading to mental fatigue, can negatively affect exercise performance; however, recent findings have questioned the strength of the effect. To further complicate this issue, an overlooked problem might be the presence of publication bias in studies using underpowered designs, which is know...

We present here the ANTI-Vea platform (ANTI-Vea-UGR; https://anti-vea.ugr.es/index.php). It is a free public website that our team has developed for online collecting and analyzing data obtained with the Attentional Network Test for Interactions and Vigilance – executive and arousal components (ANTI-Vea), and its different subversions. Using this t...

The Attentional Networks Test for Interactions and Vigilance—executive and arousal components (ANTI-Vea) is a computerized task of 32 min duration in the standard format. The task simultaneously assesses the main effects and interactions of the three attentional networks (i.e., phasic alertness, orienting, and executive control) and two dissociated...

The Attentional Networks Test for Interactions and Vigilance–executive and arousal components (ANTI-Vea) is a computerized task of 32 min duration in the standard format. The task simultaneously assesses the main effects and interactions of the three attentional networks (i.e., phasic alertness, orienting, and executive control) and two dissociated...

There is currently a growing interest in ways to enhance and preserve our cognitive skills through changes in lifestyle. Extensive scientific evidence links several behavioral and environmental factors, such as smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, a sedentary lifestyle, and inadequate nutrition, to an increased risk of cognitive impairment, dementia, a...

Rhythmic contexts are ubiquitous in our lives, influencing our behavior significantly. Music, dance, speech, and even natural events such as sea waves have an inherent temporal structure, understood as rhythms. The Dynamic Attending Theory (DAT) states that attention can be entrained to external rhythms, enhancing our behavior in terms of preparati...

Extensive research links regular physical exercise to an overall enhancement of cognitive function across the lifespan. Here we assess the causal evidence supporting this relationship in the healthy population, using an umbrella review of meta-analyses limited to randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Despite most of the 24 reviewed meta-analyses rep...

The demands of today's society for interventions that optimize cognitive abilities and prevent their decline have motivated the translation of scientific findings into applied programs. Ordinary activities such as physical exercise, chess, meditation, playing video games or a musical instrument, as well as specific cognitive programs, have witnesse...

Gaze acts from an early age as a cue to orient attention and, thereafter, to infer our social partners' intentions, thoughts, and emotions. Variants of the attentional orienting paradigm have been used to study the orienting capabilities associated to eye gaze. However, to date, it is still unclear whether this methodology truly assesses “social-sp...

Multiple theories have used perceptual sensitivity and response criterion indices to explain the decrements in performance across time on task (i.e., vigilance decrement). In a recent study, McCarley and Yamani (2021) offered conceptual and methodological advances to this debate by using a vigilance task that parametrically manipulates noise and si...

The literature on musical training suggests benefits of this activity on auditory skills (i.e., near transfer) and general cognitive abilities (i.e., far transfer). However, other positions have taken those results more skeptically, rather arguing that studies with positive outcomes suffer from methodological issues that impede inferences of causal...

Gaze acts from an early age as a cue to orient attention and, thereafter, to infer our social partners' intentions, thoughts, and emotions. Variants of the attentional orienting paradigm have been used to study the orienting capabilities associated to eye gaze. However, to date, it is still unclear whether this methodology truly assesses an attribu...

La vigilancia está presente en un sinfín de tareas que implican mantener la atención durante periodos prolongados que conllevan una pérdida progresiva de rendimiento a lo largo del tiempo (decremento en vigilancia). Podemos distinguir entre la vigilancia de arousal (VA), que supone mantener un estado de activación para responder de manera relativam...

Multiple theories have used the indices of the signal detection theory (SDT) to explain vigilance decrement. A recent study by McCarley and Yamani offered conceptual and methodological advances to this debate by using a vigilance task that parametrically manipulates noise and signal, and analyzes the outcomes with psychometric curves. In the presen...

Background Many meta-analytic reviews have examined the cognitive benefits of regular physical exercise across the lifespan, with a wide range of inclusion criteria and disparate analytic approaches. In fact, most global health organizations incorporate the purported cognitive benefits as part of their policies to promote regular physical exercise....

An extensive literature has investigated the impact of musical training on cognitive skills and academic achievement in children and adolescents. However, most of the studies have relied on cross-sectional designs, which makes it impossible to elucidate whether the observed differences are a consequence of the engagement in musical activities. Prev...

Attention fluctuates over time. Models such as Dynamic Attending Theory propose that attention follows an oscillatory pattern that can be entrained by exogenous stimulations. Moreover, the passage of time itself when there is the certainty that the target will appear after an interval (i.e., foreperiod) can be used to support attention. As the prob...

Numerous studies have shown that directional stimuli such as gaze and arrows induce reflexive shifts of attention towards the cued locations, even when they do not predict above chance the location of target information. Nevertheless, there is still debate about the existence of quantitative differences between the cueing effects triggered by socia...

Recent research has found that eye gaze and arrows yield opposite congruency effects in a spatial interference paradigm, arrows eliciting faster responses when their direction is congruent with their position (standard congruency effect), and gaze producing faster reaction times for incongruent conditions (reversed congruency effect). In addition,...

The demands of today’s society for interventions that optimize cognitive abilities and prevent their decline have motivated the translation of scientific findings into applied programs. Ordinary activities such as physical exercise, chess, meditation, playing video games or a musical instrument, as well as specific cognitive programs, have witnesse...

Recent evidence with a spatial interference paradigm has shown that arrows and eye gaze yield opposite congruency effects, arrow target eliciting faster responses when their direction is congruent with their position (standard congruency effect), and gaze producing faster reaction times for incongruent conditions (reversed congruency effect). But i...

Performance on timing tasks changes with age. Whether these changes reflect a real “clock” problem due to aging or a secondary effect of the reduced cognitive resources of older adults still remains an unsettled question. Research on processing of time in aged populations marked by severe mnemonic and/or attentional deficits, such as patients with...

Previous literature has shown cognitive improvements related to musical training. Attention is one cognitive aspect in which musicians exhibit improvements compared to non-musicians. However, previous studies show inconsistent results regarding certain attentional processes, suggesting that benefits associated with musical training appear only in s...

Recent research has found that eye gaze and arrows yield opposite congruency effects in a spatial interference paradigm, arrows eliciting faster responses when their direction is congruent with their position (standard congruency effect), and gaze producing faster reaction times for incongruent conditions (reversed congruency effect). But social st...

Non-social directional stimuli (e.g., arrows) and gaze are equally effective as orienting signals in cueing paradigms. However, recent research from our laboratory has shown that eye gaze and arrows yield opposite congruency effects in a spatial Stroop paradigm, arrows eliciting faster responses when their direction is congruent with their position...

Recent research has found that eye gaze and arrows yield opposite congruency effects in a spatial interference paradigm, arrows eliciting faster responses when their direction is congruent with their position (standard congruency effect), and gaze producing faster reaction times for incongruent conditions (reversed congruency effect). In addition,...

Our environment is full of rhythms, which have an important predictive value as cues for the preparation and temporal orienting of attention. At the neurocognitive level, rhythms promote attentional entrainment, concentrating higher levels of attention at the moments in which the appearance of a critical event is more likely. This strategic use of...

An extensive literature has investigated the impact of musical training on cognition and academic achievement in children and adolescents. However, most of the studies have relied on cross-sectional designs, which make it impossible to elucidate whether the observed differences are a consequence of the engagement in musical activities. Previous met...

Attention comprises a wide set of processes such as phasic alertness, orienting, executive control, and the executive (i.e., detecting infrequent targets) and arousal (i.e., sustaining a fast reaction) vigilance components. Importantly, the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over attentional functioning have been mostly addre...

Previous literature has shown cognitive improvements related to musical training. Attention is one of the functions in which musicians exhibit improvements compared to non-musicians. However, previous studies show inconsistent results regarding certain attentional processes, suggesting that benefits associated with musical training appear only in s...

Dentro del interés por los programas de entrenamiento cognitivo, recientemente ha crecido la investigación sobre la práctica musical. Aunque los resultados aún deben interpretarse con cautela, la evidencia acumulada hasta ahora sugiere que esta actividad podría mejorar tanto habilidades directamente entrenadas en la ejecución musical (destrezas aud...

It has been proposed that attention triggered by eye-gaze may represent a unique attentional process, different from that triggered by non-social stimuli such as arrows. To investigate this issue, in the present study we compared the temporal dynamics of the conflict processing triggered by eye-gaze and arrow stimuli. We investigated the electrophy...

Aging is accompanied by cognitive decline, although recent research indicates that the rate of decline depends on multiple lifestyle factors. One of such factors is musical practice, an activity that involves several sensory and motor systems and a wide range of high-level cognitive processes. This paper describes the first systematic review and me...

Coding sheets for the recording of variables in the studies included in the meta-analysis. (DOCX)

Cognitive functions explored with independent meta-analyses, including aggregates produced in studies where multiple outcomes existed for the same function. (DOCX)

Forest plots of non-significant cognitive functions in correlational studies. (DOCX)

Search procedures of each database. (DOCX)

Eye gaze conveys rich information concerning the states of mind of others, playing a critical role in social interactions, signaling internal states, and guiding others’ attention. On the basis of its social significance, some researchers have proposed that eye gaze may represent a unique attentional stimulus. However, contrary to this notion, the...