ArticlePsychological research2022
The effect of binaural beat stimulation on sustained attention.
Article in Psychological research, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mindfulness and music interventions in the workplace: assessment of sustained attention and working memory using a crowdsourcing approach.BMC psychology · 2022Trial
- Sustained attention in attention-deficit subjects and the impact of binaural beat stimulation evaluated by behavior and EEG.Experimental brain research · 2025Article
- Specific Rhythm Auditory Stimulation for Attention: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.Clinical psychopharmacology and neuroscience : the official scientific journal of the Korean College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- An Integrative Review of Brainwave Entrainment Benefits for Human Health.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2025Review
- A parametric investigation of binaural beats for brain entrainment and enhancing sustained attention.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Advancing personalized digital therapeutics: integrating music therapy, brainwave entrainment methods, and AI-driven biofeedback.Frontiers in digital health · 2025Review
- A combined experimental-correlational approach to the construct validity of performance-based and self-report-based measures of sustained attention.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2024Article
- The effect of background sounds on mind wandering.Psychological research · 2023Article
- Binaural Beat Effects on Attention: A Study Based on the Oddball Paradigm.Brain topography · 2023Article
- Study protocol to support the development of an all-night binaural beat frequency audio program to entrain sleep.Frontiers in neurology · 2023Article
- A Review of Binaural Bates and the Brain.Basic and clinical neuroscienceReview
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Binaural beats have been used as a way of modifying cognition via auditory stimulation. A recent meta-analysis suggests that binaural beat stimulation can have a positive effect on attention (Garcia-Argibay et al., Psychologische Forschung 83:1124-1136, 2019a, Psychological Research Psychologische Forschung 83:357-372, 2019b), with the sample-weighted average effect size being about .58. This is an intriguing and potentially useful finding, both theoretically and practically. In this study, we focus on sustained attention. We delivered beta-frequency (16 Hz) binaural beat stimulation during a sustained attention task. In "Experiment 1", reaction times were faster under beat stimulation than control stimulation in a between-subjects design. However, the effect was modest in magnitude, and model comparisons using Bayes Factors were indiscriminate between including and excluding the effect from the model. We followed this initial experiment with two concurrently administered follow-up experiments. In "Experiment 2", we added thought probes to measure any changes in task engagement associated with binaural beat stimulation. "Experiment 2" revealed a different effect from "Experiment 1": participants in the binaural beat condition exhibited a shallower vigilance decrement. However, the beat stimulation did not affect the thought probes responses. Combining data across the two experiments indicated rather strong evidence against the hypothesis that beta-frequency binaural beats can augment sustained attention, either via a general speeding of responding or a mitigation of the vigilance decrement. Finally, in "Experiment 3", we investigated whether pupillary measures of arousal and/or task engagement would be affected by binaural beat stimulation. There was no evidence for such effects. Overall, we did not observe any consistent evidence that binaural beat stimulation can augment sustained attention or its subjective and physiological correlates.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.