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The Neuroscientist : a Review Journal... Oct 2014The brain is limited in its capacity to process all sensory stimuli present in the physical world at any point in time and relies instead on the cognitive process of... (Review)
Review
The brain is limited in its capacity to process all sensory stimuli present in the physical world at any point in time and relies instead on the cognitive process of attention to focus neural resources according to the contingencies of the moment. Attention can be categorized into two distinct functions: bottom-up attention, referring to attentional guidance purely by externally driven factors to stimuli that are salient because of their inherent properties relative to the background; and top-down attention, referring to internal guidance of attention based on prior knowledge, willful plans, and current goals. Over the past few years, insights on the neural circuits and mechanisms of bottom-up and top-down attention have been gained through neurophysiological experiments. Attention affects the mean neuronal firing rate as well as its variability and correlation across neurons. Although distinct processes mediate the guidance of attention based on bottom-up and top-down factors, a common neural apparatus, the frontoparietal network, is essential in both types of attentional processes.
Topics: Animals; Attention; Brain; Neurons; Visual Perception
PubMed: 24362813
DOI: 10.1177/1073858413514136 -
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience Mar 2021This article describes neural models of attention. Since attention is not a disembodied process, the article explains how brain processes of consciousness, learning,... (Review)
Review
This article describes neural models of attention. Since attention is not a disembodied process, the article explains how brain processes of consciousness, learning, expectation, attention, resonance, and synchrony interact. These processes show how attention plays a critical role in dynamically stabilizing perceptual and cognitive learning throughout our lives. Classical concepts of object and spatial attention are replaced by mechanistically precise processes of prototype, boundary, and surface attention. Adaptive resonances trigger learning of bottom-up recognition categories and top-down expectations that help to classify our experiences, and focus prototype attention upon the patterns of critical features that predict behavioral success. These feature-category resonances also maintain the stability of these learned memories. Different types of resonances induce functionally distinct conscious experiences during seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing that are described and explained, along with their different attentional and anatomical correlates within different parts of the cerebral cortex. All parts of the cerebral cortex are organized into layered circuits. Laminar computing models show how attention is embodied within a canonical laminar neocortical circuit design that integrates bottom-up filtering, horizontal grouping, and top-down attentive matching. Spatial and motor processes obey matching and learning laws that are computationally complementary to those obeyed by perceptual and cognitive processes. Their laws adapt to bodily changes throughout life, and do not support attention or conscious states.
Topics: Attention; Brain; Cognition; Consciousness; Humans; Learning; Models, Theoretical
PubMed: 33834707
DOI: 10.31083/j.jin.2021.01.406 -
Cognitive Neuroscience Jan 2020The processes of attentional control and executive function are critical for navigating and operating efficiently in everyday life, and deficits in these core processes...
The processes of attentional control and executive function are critical for navigating and operating efficiently in everyday life, and deficits in these core processes have serious consequences. Despite a long history of research into these topics, much is still unknown about the brain mechanisms supporting these processes. This special issue of presents nine new empirical papers investigating the dynamic neural mechanisms of attentional selection, working memory, and executive control. The papers in this special issue utilize electrophysiological and neuroimaging methods, along with advanced analysis techniques, to identify the neural substrates and dynamic mechanisms underlying the orienting and shifting of attention, as well as the representation and maintenance of information in working memory. These articles inform theories of attentional selection by providing a deeper understanding of social influences on the allocation of attention as well as illuminating the role of selection history in biasing neural activity and behavior. Finally, the research presented here has broader impacts on the field of cognitive neuroscience, as results from studies investigating the coupling between bands of oscillatory neural activity provide exciting new insights into the coordination between widespread brain networks.
Topics: Attention; Brain; Executive Function; Humans
PubMed: 31739774
DOI: 10.1080/17588928.2019.1682985 -
Canadian Journal of Experimental... Jun 2017Understanding the basic mechanisms underlying attentional function using naturalistic stimuli, tasks, and/or settings is the focus of everyday attention research....
Understanding the basic mechanisms underlying attentional function using naturalistic stimuli, tasks, and/or settings is the focus of everyday attention research. Interest in everyday approaches to attention research has increased recently-arguably riding a more general wave of support for such considerations in experimental psychology. This special issue of the attempts to capture the emerging enthusiasm for studying everyday attention by bringing together work from a wide array of attentional domains (e.g., visual attention, dual tasking, search, mind wandering, social attention) that are representative of this general approach. The 14 contributions to the special issue highlight the breadth of topics addressed in this research, the methodological creativity required to carry it out, and the promise of everyday attention for understanding the basic mechanisms underlying attentional function. This introduction will summarise the everyday attention approach as represented in the contributions to the special issue. (PsycINFO Database Record
Topics: Attention; Executive Function; Humans; Social Perception; Visual Perception
PubMed: 28604046
DOI: 10.1037/cep0000134 -
Current Opinion in Psychology Oct 2019The control of selective attention is traditionally considered to be either goal-driven or stimulus-driven. Increasing research, however, has linked past experience to... (Review)
Review
The control of selective attention is traditionally considered to be either goal-driven or stimulus-driven. Increasing research, however, has linked past experience to attentional selection. Effects of selection history may be transient, as in inter-trial priming, or durable. Here we review several examples of enduring changes of attention and relate them to properties of habits. Like motor habits, reading direction is reinforced over an extended period of time. Despite the brevity of training, probability learning, context learning, value-driven attention, and learned attentional set also exhibit habit-like properties, including automaticity, insensitivity to outcome devaluation, and inflexibility. A consideration of whether a selection history effect is habit-like may help taxonomize diverse forms of experience-driven attention.
Topics: Attention; Habits; Humans; Motivation; Reinforcement, Psychology
PubMed: 30537679
DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.11.014 -
European Journal of Pharmacology Sep 2018Early philosophers and psychologists defined and began to describe attention. Beginning in the 1950's, numerous models of attention were developed. This corresponded... (Review)
Review
Early philosophers and psychologists defined and began to describe attention. Beginning in the 1950's, numerous models of attention were developed. This corresponded with an increased understanding of pharmacological approaches to manipulate neurotransmitter systems. The present review focuses on the knowledge that has been gained about these neurotransmitter systems with respect to attentional processing, with emphasis on the functions mediated within the medial prefrontal cortex. Additionally, the use of pharmacotherapies to treat psychiatric conditions characterized by attentional dysfunction are discussed. Future directions include developing a more comprehensive understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying attentional processing and novel pharmacotherapeutic targets for conditions characterized by aberrant attentional processing.
Topics: Animals; Attention; Humans; Neuropharmacology
PubMed: 30092180
DOI: 10.1016/j.ejphar.2018.08.008 -
Brain Research Nov 2015Prediction and attention are fundamental brain functions in the service of perception and action. Theories on prediction relate to neural (mental) models inferring about...
Prediction and attention are fundamental brain functions in the service of perception and action. Theories on prediction relate to neural (mental) models inferring about (present or future) sensory or action-related information, whereas theories of attention are about the control of information flow underlying perception and action. Both concepts are related and not always clearly distinguishable. The special issue includes current research on prediction and attention in various subfields of perception and action. It especially considers interactions between predictive and attentive processes, which constitute a newly emerging and highly interesting field of research. As outlined in this editorial, the contributions in this special issue allow specifying as well as bridging concepts on prediction and attention. The joint consideration of prediction and attention also reveals common functional principles of perception and action.
Topics: Animals; Attention; Brain; Humans; Perception; Psychomotor Performance
PubMed: 26348988
DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2015.08.037 -
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews.... Jan 2023Everyone knows what paying attention is, yet not everybody knows what this means in cognitive and brain function terms. The attentive state can be defined as a state of... (Review)
Review
Everyone knows what paying attention is, yet not everybody knows what this means in cognitive and brain function terms. The attentive state can be defined as a state of optimal activation that allows selecting the sources of information and courses of action in order to optimize our interaction with the environment in accordance with either the saliency of the stimulation or internal goals and intentions. In this article we argue that paying attention consists in tuning the mind with the environment in a conscious and controlled mode in order to enable the strategic and flexible adaptation of responses in accordance with internal motivations and goals. We discuss the anatomy and neural mechanisms involved in attention functions and present a brief overview of the neurocognitive development of this seminal cognitive function on the grounds of self-regulated behavior. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Attention (BEAB) Brain Function and Dysfunction (BEAC) Cognitive Development (BAAD).
Topics: Humans; Attention; Cognition; Intention
PubMed: 34695876
DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1582 -
Nature Reviews. Neuroscience Jun 2024
Topics: Humans; Attention; Animals; Brain
PubMed: 38622274
DOI: 10.1038/s41583-024-00818-w -
Current Topics in Behavioral... 2016Attentional set-shifting, as a measure of executive flexibility, has been a staple of investigations into human cognition for over six decades. Mediated by the frontal... (Review)
Review
Attentional set-shifting, as a measure of executive flexibility, has been a staple of investigations into human cognition for over six decades. Mediated by the frontal cortex in mammals, the cognitive processes involved in forming, maintaining and shifting an attentional set are vulnerable to dysfunction arising from a number of human neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases) and other neurological disorders (such as schizophrenia, depression, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder). Our understanding of these diseases and disorders, and the cognitive impairments induced by them, continues to advance, in tandem with an increasing number of tools at our disposal. In this chapter, we review and compare commonly used attentional set-shifting tasks (the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task and Intradimensional/Extradimensional tasks) and their applicability across species. In addition to humans, attentional set-shifting has been observed in a number of other animals, with a substantial body of literature describing performance in monkeys and rodents. We consider the task designs used to investigate attentional set-shifting in these species and the methods used to model human diseases and disorders, and ultimately the comparisons and differences between species-specific tasks, and between performance across species.
Topics: Animals; Attention; Executive Function; Humans; Models, Animal; Neuropsychological Tests; Reversal Learning; Set, Psychology; Species Specificity
PubMed: 26873018
DOI: 10.1007/7854_2015_5002