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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 -
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 -
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 -
Current Opinion in Psychology Oct 2019What we pay attention to is influenced by reward learning. Converging evidence points to the idea that associative reward learning changes how visual stimuli are... (Review)
Review
What we pay attention to is influenced by reward learning. Converging evidence points to the idea that associative reward learning changes how visual stimuli are processed in the brain, rendering learned reward cues difficult to ignore. Behavioral evidence distinguishes value-driven attention from other established control mechanisms, suggesting a distinct underlying neurobiological process. Recently, studies have begun to explore the neural substrates of this value-driven attention mechanism. Here, I review the progress that has been made in this area, and synthesize the findings to provide an integrative account of the neurobiology of value-driven attention. The proposed account can explain both attentional capture by previously rewarded targets and the modulatory effect of reward on priming, as well as the decoupling of reward history and prior task relevance in value-driven attention.
Topics: Attention; Brain; Cues; Humans; Learning; Neurobiology; Neuronal Plasticity; Reward
PubMed: 30472540
DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.11.004 -
Nature Reviews. Neuroscience Jun 2024
Topics: Humans; Attention; Animals; Brain
PubMed: 38622274
DOI: 10.1038/s41583-024-00818-w -
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Dec 2020From playing basketball to ordering at a food counter, we frequently and effortlessly coordinate our attention with others towards a common focus: we look at the ball,... (Review)
Review
From playing basketball to ordering at a food counter, we frequently and effortlessly coordinate our attention with others towards a common focus: we look at the ball, or point at a piece of cake. This non-verbal coordination of attention plays a fundamental role in our social lives: it ensures that we refer to the same object, develop a shared language, understand each other's mental states, and coordinate our actions. Models of joint attention generally attribute this accomplishment to gaze coordination. But are visual attentional mechanisms sufficient to achieve joint attention, in all cases? Besides cases where visual information is missing, we show how combining it with other senses can be helpful, and even necessary to certain uses of joint attention. We explain the two ways in which non-visual cues contribute to joint attention: either as enhancers, when they complement gaze and pointing gestures in order to coordinate joint attention on visible objects, or as modality pointers, when joint attention needs to be shifted away from the whole object to one of its properties, say weight or texture. This multisensory approach to joint attention has important implications for social robotics, clinical diagnostics, pedagogy and theoretical debates on the construction of a shared world.
Topics: Attention; Cues; Gestures; Humans; Perception; Social Interaction
PubMed: 32666194
DOI: 10.3758/s13423-020-01766-z -
Current Opinion in Psychology Oct 2019In this paper, I present a framework which considers three independent factors that drive attentional selection. In addition to goal-driven and stimulus-driven... (Review)
Review
In this paper, I present a framework which considers three independent factors that drive attentional selection. In addition to goal-driven and stimulus-driven selection, I discuss how lingering biases of selection history play a major role in attentional selection. Visual statistical learning of the regularities in the environment forms the basis for this history-based selection which provides an elaborate and flexible attentional biasing mechanism above and beyond goal-driven and stimulus-driven factors. A selection based on experience and history is fast, automatic and occurs without much, if any, effort. I conclude that learning and extracting the distributional properties of the environment have a major impact on attentional selection.
Topics: Attention; Brain; Goals; Humans; Learning; Reward; Visual Perception
PubMed: 30711911
DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.12.024 -
Arquivos de Neuro-psiquiatria May 2022Sleep is a special physiological state that occurs cyclically. The probable role of sleep in our organic functions remains to be explored to clarify the impact of sleep...
BACKGROUND
Sleep is a special physiological state that occurs cyclically. The probable role of sleep in our organic functions remains to be explored to clarify the impact of sleep on brain functions. Sleep deprivation is known to affect all parts of the brain separately and independently, but further research is needed on the impact of sleep disorders on attention, particularly the specific types of attention that are most affected, and whether there is such a correlation.
OBJECTIVE
To conduct a systematic review of the possible correlation between sleep disorders and attentional performance.
METHODS
A systematic review and search at PubMed, SciELO, and Cochrane scientific databases for articles published in the last 10 years was carried out using the following keywords: sleep, attention, and attentional performance. Inclusion criteria were the use of attention tests and sleep disorders. Of the 1398 articles found, 15 were selected and included in this review.
RESULTS
The number of publications evaluating sleep and sleep disorders has increased, but is still limited. Of all the functions normally assessed, patients with sleep disorders perform worse on attention tasks, especially with sustained attention. However, these data require further investigation due to the complexity and diversity of the disorders, the small sample size of the included studies, and the fact that few studies used standardized tests.
CONCLUSIONS
Our findings indicate that the correlation between sleep and attention is strong but limited. Few studies are devoted exclusively to the extent to which sleep disorders interferes with attention.
Topics: Attention; Brain; Humans; Sleep; Sleep Wake Disorders
PubMed: 35476076
DOI: 10.1590/0004-282X-ANP-2021-0182 -
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Apr 2022Attention is an important resource for prioritizing information in working memory (WM), and it can be deployed both strategically and automatically. Most research... (Review)
Review
Attention is an important resource for prioritizing information in working memory (WM), and it can be deployed both strategically and automatically. Most research investigating the relationship between WM and attention has focused on strategic efforts to deploy attentional resources toward remembering relevant information. However, such voluntary attentional control represents a mere subset of the attentional processes that select information to be encoded and maintained in WM (Theeuwes, Journal of Cognition, 1[1]: 29, 1-15, 2018). Here, we discuss three ways in which information becomes prioritized automatically in WM-physical salience, statistical learning, and reward learning. This review integrates findings from perception and working memory studies to propose a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between attention and working memory.
Topics: Attention; Attentional Bias; Cognition; Humans; Memory, Short-Term; Visual Perception
PubMed: 34131892
DOI: 10.3758/s13423-021-01958-1