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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 -
The Neuroscientist : a Review Journal... Apr 2014The idea of two separate attention networks in the human brain for the voluntary deployment of attention and the reorientation to unexpected events, respectively, has... (Review)
Review
The idea of two separate attention networks in the human brain for the voluntary deployment of attention and the reorientation to unexpected events, respectively, has inspired an enormous amount of research over the past years. In this review, we will reconcile these theoretical ideas on the dorsal and ventral attentional system with recent empirical findings from human neuroimaging experiments and studies in stroke patients. We will highlight how novel methods-such as the analysis of effective connectivity or the combination of neurostimulation with functional magnetic resonance imaging-have contributed to our understanding of the functionality and interaction of the two systems. We conclude that neither of the two networks controls attentional processes in isolation and that the flexible interaction between both systems enables the dynamic control of attention in relation to top-down goals and bottom-up sensory stimulation. We discuss which brain regions potentially govern this interaction according to current task demands.
Topics: Animals; Attention; Brain; Humans; Neural Pathways
PubMed: 23835449
DOI: 10.1177/1073858413494269 -
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 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 -
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 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Aug 2022Subitizing is the fast and accurate enumeration of small sets. Whether attention is necessary for subitizing remains controversial considering (1) subitizing is claimed... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis Review
Subitizing is the fast and accurate enumeration of small sets. Whether attention is necessary for subitizing remains controversial considering (1) subitizing is claimed to be "pre-attentive", and (2) existing experimental methods and results are inconsistent. To determine whether manipulations to attention demonstratively affect subitizing, the current study comprises a systematic review and meta-analysis. Results from fourteen studies (22 experiments, 35 comparisons) suggest that changes to attentional demands interferes with enumeration of small sets; leading to slower response times, lower accuracy, and poorer Weber acuity (p < .010; p < .001; p < .001; respectively)-notwithstanding a potential publication bias. A unifying framework is proposed to explain the role of attention in visual enumeration, with progressively greater attentional involvement from estimation to subitizing to counting. Our findings suggest attention is integral for subitizing and highlights the need to emphasise attentional mechanisms into neurocognitive models of numerosity processing. We also discuss the possible role of attention in numerical processing difficulties (e.g., dyscalculia).
Topics: Attention; Humans; Mathematics; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Reaction Time
PubMed: 35772633
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104753 -
Psychological Science Jun 2016How do people get attention to operate at peak efficiency in high-pressure situations? We tested the hypothesis that the general mechanism that allows this is the...
How do people get attention to operate at peak efficiency in high-pressure situations? We tested the hypothesis that the general mechanism that allows this is the maintenance of multiple target representations in working and long-term memory. We recorded subjects' event-related potentials (ERPs) indexing the working memory and long-term memory representations used to control attention while performing visual search. We found that subjects used both types of memories to control attention when they performed the visual search task with a large reward at stake, or when they were cued to respond as fast as possible. However, under normal circumstances, one type of target memory was sufficient for slower task performance. The use of multiple types of memory representations appears to provide converging top-down control of attention, allowing people to step on the attentional accelerator in a variety of high-pressure situations.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Attention; Evoked Potentials; Female; Humans; Male; Memory, Long-Term; Memory, Short-Term; Psychomotor Performance; Young Adult
PubMed: 27056975
DOI: 10.1177/0956797616636416 -
Psychological Bulletin Oct 2016This article presents a comprehensive survey of research concerning interactions between associative learning and attention in humans. Four main findings are described.... (Review)
Review
This article presents a comprehensive survey of research concerning interactions between associative learning and attention in humans. Four main findings are described. First, attention is biased toward stimuli that predict their consequences reliably (). This finding is consistent with the approach taken by Mackintosh (1975) in his attentional model of associative learning in nonhuman animals. Second, the strength of this attentional bias is modulated by the value of the outcome (). That is, predictors of high-value outcomes receive especially high levels of attention. Third, the related but opposing idea that may result in increased attention to stimuli (Pearce & Hall, 1980), receives less support. This suggests that hybrid models of associative learning, incorporating the mechanisms of both the Mackintosh and Pearce-Hall theories, may not be required to explain data from human participants. Rather, a simpler model, in which attention to stimuli is determined by how strongly they are associated with significant outcomes, goes a long way to account for the data on human attentional learning. The last main finding, and an exciting area for future research and theorizing, is that and modulate both deliberate attentional focus, and more automatic attentional capture. The automatic influence of learning on attention does not appear to fit the traditional view of attention as being either or . Rather, it suggests a new kind of “derived” attention.
Topics: Association Learning; Attention; Humans
PubMed: 27504933
DOI: 10.1037/bul0000064 -
Annals of the New York Academy of... Apr 2016There is growing consensus that reward plays an important role in the control of attention. Until recently, reward was thought to influence attention indirectly by... (Review)
Review
There is growing consensus that reward plays an important role in the control of attention. Until recently, reward was thought to influence attention indirectly by modulating task-specific motivation and its effects on voluntary control over selection. Such an account was consistent with the goal-directed (endogenous) versus stimulus-driven (exogenous) framework that had long dominated the field of attention research. Now, a different perspective is emerging. Demonstrations that previously reward-associated stimuli can automatically capture attention even when physically inconspicuous and task-irrelevant challenge previously held assumptions about attentional control. The idea that attentional selection can be value driven, reflecting a distinct and previously unrecognized control mechanism, has gained traction. Since these early demonstrations, the influence of reward learning on attention has rapidly become an area of intense investigation, sparking many new insights. The result is an emerging picture of how the reward system of the brain automatically biases information processing. Here, I review the progress that has been made in this area, synthesizing a wealth of recent evidence to provide an integrated, up-to-date account of value-driven attention and some of its broader implications.
Topics: Attention; Brain; Humans; Learning; Reward
PubMed: 26595376
DOI: 10.1111/nyas.12957