Orienting attention to instants in time

doi:10.1016/S0028-3932(01)00120-8

Neuropsychologia

Volume 39, Issue 12, 2001, Pages 1317-1328

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0028-3932(01)00120-8 Get rights and content

Abstract

My colleagues and I have investigated whether the temporal framework can be used to guide selective attention, and have applied non-invasive methodology to reveal the brain systems and mechanisms involved. Our findings show that we are able to orient attention selectively to different points in time, enhancing behavioral performance. These effects are mediated by a left-hemisphere dominant parietal-frontal system, which partially overlaps with the networks involved in spatial orienting. The neural system for temporal orienting also includes brain areas associated with motor preparation and anticipation, suggesting that sensorimotor areas with different specializations can contribute to attentional orienting depending on the stimulus attributes guiding selection. The optimization of behavior by temporal orienting involves enhancement of the latency and amplitude of event-related potentials that are associated with motor responses and decisions. The effects are distinct from those during visual spatial attention, indicating that behavioral advantages can be conferred by multiple types of neural mechanisms. Taken together, the findings illustrate the flexibility of attentional functions in the human brain.

Section snippets

Feasibility of orienting attention to time intervals

The importance of temporal information in the control of behavior is a longstanding assumption. Many general topics relating time and behavior have been investigated. For example: Complex movements require exquisite temporal coordination [26]. Rhythms of diverse temporal periods characterize behaviors of various types [28]. People can estimate time intervals over a large range with high accuracy, evoking the possibility of one or more internal clocks [86].

Time information can also interact with

Neural consequences of orienting attention to time intervals; ERP evidence

Having established the existence of temporal orienting behaviorally, natural curiosity enquires about the mechanisms by which it can influence the analysis of stimuli. The restricted information provided by dependent variables linked to response accuracy or speed in purely behavioral studies poses a challenge for uncovering the levels of stimulus analysis that are modulated. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) provide rich additional dependent variables that are correlated with neural

Control of attentional orienting to time intervals; functional imaging data

Finally, questions remain regarding the nature of the neural system that controls the orienting of attention toward specific time intervals. Information carried by the predictive stimulus must be interpreted and used to influence the analysis of forthcoming material. Also in this matter, the investigation of visual spatial attention is much ahead, and serves as a basis for comparison with temporal orienting of attention.

Converging evidence from brain-imaging and single-unit studies increasingly

Working hypotheses and future directions

The investigation of orienting attention to time intervals and the comparison with spatial orienting challenge the notion of a unitary and ubiquitous attention control system. Attention may be better conceived as a property of specialized neural systems. Frameworks that allow the integration of representations may be particularly useful for directing limited resources, such as allocentric or egocentric spatial frameworks, objects, or temporal frameworks. Certain sensorimotor systems, such as

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Citation Excerpt :
The alerting-related brain mask included the thalamus, temporal gyrus, medial superior prefrontal gyrus, anterior prefrontal cortex, insula, and anterior cingulate cortex (Dosenbach et al., 2008; Fan, 2014). The orienting-related brain mask included the thalamus, parietal lobe, cingulate gyrus, insula, temporal gyrus, and frontal gyrus, including frontal eye fields (FEF), orbital prefrontal cortex, and medial prefrontal cortex (Corbetta et al., 2008; Nobre, 2001). The executive control-related brain mask involved the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and superior and lateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Matsumoto & Tanaka, 2004).
Attention function is thought to be important in chronic pain, with the pathology of chronic pain closely associated with cognitive–emotional components. However, there have been few neuroimaging studies of the relationship between attention function and chronic pain. We used the method of functional connectivity analysis for resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) data and the Attention Network Test-Revision (ANT-R) to clarify the attention-related pathology of chronic pain. We performed rs-fMRI and ANT-R on a group of 26 chronic pain (somatoform pain disorder) patients and 28 age-matched healthy controls. A significant group difference in validity effects, a component of ANT-R, emerged (F_1,46 = 5.91, p = 0.019), and the chronic pain group exhibited slower reaction times. Decreased brain connectivity of the left insula and left frontal regions was confirmed in chronic pain patients (p^FWE < 0.05), and connectivity was negatively correlated with validity effects (r = −0.29, permutation test p = 0.033). Further, decreased functional connectivity strength of the right insula and left temporal gyrus in the chronic pain group were confirmed (p^FWE < 0.05). We conclude that poor control of attention function results from deficits of functional connectivity in the left insula and left frontal regions in chronic pain.

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Orienting attention to instants in time

Abstract

Section snippets

Feasibility of orienting attention to time intervals

Neural consequences of orienting attention to time intervals; ERP evidence

Control of attentional orienting to time intervals; functional imaging data

Working hypotheses and future directions

Neuron

Neuropsychologia

Current Opinions in Neurobiology

Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology

Current Opinions in Neurobiology

Clinical Neurophysiology

Neuroimage

Biological Psychology

Neuropsychologia

Brain Research

Neuroimage

Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychologia

Vision Research

Multimodal representation of space in the posterior parietal cortex and its use in planning movements

Annual Review of Neuroscience

Multimodal integration for the representation of space in the posterior parietal cortex

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London

Selective attention to the color and direction of moving stimuli: electrophysiological correlates of hierarchical feature selection

Perception and Psychophysics

Time perception in a neglected space

Neuroreport

The time course of preparation

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Spatial selective attention affects early extrastriate but not striate components of the visual evoked potential

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

Visual, presaccadic, and cognitive activation of single neurons in monkey lateral intraparietal area

Journal of Neurophysiology

Space and attention in parietal cortex

Annual Review of Neuroscience

A PET study of visuospatial attention

Journal of Neuroscience

Where and when to pay attention: the neural systems for directing attention to spatial locations and to time intervals as revealed by both PET and fMRI

Journal of Neuroscience

Cerebral structures participating in motor preparation in humans: A positron emission tomography study

Journal of Neurophysiology

Neural mechanisms of selective visual attention

Annual Review of Neuroscience

Dissociation in prefrontal cortex of affective and attentional shifts

Nature

ERP effects of intermodal attention and cross-modal links in spatial attention

Psychophysiology

ERP modulations indicate the selective processing of visual stimuli as a result of transient and sustained spatial attention

Psychophysiology

Mechanisms of visual spatial attention: Evidence from event-related potentials

Visual Cognition

Central inhibition-some refractory observations

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

PET studies of auditory and phonological processing effects of stimulus characteristics and task demands

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

A large-scale distributed network for covert spatial attention: further anatomical delineation based on stringent behavioural and cognitive controls

Brain

Temporal organization and disorganization in organisms

Chronobiology International

The representation of visual salience in monkey parietal cortex

Nature

Orienting attention in time

Frontiers in Bioscience

Cortical networks underlying mechanisms of time perception

Journal of Neuroscience

Neural underpinnings of temporal processing: a review of focal lesion, pharmacological, and functional imaging research

Review of Neuroscience

Neural processes involved in directing attention

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience