Review articleSpatial attention: normal processes and their breakdown☆
Section snippets
Processes of normal spatial attention: review and framework
An understanding of the operation of spatial attention in neurologically normal observers can help guide assessments in brain-damaged patients. Knowing which process or subprocesses of spatial attention are disrupted may be useful for developing assessment techniques or care-giving strategies and rehabilitation.
Spatial attention involves selecting a stimulus on the basis of its spatial location. The region occupied by the item is selected and then receives further cognitive processing (eg, the
Control and effects of attention: theoretic issues
Having discussed the major tasks used to study spatial attention, this article now turns to two theoretically important issues for spatial attention: “How is spatial attention controlled?” and “What are the effects of directing spatial attention to an item?” Attentional control involves those parameters and processes that determine which items become attended and which do not. Attentional control parameters determine which items attention selects. For example, abruptly appearing stimuli, such
Disorders of spatial attention: focal effects of cortical and subcortical areas
As in neurologically normal participants, most studies of attention with focal brain-damaged patients emphasized spatial attention. Because behavioral neurology and neuropsychology benefited from theoretic analyses of attention and vice versa, the authors emphasize what neuropsychology can contribute to cognitive theory and how cognitive theory can assist clinical practice in diagnosis and rehabilitation. The authors reviewed the cortical and subcortical contributions to spatial attention in
Disorders of spatial attention in Alzheimer's disease
The diagnosis Alzheimer's disease (AD) involves progressive memory impairment [89], [90]; recent reviews underscore the progressive impairment of several attentional processes [91], [92], [93]. Spatial attention impairments in AD are important because most higher-level cognitive processes require some form of attention and because patients with AD might present with attentional impairments before presenting with other cognitive impairments, such as memory impairments [92].
As with studies of
Summary
Although “attention” is a general term in everyday folk and psychologic use, using research from cognitive psychology allows a focus on the processes associated with attention. A process-oriented definition of attention [2] makes “attention” a concept that can be studied rigorously. Attention is necessary for eliminating unwanted sensory inputs or irrelevant behavioral tasks and is useful when some cognitive system or process receives too many inputs. Attention acts to restrict the number of
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Neurophysiological signatures reflect differences in visual attention during absence seizures
2023, Clinical NeurophysiologyIncrease of posterior connectivity in aging within the Ventral Attention Network: A functional connectivity analysis using independent component analysis
2017, Brain ResearchCitation Excerpt :Thus, the VAN both mediates sensory-driven (bottom-up) target discovery by allowing detection in unexpected locations and also contributes to controlled (top-down) search by adjusting our expectations to our environment (Macaluso and Doricchi, 2013). Not surprisingly, neurological lesions in regions of the VAN have a severe impact on everyday functioning (Corbetta and Shulman, 2011; Foldi et al., 2002; He et al., 2007; Ptak, 2012; Vecera and Rizzo, 2003). The VAN is a frontoparietal network that has been associated mainly with the right frontal and parietal regions of the human brain, including the temporoparietal junction and ventral prefrontal cortex (Corbetta et al., 2008; Fox et al., 2006; Hahn et al., 2006; Kucyi et al., 2012; Li et al., 2011; Shulman et al., 2010).
Network asymmetry of motor areas revealed by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging
2012, Behavioural Brain ResearchCitation Excerpt :The motor regions were correlated with brain networks corresponding to spatial attention, executive control and the default mode network [33,36,37]. Attention and executive control is necessary to filter unwanted sensory inputs or irrelevant behavioral tasks and is useful when the cognitive system receives too many inputs [38]. Motor preparation (action planning) is an attentional phenomenon directed toward kinesthetic signals [36].
Right parietal dominance in spatial egocentric discrimination
2011, NeuroImageCitation Excerpt :We used a parametric design where the subject was required to spatially localize vibratory stimuli applied in different locations on the palm of the hand with respect to an imaginary midline, thus obtaining a gradation of localization uncertainty. The perceptual uncertainty may selectively modulate the spatial attention and sensory information processing load (Boulter, 1977), since it appears that spatial attention has the effect of increasing the spatial resolution of perception and of reducing the subject's uncertainty in making judgements about a stimulus (Vecera and Rizzo, 2003) We used the subject's performance during spatial location discrimination (SLD) as a regressor in a voxel-wise analysis. This approach allowed us to differentiate areas where neural activity co-varied with the subject's performance, and therefore, brain activity modulations were related to egocentric spatial attention changes.
The influence of focused and sustained spatial attention on the allocation of spatial attention
2019, Journal of the International Neuropsychological SocietyAttention as a patchwork concept
2023, European Journal for Philosophy of Science
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This article was prepared with partial support from grants from the National Science Foundation (BCS 99-10727), the National Institute of Mental Health (MH60636), and the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke (P01 NS19632). The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.