Elsevier

Neurologic Clinics

Volume 21, Issue 3, August 2003, Pages 575-607
Neurologic Clinics

Review article
Spatial attention: normal processes and their breakdown

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0733-8619(02)00103-2Get rights and content

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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      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).

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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.

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