Psychol Sci. 2005 Feb;16(2):114-22.
Coordination of voluntary and stimulus-driven attentional control in human cortex.
Serences JT, Shomstein S, Leber AB, Golay X, Egeth HE, Yantis S.
Source
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. serences@jhu.edu
Abstract
Visual attention may be voluntarily directed to particular locations or features (voluntary control), or it may be captured by salient stimuli, such as the abrupt appearance of a new perceptual object (stimulus-driven control). Most often, however, the deployment of attention is the result of a dynamic interplay between voluntary attentional control settings (e.g., based on prior knowledge about a target's location or color) and the degree to which stimuli in the visual scene match these voluntary control settings. Consequently, nontarget items in the scene that share a defining feature with the target of visual search can capture attention, a phenomenon termed contingent attentional capture. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to show that attentional capture by target-colored distractors is accompanied by increased cortical activity in corresponding regions of retinotopically organized visual cortex. Concurrent activation in the temporoparietal junction and ventral frontal cortex suggests that these regions coordinate voluntary and stimulus-driven attentional control settings to determine which stimuli effectively compete for attention.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2004 Jan-Feb;16(1):149-65.
Functional parcellation of attentional control regions of the brain.
Woldorff MG, Hazlett CJ, Fichtenholtz HM, Weissman DH, Dale AM, Song AW.
Source
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Room B203, Duke University, LSRC Building, Box 90999, Durham, NC 27708-0999, USA. woldorff@duke.edu
Abstract
Recently, a number of investigators have examined the neural loci of psychological processes enabling the control of visual spatial attention using cued-attention paradigms in combination with event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. Findings from these studies have provided strong evidence for the involvement of a fronto-parietal network in attentional control. In the present study, we build upon this previous work to further investigate these attentional control systems. In particular, we employed additional controls for nonattentional sensory and interpretative aspects of cue processing to determine whether distinct regions in the fronto-parietal network are involved in different aspects of cue processing, such as cue-symbol interpretation and attentional orienting. In addition, we used shorter cue-target intervals that were closer to those used in the behavioral and event-related potential cueing literatures. Twenty participants performed a cued spatial attention task while brain activity was recorded with functional magnetic resonance imaging. We found functional specialization for different aspects of cue processing in the lateral and medial subregions of the frontal and parietal cortex. In particular, the medial subregions were more specific to the orienting of visual spatial attention, while the lateral subregions were associated with more general aspects of cue processing, such as cue-symbol interpretation. Additional cue-related effects included differential activations in midline frontal regions and pretarget enhancements in the thalamus and early visual cortical areas.