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The neurology of attention

The neurology of attention. How does the brain handle attention? What brain structures are involved?. Where should attentional control start?. What is the most efficient point in the visual stream for attentional control to start? Is it in V1? Later? How much later? Why?

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The neurology of attention

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  1. The neurology of attention How does the brain handle attention? What brain structures are involved?

  2. Where should attentional control start? • What is the most efficient point in the visual stream for attentional control to start? • Is it in V1? Later? How much later? Why? • Is “attention” even one thing? How so?

  3. Early vs. Late • Early selection theories hold that we make decisions about directing our attention before we are even aware of what it is we’re directing our attention at. These are essentially spatial attention theories. • Late selection theories hold that we do some level of processing of all perceptual inputs, and only after this point make decisions about directing our attention.

  4. Attention neurologically • One of the primary neurological effects of attention seems to be to amplify the signal of the stimulus being attended to. • Dichotic listening • Visual search • Cued-response • Is this amplification the result of attention, or of heightened perception because we are physically adjusting our sense organs to the attended locale? • If the latter, what causes us to make this adjustment?

  5. A little from column A…. • As with so many things, the story seems to be a little of both. • Clearly, selective attention causes us to move our sense organs towards an attended stimulus: • Swiveling our head to point our eyes • Cupping our hand over our ears • But the amplification happens even if our sense organs don’t move, as in dichotic listening.

  6. Neural amplification • Given what we know about neural circuitry, how can perceptual signals be amplified? • One can presume when studying attention that the areas of the brain that become active are the ones responsible for generating and/or maintaining this amplification.

  7. Whence comes amplification? • Numerous brain areas become activated during various attentional tasks. • Some of these areas are related to the object property to be attended to (near V4 for color, MT for motion, etc.) • But others seem to be more general

  8. What causes these mechanisms to activate? • At this point, nobody knows.

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