Attention and predictions: control of spatial attention beyond the endogenous-exogenous dichotomy

Emiliano Macaluso,Fabrizio Doricchi

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00685

Abstract

The mechanisms of attention control have been extensively studied with a variety of methodologies in animals and in humans. Human studies using non-invasive imaging techniques highlighted a remarkable difference between the pattern of responses in dorsal fronto-parietal regions vs. ventral fronto-parietal (vFP) regions, primarily lateralized to the right hemisphere. Initially, this distinction at the neuro-physiological level has been related to the distinction between cognitive processes associated with strategic/endogenous vs. stimulus-driven/exogenous of attention control. Nonetheless, quite soon it has become evident that, in almost any situation, attention control entails a complex combination of factors related to both the current sensory input and endogenous aspects associated with the experimental context. Here, we review several of these aspects first discussing the joint contribution of endogenous and stimulus-driven factors during spatial orienting in complex environments and, then, turning to the role of expectations and predictions in spatial re-orienting. We emphasize that strategic factors play a pivotal role for the activation of the ventral system during stimulus-driven control, and that the dorsal system makes use of stimulus-driven signals for top-down control. We conclude that both the dorsal and the vFP networks integrate endogenous and exogenous signals during spatial attention control and that future investigations should manipulate both these factors concurrently, so as to reveal to full extent of these interactions.

Highlights

HUMAN NEUROSCIENCEAttention and predictions: control of spatial attention beyond the endogenous-exogenous dichotomy
The ability to suitably allocate processing resources is fundamental for the efficient processing of incoming sensory signals and for the generation of appropriate behavior in complex environments
In our study (Doricchi et al, 2010), cue- and targetrelated brain responses were investigated separately. This showed that the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) is sensitive to expectancy during the cueperiod, when it showed a greater deactivation for informative compared to non-informative cues, though not during the target period, when it showed equivalent levels of activity both in the www.frontiersin.org low- and high-expectancy conditions. These results suggest that in Vossel et al (2006) the expectancy effects in the right TPJ may have been partially due to cue-related activity, whereas the effects in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)-middle frontal gyrus (MFG) can be attributed to the sensitivity of these areas to target-related expectancy, i.e., greater responses to unexpected/infrequent invalid targets

Summary

HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE

Attention and predictions: control of spatial attention beyond the endogenous-exogenous dichotomy. Human studies using non-invasive imaging techniques highlighted a remarkable difference between the pattern of responses in dorsal fronto-parietal regions vs ventral fronto-parietal (vFP) regions, primarily lateralized to the right hemisphere. This distinction at the neuro-physiological level has been related to the distinction between cognitive processes associated with strategic/endogenous vs stimulus-driven/exogenous of attention control. We emphasize that strategic factors play a pivotal role for the activation of the ventral system during stimulus-driven control, and that the dorsal system makes use of stimulus-driven signals for top-down control We conclude that both the dorsal and the vFP networks integrate endogenous and exogenous signals during spatial attention control and that future investigations should manipulate both these factors concurrently, so as to reveal to full extent of these interactions

INTRODUCTION

Macaluso and Doricchi

ONE OR MULTIPLE FILTERS FOR THE ALLOCATION OF ATTENTIONAL RESOURCES?

Findings

CONCLUSION