Human cortical activity evoked by contextual processing in attentional orienting

Shuo Zhao,Sayaka Yoshimura,Chunlin Li,Shota Uono,Motomi Toichi

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-03104-1

Shuo Zhao, Sayaka Yoshimura + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03104-1

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Abstract

The ability to assess another person’s direction of attention is paramount in social communication, many studies have reported a similar pattern between gaze and arrow cues in attention orienting. Neuroimaging research has also demonstrated no qualitative differences in attention to gaze and arrow cues. However, these studies were implemented under simple experiment conditions. Researchers have highlighted the importance of contextual processing (i.e., the semantic congruence between cue and target) in attentional orienting, showing that attentional orienting by social gaze or arrow cues could be modulated through contextual processing. Here, we examine the neural activity of attentional orienting by gaze and arrow cues in response to contextual processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The results demonstrated that the influence of neural activity through contextual processing to attentional orienting occurred under invalid conditions (when the cue and target were incongruent versus congruent) in the ventral frontoparietal network, although we did not identify any differences in the neural substrates of attentional orienting in contextual processing between gaze and arrow cues. These results support behavioural data of attentional orienting modulated by contextual processing based on the neurocognitive architecture.

Highlights

The ability to assess another person’s direction of attention is paramount in social communication
Bayliss et al.[25] reported that compared with disgusted faces, the gaze direction of happy faces more effectively oriented attention to pleasant targets. These findings indicated that participants could employ contextual information in attentional orienting by arrows or eye gaze cues to effectively capture important information, the context effect might be observed only when targets are presented at a specific context of colour and emotion for gazes and arrows
Given that the present study identified the influence of the neural substrates by contextual processing under invalid conditions in ventral frontoparietal networks, we suggest that this finding may account for the behavioural data regarding attentional orienting through contextual processing based on the neurocognitive architecture

Summary

Introduction

The ability to assess another person’s direction of attention is paramount in social communication. Tipper et al.[17] reported attentional orienting to both eye gaze and arrow cues engaged extensive dorsal and ventral frontoparietal networks, but the magnitude of activation differed between these networks These studies only examined the differences between gaze and arrow cues under simple conditions (e.g. a dot or letter as the target). Bayliss et al.[25] reported that compared with disgusted faces, the gaze direction of happy faces more effectively oriented attention to pleasant targets These findings indicated that participants could employ contextual information in attentional orienting by arrows or eye gaze cues to effectively capture important information, the context effect might be observed only when targets are presented at a specific context of colour and emotion for gazes and arrows. We focused on these brain regions to examine the influence of neural systems in relation to gaze and arrow cues through contextual processing focused on the relationship between the cue and target in attentional orienting

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