Spatiotemporal distribution of facilitation and inhibition of return arising from the reflexive orienting of covert attention.

Motivation, affect and cognition are interrelated. However, the control of attentional deployment and more specifically, attempting to provide a more complete account of the interactions between the dorsal and ventral processing streams is still a challenge. The interaction between overt and covert attention is particularly important for models concerned with visual search. Further modeling of such interactions can assist to scrutinize many mechanisms, such as saccadic suppression, dynamic remapping of the saliency map and inhibition of return, covert pre-selection of targets for overt saccades and online understanding of complex visual scenes.

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Endogenous orienting in the archer fish

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1700574114 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 114 (29) ◽

pp. 7577-7581 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

William Saban ◽

Liora Sekely ◽

Raymond M. Klein ◽

Shai Gabay

Keyword(s):

Inhibition Of Return ◽

Reaction Times ◽

Volitional Control ◽

Reflexive Orienting ◽

Facilitation Effect ◽

Endogenous Orienting ◽

Attention Orienting ◽

Spatial Orienting ◽

Human Attention ◽

Human Participants

The literature has long emphasized the neocortex’s role in volitional processes. In this work, we examined endogenous orienting in an evolutionarily older species, the archer fish, which lacks neocortex-like cells. We used Posner’s classic endogenous cuing task, in which a centrally presented, spatially informative cue is followed by a target. The fish responded to the target by shooting a stream of water at it. Interestingly, the fish demonstrated a human-like “volitional” facilitation effect: their reaction times to targets that appeared on the side indicated by the precue were faster than their reaction times to targets on the opposite side. The fish also exhibited inhibition of return, an aftermath of orienting that commonly emerges only in reflexive orienting tasks in human participants. We believe that this pattern demonstrates the acquisition of an arbitrary connection between spatial orienting and a nonspatial feature of a centrally presented stimulus in nonprimate species. In the literature on human attention, orienting in response to such contingencies has been strongly associated with volitional control. We discuss the implications of these results for the evolution of orienting, and for the study of volitional processes in all species, including humans.

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Using Auditory and Visual Stimuli to Investigate the Behavioral and Neuronal Consequences of Reflexive Covert Orienting

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.01080.2003 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 91 (5) ◽

pp. 2172-2184 ◽

Cited By ~ 60

Author(s):

Andrew H. Bell ◽

Jillian H. Fecteau ◽

Douglas P. Munoz

Keyword(s):

Attentional Capture ◽

Inhibition Of Return ◽

Visual Stimuli ◽

Behavioral Effect ◽

Reflexive Orienting ◽

Auditory Cues ◽

Auditory Responses ◽

Sensory Interactions ◽

Saccade Task ◽

Onset Asynchrony

Reflexively orienting toward a peripheral cue can influence subsequent responses to a target, depending on when and where the cue and target appear relative to each other. At short delays between the cue and target [cue-target onset asynchrony (CTOA)], subjects are faster to respond when they appear at the same location, an effect referred to as reflexive attentional capture. At longer CTOAs, subjects are slower to respond when the two appear at the same location, an effect referred to as inhibition of return (IOR). Recent evidence suggests that these phenomena originate from sensory interactions between the cue- and target-related responses. The capture of attention originates from a strong target-related response, derived from the overlap of the cue- and target-related activities, whereas IOR corresponds to a weaker target-aligned response. If such interactions are responsible, then modifying their nature should impact the neuronal and behavioral outcome. Monkeys performed a cue-target saccade task featuring visual and auditory cues while neural activity was recorded from the superior colliculus (SC). Compared with visual stimuli, auditory responses are weaker and occur earlier, thereby decreasing the likelihood of interactions between these signals. Similar to previous studies, visual stimuli evoked reflexive attentional capture at a short CTOA (60 ms) and IOR at longer CTOAs (160 and 610 ms) with corresponding changes in the target-aligned activity in the SC. Auditory cues used in this study failed to elicit either a behavioral effect or modification of SC activity at any CTOA, supporting the hypothesis that reflexive orienting is mediated by sensory interactions between the cue and target stimuli.

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Random isn't real: How the patchy distribution of ecological rewards may generate “incentive hope”

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x18002005 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

Author(s):

Laurel Symes ◽

Thalia Wheatley

Keyword(s):

Natural Environment ◽

Random Distribution ◽

Spatiotemporal Distribution ◽

Patchy Distribution ◽

Distribution Of Resources

AbstractAnselme & Güntürkün generate exciting new insights by integrating two disparate fields to explain why uncertain rewards produce strong motivational effects. Their conclusions are developed in a framework that assumes a random distribution of resources, uncommon in the natural environment. We argue that, by considering a realistically clumped spatiotemporal distribution of resources, their conclusions will be stronger and more complete.

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Pain Influences Several Levels of Attention

Zeitschrift für Neuropsychologie ◽

10.1024/1016-264x.16.4.235 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 16 (4) ◽

pp. 235-242 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Astrid von Bueren Jarchow ◽

Bogdan P. Radanov ◽

Lutz Jäncke

Keyword(s):

Chronic Pain ◽

Divided Attention ◽

Covert Attention ◽

Attention Task ◽

Attentional Deficits ◽

Control Subjects ◽

Chronic Pain Patients ◽

Divided Attention Task ◽

Pain Stimuli ◽

Pain Patients

Abstract: The aim of the present study was to examine to what extent chronic pain has an impact on various attentional processes. To measure these attention processes a set of experimental standard tests of the “Testbatterie zur Aufmerksamkeitsprüfung” (TAP), a neuropsychological battery testing different levels of attention, were used: alertness, divided attention, covert attention, vigilance, visual search, and Go-NoGo tasks. 24 chronic outpatients and 24 well-matched healthy control subjects were tested. The control subjects were matched for age, gender, and education. The group of chronic pain patients exhibited marked deficiencies in all attentional functions except for the divided attention task. Thus, the data supports the notion that chronic pain negatively influences attention because pain patients` attention is strongly captivated by the internal pain stimuli. Only the more demanding divided attention task has the capability to distract the focus of attention to the pain stimuli. Therefore, the pain patients are capable of performing within normal limits. Based on these findings chronic pain patients' attentional deficits should be appropriately evaluated and considered for insurance and work related matters. The effect of a successful distraction away from the pain in the divided attention task can also open new therapeutic aspects.

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