scholarly journals Crossmodal Links between Vision and Touch in Spatial Attention: A Computational Modelling Study

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Magosso ◽  
Andrea Serino ◽  
Giuseppe di Pellegrino ◽  
Mauro Ursino
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Computational Modelling ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Cooperative Interaction ◽  
Endogenous Attention ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Biased Competition ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
Selection Of

Many studies have revealed that attention operates across different sensory modalities, to facilitate the selection of relevant information in the multimodal situations of every-day life. Cross-modal links have been observed either when attention is directed voluntarily (endogenous) or involuntarily (exogenous). The neural basis of cross-modal attention presents a significant challenge to cognitive neuroscience. Here, we used a neural network model to elucidate the neural correlates of visual-tactile interactions in exogenous and endogenous attention. The model includes two unimodal (visual and tactile) areas connected with a bimodal area in each hemisphere and a competition between the two hemispheres. The model is able to explain cross-modal facilitation both in exogenous and endogenous attention, ascribing it to an advantaged activation of the bimodal area on the attended side (via a top-down or bottom-up biasing), with concomitant inhibition towards the opposite side. The model suggests that a competitive/cooperative interaction with biased competition may mediate both forms of cross-modal attention.

The Neural Correlates of Consciousness

2020 ◽  
pp. 231-260
Author(s):  
Jorge Morales ◽  
Hakwan Lau
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Computational Modelling ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Specific Role ◽  
Statistical Techniques ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Hierarchical Processing ◽  
Neural Correlates Of Consciousness ◽  
Processing Architecture ◽  
Selection Of

Our understanding of the neural basis of consciousness has substantially improved in the last few decades. New imaging and statistical techniques have been introduced, experiments have become more sophisticated, and several unsuccessful hypotheses have been quite conclusively ruled out. However, neuroscientists still do not entirely agree on the critical neural features required for sustaining perceptual conscious experiences in humans and other primates. This chapter discusses a selection of influential views of the neural correlates of consciousness and the predictions they make. By highlighting some neurobiological and computational modelling results, it will be argued that the currently available evidence favors a hierarchical processing architecture that confers a crucial, if subtle and specific, role to prefrontal cortex.

scholarly journals Auditory and visual scene analysis: an overview

2017 ◽  
Vol 372 (1714) ◽  
pp. 20160099 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hirohito M. Kondo ◽  
Anouk M. van Loon ◽  
Jun-Ichiro Kawahara ◽  
Brian C. J. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Scene Perception ◽  
Computational Modelling ◽  
Visual Scene ◽  
Scene Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Visual Inputs ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
Stimulus Features ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Selection Of

We perceive the world as stable and composed of discrete objects even though auditory and visual inputs are often ambiguous owing to spatial and temporal occluders and changes in the conditions of observation. This raises important questions regarding where and how ‘scene analysis’ is performed in the brain. Recent advances from both auditory and visual research suggest that the brain does not simply process the incoming scene properties. Rather, top-down processes such as attention, expectations and prior knowledge facilitate scene perception. Thus, scene analysis is linked not only with the extraction of stimulus features and formation and selection of perceptual objects, but also with selective attention, perceptual binding and awareness. This special issue covers novel advances in scene-analysis research obtained using a combination of psychophysics, computational modelling, neuroimaging and neurophysiology, and presents new empirical and theoretical approaches. For integrative understanding of scene analysis beyond and across sensory modalities, we provide a collection of 15 articles that enable comparison and integration of recent findings in auditory and visual scene analysis. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Auditory and visual scene analysis’.

scholarly journals Cortical Mechanisms of Cognitive Control for Shifting Attention in Vision and Working Memory

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 2905-2919 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Tamber-Rosenau ◽  
Michael Esterman ◽  
Yu-Chin Chiu ◽  
Steven Yantis
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Future Goals ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Superior Frontal Sulcus

Organisms operate within both a perceptual domain of objects and events, and a mnemonic domain of past experiences and future goals. Each domain requires a deliberate selection of task-relevant information, through deployments of external (perceptual) and internal (mnemonic) attention, respectively. Little is known about the control of attention shifts in working memory, or whether voluntary control of attention in these two domains is subserved by a common or by distinct functional networks. We used human fMRI to examine the neural basis of cognitive control while participants shifted attention in vision and in working memory. We found that these acts of control recruit in common a subset of the dorsal fronto-parietal attentional control network, including the medial superior parietal lobule, intraparietal sulcus, and superior frontal sulcus/gyrus. Event-related multivoxel pattern classification reveals, however, that these regions exhibit distinct spatio-temporal patterns of neural activity during internal and external shifts of attention, respectively. These findings constrain theoretical accounts of selection in working memory and perception by showing that populations of neurons in dorsal fronto-parietal network regions exhibit selective tuning for acts of cognitive control in different cognitive domains.

scholarly journals Understanding subprocesses of working memory through the lens of model-based cognitive neuroscience

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne C. Trutti ◽  
Sam Verschooren ◽  
Birte Forstmann ◽  
Russell James Boag
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Removal Processes ◽  
Back Task

Working memory (WM) refers to a set of processes that makes task-relevant information accessible to higher-level cognitive processes. Recent work suggests WM is supported by a variety of information gating, updating, and removal processes, which ensure only task-relevant information occupies WM. Current neurocomputational theory suggests WM gating is accomplished via ‘go/no-go’ signalling in basal ganglia-thalamus-prefrontal cortex pathways, but is less clear about other subprocesses and brain structures known to play a role in WM. We review recent efforts to identify the neural basis of WM subprocesses using the recently developed reference-back task as a benchmark measure of WM subprocesses. Targets for future research using the methods of model-based cognitive neuroscience and novel extensions to the reference-back task are suggested.

Cognitive gadgets and cognitive priors

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gian Domenico Iannetti ◽  
Giorgio Vallortigara
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract Some of the foundations of Heyes’ radical reasoning seem to be based on a fractional selection of available evidence. Using an ethological perspective, we argue against Heyes’ rapid dismissal of innate cognitive instincts. Heyes’ use of fMRI studies of literacy to claim that culture assembles pieces of mental technology seems an example of incorrect reverse inferences and overlap theories pervasive in cognitive neuroscience.

Spatial Representations as an Emergent Feature of Perceptual Processing

2010 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund Wascher ◽  
C. Beste
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Integrated Network ◽  
Perceptual Maps ◽  
Emergent Feature ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Selection Of

Spatial selection of relevant information has been proposed to reflect an emergent feature of stimulus processing within an integrated network of perceptual areas. Stimulus-based and intention-based sources of information might converge in a common stage when spatial maps are generated. This approach appears to be inconsistent with the assumption of distinct mechanisms for stimulus-driven and top-down controlled attention. In two experiments, the common ground of stimulus-driven and intention-based attention was tested by means of event-related potentials (ERPs) in the human EEG. In both experiments, the processing of a single transient was compared to the selection of a physically comparable stimulus among distractors. While single transients evoked a spatially sensitive N1, the extraction of relevant information out of a more complex display was reflected in an N2pc. The high similarity of the spatial portion of these two components (Experiment 1), and the replication of this finding for the vertical axis (Experiment 2) indicate that these two ERP components might both reflect the spatial representation of relevant information as derived from the organization of perceptual maps, just at different points in time.

Pulvino-cortical interaction: an integrative role in the control of attention

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexia Bourgeois ◽  
Carole Guedj ◽  
Emmanuel Carrera ◽  
Patrik Vuilleumier
Keyword(s):  
Executive Control ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Cortical Circuits ◽  
Attention And Executive Control ◽  
Neural Communication ◽  
Subcortical Regions ◽  
Theoretical Proposal ◽  
Selection Of

Selective attention is a fundamental cognitive function that guides behavior by selecting and prioritizing salient or relevant sensory information of our environment. Despite early evidence and theoretical proposal pointing to an implication of thalamic control in attention, most studies in the past two decades focused on cortical substrates, largely ignoring the contribution of subcortical regions as well as cortico-subcortical interactions. Here, we suggest a key role of the pulvinar in the selection of salient and relevant information via its involvement in priority maps computation. Prioritization may be achieved through a pulvinar- mediated generation of alpha oscillations, which may then modulate neuronal gain in thalamo-cortical circuits. Such mechanism might orchestrate the synchrony of cortico-cortical interaction, by rendering neural communication more effective, precise and selective. We propose that this theoretical framework will support a timely shift from the prevailing cortico- centric view of cognition to a more integrative perspective of thalamic contributions to attention and executive control processes.

scholarly journals Associative learning and extinction of conditioned threat predictors across sensory modalities

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura. R. Koenen ◽  
Robert. J. Pawlik ◽  
Adriane Icenhour ◽  
Ljubov Petrakova ◽  
Katarina Forkmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visceral Pain ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Imaging Studies ◽  
Somatic Pain ◽  
Healthy Humans ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
The Face ◽  
Nocebo Effects ◽  
Conditioned Responses ◽  
Clinical Conditions

AbstractThe formation and persistence of negative pain-related expectations by classical conditioning remain incompletely understood. We elucidated behavioural and neural correlates involved in the acquisition and extinction of negative expectations towards different threats across sensory modalities. In two complementary functional magnetic resonance imaging studies in healthy humans, differential conditioning paradigms combined interoceptive visceral pain with somatic pain (study 1) and aversive tone (study 2) as exteroceptive threats. Conditioned responses to interoceptive threat predictors were enhanced in both studies, consistently involving the insula and cingulate cortex. Interoceptive threats had a greater impact on extinction efficacy, resulting in disruption of ongoing extinction (study 1), and selective resurgence of interoceptive CS-US associations after complete extinction (study 2). In the face of multiple threats, we preferentially learn, store, and remember interoceptive danger signals. As key mediators of nocebo effects, conditioned responses may be particularly relevant to clinical conditions involving disturbed interoception and chronic visceral pain.

Selection of Reference Frames and the ‘Vicariance’ of Perceptual Systems

Perception ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 739-751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Marendaz
Keyword(s):  
Field Dependence ◽  
Postural Balance ◽  
Reference Frames ◽  
Interindividual Differences ◽  
Spatial Reference ◽  
Orientation Task ◽  
Situational Characteristics ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
Perceptual Systems ◽  
Selection Of

Interindividual differences in field dependence—independence (FDI) which emerge in situations of vision—posture conflict when subjects are required to orient their bodies vertically were investigated. The first aim was to see whether the same interindividual differences are found in judgements of the orientation of forms in focal vision in which subjects have to deal with conflicting spatial references processed by different sensory modalities. The second aim was to test the idea that the FDI dimension is due to functional habits linked to balancing. Subjects performed Kopfermann's (1930) shape-orientation task in either a stable (experiment 1) or an unstable (experiment 2) postural condition. Results showed that the FDI dimension comes into play in the solution of the Kopfermann shape orientation task, and that there is an interactive link between FDI and postural balance, consistent with theoretical expectations. More generally, it appears that the ‘choice’ of a spatial reference system is the product of both individual and situational characteristics, and that the ‘vicariance’ (or inter-changeability) of the sensory systems dealing with gravitational upright is at the basis of this interaction.

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