scholarly journals The Role of Frontoparietal Cortex across the Functional Stages of Visual Search

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger W. Remington ◽  
Joyce M. G. Vromen ◽  
Stefanie I. Becker ◽  
Oliver Baumann ◽  
Jason B. Mattingley

Areas in frontoparietal cortex have been shown to be active in a range of cognitive tasks and have been proposed to play a key role in goal-driven activities (Dosenbach, N. U. F., Fair, D. A., Miezin, F. M., Cohen, A. L., Wenger, K. K., Dosenbach, R. A. T., et al. Distinct brain networks for adaptive and stable task control in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 104, 11073–11078, 2007; Duncan, J. The multiple-demand (MD) system of the primate brain: Mental programs for intelligent behavior. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14, 172–179, 2010). Here, we examine the role this frontoparietal system plays in visual search. Visual search, like many complex tasks, consists of a sequence of operations: target selection, stimulus–response (SR) mapping, and response execution. We independently manipulated the difficulty of target selection and SR mapping in a novel visual search task that involved identical stimulus displays. Enhanced activity was observed in areas of frontal and parietal cortex during both difficult target selection and SR mapping. In addition, anterior insula and ACC showed preferential representation of SR-stage information, whereas the medial frontal gyrus, precuneus, and inferior parietal sulcus showed preferential representation of target selection-stage information. A connectivity analysis revealed dissociable neural circuits underlying visual search. We hypothesize that these circuits regulate distinct mental operations associated with the allocation of spatial attention, stimulus decisions, shifts of task set from selection to SR mapping, and SR mapping. Taken together, the results show frontoparietal involvement in all stages of visual search and a specialization with respect to cognitive operations.

Climate Law ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2-4) ◽  
pp. 252-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. G. Burns ◽  
Jane A. Flegal

The feckless response of the world community to the mounting threat of climate change has led to a growing interest in climate geoengineering research. In early 2015, the us National Academy of Sciences released two major reports on the topic. While it is notable that both reports recommended some form of public participation to inform research, this article argues that the vagueness of these recommendations could mean that their implementation might not comport with optimal approaches for public deliberation. We outline some options for public deliberation on climate geoengineering and important design considerations.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 79 (6) ◽  
pp. 1049-1050
Author(s):  
RALPH E. KAUFFMAN ◽  
ROBERT J. ROBERTS

The search for causes of Reye syndrome has resulted in colorful, if not controversial, incrimination of numerous factors including influenza, varicella, environmental toxins, aflotoxin, inherited metabolic defects, and various medications. Attempts to associate salicylates with Reye syndrome date from the 1960s1-3; most of these reports lacked sufficient design, conduct, or controls to implicate or exclude aspirin as a risk factor. Since 1980, several epidemiologic studies4-6 renewed concern and controversy regarding the role of aspirin in Reye syndrome. As a result, a Public Health Service Task Force was formed which culminated in the Centers for Disease Control/National Academy of Sciences pilot study7 which was designed to address the problems and shortcomings identified in the previous efforts to examine the role of aspirin as a causal factor in Reye syndrome.


2020 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 407-430
Author(s):  
Daniel Kahneman ◽  
Deborah Treisman

The psychologist Anne Treisman dedicated her career to the study of attention and perception, a central concern of cognitive science. While still a graduate student, she modified and reformulated the leading theory of auditory attention. Her discoveries and insights into the role of visual attention in the perception of objects, to which she devoted her subsequent decades of research, have had a lasting influence, not only in experimental psychology but also in vision research, neuroscience and artificial intelligence. In a period of rising interest in the brain, her foundational theories inspired thousands of experiments in her own field and others, and the originality and precision of her experimental design confirmed the continued relevance of behavioural research to the scientific enterprise. Treisman's accomplishments were recognized by the National Academy of Sciences in the USA in 1994 and by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995. In 1996, she became the first psychologist to win the Golden Brain Award. She received the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Psychology in 2009, and was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Barack Obama at a White House ceremony in 2013.


1988 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 302-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. Prasse

The recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel are critiqued from a perspective of broad educational policy and legal influence. The report and the accompanying background papers are endorsed with general acceptance of problem identificaion and formulation. However, the report is challenged for recommendations that are too narrowly conceived, raising questions as to viability of implementation. Specific issues addressed include treating disproportionate placement as a symptom versus problem, legal and professional policy barriers to implementing the report's recommendations, and the role of courts in resolving scientific disputes and programatic concerns.


Author(s):  
Vasyl Kremen

The speech reveals the figure of Borys Paton as a scientific leader, outstanding organiser, and tireless defender of national science in Ukraine. The warm memories of personal communication with the world-renowned and well-known scientist are given. The key principles of Borys Paton activity are grounded; compliance with them made it possible to turn the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic into one of the most efficient scientific organizations in the country. Attention is drawn to the unique role of Borys Paton in the years of independent Ukraine, first of all, regarding the establishment of the national branch academies of sciences. Borys Paton initiatives on developing the Joint Activity Program of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine for 2020-2022, establishing and legislative consolidating the Council of the Presidents of the National Academies of Sciences of Ukraine are enlightened. The virtual exhibitions created in NAES of Ukraine are presented: “Borys Paton. His Life is an Era in Science” of V.O. Sukhomlynskyi State Scientific and Pedagogical Library of Ukraine, and “Borys Paton and the Ukrainian Humanities” of the Pedagogical Museum of Ukraine.


2021 ◽  
Vol - (4) ◽  
pp. 13-26
Author(s):  
Anatoliy Yermolenko ◽  
Serhii Yosypenko

The article is devoted to the historical and philosophical analysis of the unique and paradigmatic role of the H.S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in the philosophical life of Ukraine for 75 years since its foundation. The authors outline its role in the process of institutionalizing philosophy in Ukraine from the time of the domination of the dogmas of Soviet Marxism to the introduction of current research traditions in modern Ukrainian philosophy. The continuity and peculiarities of the change of generations of researchers in the field of philosophy and the involvement of Ukrainian philosophical thought in the world intellectual discourse are studied. The article's authors reveal the gradual formation of the Kyiv philosophical tradition, the role of the Institute's leadership in the style and nature of scientific research of certain periods. Particular attention is paid to the institutionalization of new research areas at the Institute, such as political philosophy, philosophy of language and speech, which belong to the leading paradigm of modern philosophy. Attention is paid to the cooperation of the Institute with domestic scientific and educational institutions, its international relations. The status of the leading professional publications, which became significant both in Soviet times and during independence, is highlighted. Finally, the article notes the role and tasks of the Institute in modern social discourse, focuses on the values, the preservation of which is taken care of by representatives of the Institute.


Perception ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 26 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 304-304
Author(s):  
T V Papathomas ◽  
I Kovács ◽  
A Feher

The need to revise the eye competition hypothesis of binocular rivalry, and to include the role of stimulus competition has been demonstrated recently by Kovács, Papathomas, Feher, and Yang (1996 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA93 15508 – 15511) and Logothetis, Leopold, and Sheinberg [1996 Nature (London)380 621 – 624]. Kovács et al showed that observers can obtain one-colour percepts when presented with chromatically rivalrous stimuli, even when there are targets of two different colours in each eye. In this study we investigate whether other attributes, in addition to colour, can drive interocular grouping, and how they interact. We extended the ‘patchwork’ rivalrous stimuli (Kovács et al) to study how colour, orientation, spatial frequency, and motion can group interocularly, and how they interact in grouping. Gabor patches are used, because they allow conjunctions of attributes to be formed systematically. To study the ability of an attribute (or a combination of attributes) to group interocularly, we induce rivalry by virtue of interocular differences in that attribute (or combination), and keep the other attributes fixed in both eyes' images. The main advantage of these stimuli is that they enable us to decorrelate the effects of eye competition and percept competition in binocular rivalry. The data show that colour is the most powerful attribute in grouping, and that combinations are stronger than single attributes. Overall, the results indicate that similarity in low-level attributes can drive interocular grouping, and that binocular rivalry follows complex rules of perceptual organisation that cannot be accounted for by eye suppression alone.


2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (5) ◽  
pp. 31-44
Author(s):  
Alexander N. Danilov

The article examines the origins and philosophy of the development of sociology at the Belarusian State University (BSU), which has accumulated the wisdom and socio-political thought of Belarusian thinkers of the past, absorbed the research experience of previous generations. Since the beginning of the work of BSU in 1921, the Department of Sociology and Primitive Culture was created (S.Z. Katzenbogen). The course in genetic sociology, which was taught by Professor S.Z. Katzenbogen, to a greater extent resembled a kind of fusion of philosophical and sociological thought and primitive history, was unlike modern ideas about sociological science. This period did not last long. Soon repressions broke out, the Great Patriotic War, and the post-war reconstruction took place, which significantly delayed the development of sociology as an independent science. All this time, sociology functioned in the bosom of philosophical knowledge, where the convergence of meanings and meaningful mutual enrichment took place, the difficult process of accumulating theoretical, methodological and practical experience was going on. The rticle highlights the key role of BSU in institutionalization, development of sociological science and education in Belarus. The leader of the revival of sociology at BSU was Professor G.P. Davidyuk (1923–2020). Following the example of the Belarusian State University, in the 1960s–1970s, sociological structures were created in all the leading universities of the republic; the work of the applied sociology sector of BSU contributed to the development of factory sociology. In 1989, a sociological department and a department of sociology were opened, at the end of 1996, the Center for Sociological and Political Research was established. Since 1997, the scientific and theoretical Journal of BSU. Sociology, and in 2000 the Belarusian Sociological Society began to function, a branch of the Department of Sociology of the Belarusian State University was opened at the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The traditions of previous generations, laid down by the leaders of the Belarusian sociological school, are gradually being transformed, taking into account the development of scientific, technological and informational and communicative progress, revising curricula and training programs for modern sociologists.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-10
Author(s):  
Jörg Hacker ◽  
Stefan Artmann ◽  
Sandra Kumm

The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina is greatly honoured by receiving the Gold Medal of the Academia Europaea. On this occasion, it might be appropriate to talk about the role of academies in science-based policy advice. The authors would like to address the question: what general aims should the academies achieve – particularly in respect to biomedicine and the life sciences?


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document