Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A personal view
C Frith, 13th March 2002
1) Mapping
Mapping the known: retinotopic areas in the visual system (Sereno et al., 1995).
Mapping the partially known: biological motion the need for a localiser task (Grossman
et al., 2000)
Mapping the unknown:
a) classifying cognitive functions
Stroop (Barch et al. 2001), Working memory (Petit et al., 1998)
b) contrasting specific cognitive functions (Rowe et al., 2000)
2) Mechanisms
Attention:
Bottom-up & top-down (Corbetta et al., 1991 features, OCraven et al., 1999, objects +
features)
Site & Source: Macaluso et al., 2000, multi-modal, Wojcuilik et al., 1999, many task one
top-down source, Kastner et al., 1999, activity before stimulus, de Fockert et al., working
memory and attention.
3) Connectivity
Sereno Mi, Dale Am, Reppas Jb, Kwong Kk, Belliveau Jw, Brady Tj, Rosen Br, Tootell
Rbh
The borders of human visual areas V1, V2, VP, V3, and V4 were precisely and
noninvasively determined. Functional magnetic resonance images were recorded during
phase-encoded retinal stimulation. This volume data set was then sampled with a cortical
surface reconstruction, making it possible to calculate the local visual field sign (mirror
image Versus non-mirror image representation). This method automatically and
objectively outlines area borders because adjacent areas often have the opposite field
sign. Cortical magnification factor curves for striate and extrastriate cortical areas were
determined, which showed that human visual areas have a greater emphasis on the center-
of-gaze than their counterparts in monkeys. Retinotopically organized visual areas in
humans extend anteriorly to overlap several areas previously shown to be activated by
written words.
These experiments use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to reveal neural
activity uniquely associated with perception of biological motion. We isolated brain areas
activated during the viewing of point-light figures, then compared those areas to regions
known to be involved in coherent-motion perception and kinetic-boundary perception.
Coherent motion activated a region matching previous reports of human MT/MST
complex located on the temporo-parietooccipital junction. Kinetic boundaries activated a
region posterior and adjacent to human MT previously identified as the kinetic-occipital
(KO) region or the lateral-occipital (LO) complex. The pattern of activation during
viewing of biological motion was located within a small region on the ventral bank of the
occipital extent. of the superior-temporal sulcus (STS). This region is located lateral and
anterior to human MT/MST, and anterior to KO. Among our observers, we localized this
region more frequently in the right hemisphere than in the left. This was true regardless
of whether the point-light figures were presented in the right or left hemifield. A small
region in the medial cerebellum was also active when observers viewed biological-
motion sequences. Consistent with earlier neuroimaging and single-unit studies, this
pattern of results points to the existence of neural mechanisms specialized for analysis of
the kinematics defining biological motion.
Anterior cingulate cortex and response conflict: Effects of response modality and
processing domain
Selective And Divided Attention During Visual Discriminations Of Shape, Color, And
Speed - Functional-Anatomy By Positron Emission Tomography
Positron emission tomography (PET) was used to identify the neural systems involved in
discriminating the shape, color, and speed of a visual stimulus under conditions of
selective and divided attention. Psychophysical evidence indicated that the sensitivity for
discriminating subtle stimulus changes in a same-different matching task was higher
when subjects selectively attended to one attribute than when they divided attention
among the attributes.
Outside the visual system, selective and divided attention activated nonoverlapping sets
of brain regions. Selective conditions activated globus pallidus, caudate nucleus, lateral
orbitofrontal cortex, posterior thalamus/colliculus, and insular-premotor regions, while
the divided condition activated the anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
The results in the visual system demonstrate that selective attention to different features
modulates activity in distinct regions of extrastriate cortex that appear to be specialized
for processing the selected feature. The disjoint pattern of activations in extravisual brain
regions during selective- and divided-attention conditions also suggests that perceptual
judgments involve different neural systems, depending on attentional strategies.
A sudden touch on one hand can improve vision near that hand, revealing crossmodal
Links in spatial attention. It is often assumed that such Links involve only multimodal
neural structures, but unimodal brain areas may also be affected. We tested the effect of
simultaneous visuo-tactile stimulation on the activity of the human visual cortex. Tactile
stimulation enhanced activity in the visual cortex, but only when it was on the same side
as a visual target. Analysis of effective connectivity between brain areas suggests that
touch influences unimodal visual cortex via back-projections from multimodal parietal
areas. This provides a neural explanation for crossmodal links in spatial attention.
Wojciulik E, Kanwisher N
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to determine whether different
kinds of visual attention rely on a common neural substrate. Within one session, subjects
performed three different attention experiments (each comparing an attentionally
demanding task with an easier task using identical stimuli): (1) peripheral shifting, (2)
object matching, and (3) a nonspatial conjunction task. Two areas were activated in all
three experiments: one at the junction of intraparietal and transverse occipital sulci
(IPTO), and another in the anterior intraparietal sulcus (AIPS). These regions are not
simply involved in any effortful task, because they were not activated in a fourth
experiment comparing a difficult language task with an easier control task. Thus, activity
in IPTO and AIPS generalizes across a wide variety of attention-requiring tasks,
supporting the existence of a common neural substrate underlying multiple modes of
visual selection.
Increased activity in human visual cortex during directed attention in the absence of
visual stimulation
When subjects direct attention to a particular location in a visual scene, responses in the
visual cortex to stimuli presented at that location are enhanced, and the suppressive
influences of nearby distracters are reduced. What is the top-down signal that modulates
the response to an attended versus an unattended stimulus? Here, we demonstrate
increased activity related to attention in the absence of visual stimulation in extrastriate
cortex when subjects covertly directed attention to a peripheral location expecting the
onset of visual stimuli. Frontal and parietal areas showed a stronger signal increase
during this expectation than did visual areas. The increased activity in visual cortex in the
absence of visual stimulation may reflect a top-down bias of neural signals in favor of the
attended location, which derives from a fronto-parietal network.
The hypothesis that working memory is crucial for reducing distraction by maintaining
the prioritization of relevant information was tested in neuroimaging and psychological
experiments with humans. Participants performed a selective attention task that required
them to ignore distracter faces while holding in working memory a sequence of digits that
were in the same order (Low memory Load) or a different order thigh memory Load) on
every trial. Higher memory Load, associated with increased prefrontal activity, resulted in
greater interference effects on behavioral performance from the distracter faces, plus
increased face-related activity in the visual cortex. These findings confirm a major role
for working memory in the control of visual selective attention.
Connectivity
Buchel C, Friston KJ