Close is better

2021 ◽  
pp. 47-60
Author(s):  
Elvio Blini ◽  
Alessandro Farnè ◽  
Claudio Brozzoli ◽  
Fadila Hadj-Bouziane
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Peripersonal Space ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Response Properties ◽  
Defensive Reactions ◽  
Electrophysiological Studies ◽  
Sensory Convergence

The neuroscientific approach to peripersonal space (PPS) stems directly from electrophysiological studies assessing the response properties of multisensory neurons in behaving non-human primates. This multisensory context fostered frameworks which i) stress the PPS role in actions (including defensive reactions) and affordances, which are optimally performed through multiple sensory convergence; and ii) largely make use of tasks that are multisensory in nature. Concurrently, however, studies on spatial attention reported proximity-related advantages in purely unisensory tasks. These advantages appear to share some key PPS features. Activations in brain areas reported to be multisensory, indeed, can also be found using unimodal (visual) paradigms. Overall, these findings point to the possibility that closer objects may benefit from being processed as events occurring in PPS. The dominant multisensory view of PPS should therefore be expanded accordingly, as perceptual advantages in PPS may be broader than previously thought.

scholarly journals Tool-Use: Capturing Multisensory Spatial Attention or Extending Multisensory Peripersonal Space?

Cortex ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas P. Holmes ◽  
Daniel Sanabria ◽  
Gemma A. Calvert ◽  
Charles Spence
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Peripersonal Space

Neural Mechanisms of Visual Attention: Object-Based Selection of a Region in Space

2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (supplement 2) ◽  
pp. 106-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine M. Arrington ◽  
Thomas H. Carr ◽  
Andrew R. Mayer ◽  
Stephen M. Rao
Keyword(s):  
Visual Attention ◽  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Unbounded Region ◽  
Object Based ◽  
Selection Of

Objects play an important role in guiding spatial attention through a cluttered visual environment. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (ER-fMRI) to measure brain activity during cued discrimination tasks requiring subjects to orient attention either to a region bounded by an object (object-based spatial attention) or to an unbounded region of space (location-based spatial attention) in anticipation of an upcoming target. Comparison between the two tasks revealed greater activation when attention selected a region bounded by an object. This activation was strongly lateralized to the left hemisphere and formed a widely distributed network including (a) attentional structures in parietal and temporal cortex and thalamus, (b) ventral-stream object processing structures in occipital, inferior-temporal, and parahippocampal cortex, and (c) control structures in medial-and dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex. These results suggest that object-based spatial selection is achieved by imposing additional constraints over and above those processes already operating to achieve selection of an unbounded region. In addition, ER-fMRI methodology allowed a comparison of validly versus invalidly cued trials, thereby delineating brain structures involved in the reorientation of attention after its initial deployment proved incorrect. All areas of activation that differentiated between these two trial types resulted from greater activity during the invalid trials. This outcome suggests that all brain areas involved in attentional orienting and task performance in response to valid cues are also involved on invalid trials. During invalid trials, additional brain regions are recruited when a perceiver recovers from invalid cueing and reorients attention to a target appearing at an uncued location. Activated brain areas specific to attentional reorientation were strongly right-lateralized and included posterior temporal and inferior parietal regions previously implicated in visual attention processes, as well as prefrontal regions that likely subserve control processes, particularly related to inhibition of inappropriate responding.

Supramodal Effects of Covert Spatial Orienting Triggered by Visual or Tactile Events

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Macaluso ◽  
C. D. Frith ◽  
J. Driver
Keyword(s):  
Frontal Cortex ◽  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Spatial Coding ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Target Modality ◽  
Spatial Orienting ◽  
Inferior Frontal Cortex ◽  
Trial Basis ◽  
Subsequent Target

Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to identify brain areas involved in spatial attention and determine whether these operate unimodally or supramodally for vision and touch. On a trial-by-trial basis, a symbolic auditory cue indicated the most likely side for the subsequent target, thus directing covert attention to one side. A subsequent target appeared in vision or touch on the cued or uncued side. Invalidly cued trials (as compared with valid trials) activated the temporo-parietal junction and regions of inferior frontal cortex, regardless of target modality. These brain areas have been associated with multimodal spatial coding in physiological studies of the monkey brain and were linked to a change in the location that must be attended to in the present study. The intraparietal sulcus and superior frontal cortex were also activated in our task, again, regardless of target modality, but did not show any specificity for invalidly cued trials. These results identify a supramodal network for spatial attention and reveal differential activity for inferior circuits involving the temporo-parietal junction and inferior frontal cortex (specific to invalid trials) versus more superior intraparietal-frontal circuits (common to valid and invalid trials).

Electrophysiological studies of auditory spatial attention

1998 ◽  
Vol 103 (5) ◽  
pp. 2928-2928
Author(s):  
Steven A. Hillyard ◽  
Wolfgang A. Teder‐Salejarvi
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Auditory Spatial Attention ◽  
Electrophysiological Studies

scholarly journals Organization of Hue Selectivity in Macaque V2 Thin Stripes

2009 ◽  
Vol 102 (5) ◽  
pp. 2603-2615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heejin Lim ◽  
Yi Wang ◽  
Youping Xiao ◽  
Ming Hu ◽  
Daniel J. Felleman
Keyword(s):  
Cytochrome Oxidase ◽  
Oxidase Activity ◽  
Orientation Selectivity ◽  
Optical Recording ◽  
Luminance Change ◽  
Response Properties ◽  
Cytochrome Oxidase Activity ◽  
Electrophysiological Studies

V2 has long been recognized to contain functionally distinguishable compartments that are correlated with the stripelike pattern of cytochrome oxidase activity. Early electrophysiological studies suggested that color, direction/disparity, and orientation selectivity were largely segregated in the thin, thick, and interstripes, respectively. Subsequent studies revealed a greater degree of homogeneity in the distribution of response properties across stripes, yet color-selective cells were still found to be most prevalent in the thin stripes. Optical recording studies have demonstrated that thin stripes contain both color-preferring and luminance-preferring modules. These thin stripe color-preferring modules contain spatially organized hue maps, whereas the luminance-preferring modules contain spatially organized luminance-change maps. In this study, the neuronal basis of these hue maps was determined by characterizing the selectivity of neurons for isoluminant hues in multiple penetrations within previously characterized V2 thin stripe hue maps. The results indicate that neurons within the superficial layers of V2 thin stripe hue maps are organized into columns whose aggregated hue selectivity is closely related to the hue selectivity of the optically defined hue maps. These data suggest that thin stripes contain hue maps not simply because of their moderate percentage of hue-selective neurons, but because of the columnar and tangential organization of hue selectivity.

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