Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 9, 2026
09:37
Measurement of Neurophysiological Signals of Ignoring and Attending Processes in Attention Control
Published on: July 5, 2015
Neural mechanisms of top-down control during spatial and feature attention
B Giesbrecht1, M G Woldorff, A W Song
1Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Box 90999, Durham, NC 27709, USA. giesbrecht@ucdavis.edu
Neuroimage
|July 26, 2003
Summary
The brain
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Neuroimaging
- Visual Attention
Background:
- Visual selective attention theories propose control over spatial location and nonspatial features.
- The frontoparietal control network is crucial for visual-spatial attention.
- This network also activates for nonspatial attention, suggesting generality.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the generality of the frontoparietal control network in visual attention.
- To directly compare brain activity during spatial versus nonspatial attention.
- To determine if specific subregions of the frontoparietal network are specialized for spatial attention.
Main Methods:
- Used a cuing paradigm to compare spatial and nonspatial attention.
- Employed event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to isolate attentional control activity.
- Equated stimulus, task, and attentional factors between spatial and nonspatial conditions.
Main Results:
- Common activation of frontoparietal network regions for both spatial and nonspatial cues.
- Specific subregions within the frontoparietal network showed significantly greater activation during spatial orienting compared to nonspatial orienting.
- No frontoparietal regions were more active for nonspatial cues than for spatial cues.
Conclusions:
- Findings support models suggesting subregions of the frontoparietal network are specialized for spatial selective attention.
- The frontoparietal network exhibits specificity in attentional control, particularly for spatial orienting.
- This research refines our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying visual attention.
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