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Control of object-based attention in human cortex.

John T Serences1, Jens Schwarzbach, Susan M Courtney

  • 1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Baltimore, MD 21218-2686, USA. serences@jhu.edu

Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
|May 29, 2004
PubMed
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This study reveals how the brain directs visual attention to specific objects, even when they overlap in space. It identifies key brain regions involved in this object-based attentional control.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Neuroimaging
  • Visual Perception

Background:

  • Visual attention selects important information from the environment.
  • Previous research focused on spatial attention, identifying frontoparietal control circuits.
  • The neural basis of object-based attention, crucial for overlapping objects, remains less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying object-based attentional control.
  • To determine how attention selects objects when they are spatially superimposed.
  • To explore the role of specific brain regions in nonspatial attentional selection.

Main Methods:

  • Two experiments involving human observers shifting attention between superimposed faces and houses.
  • Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Analysis of the timecourse of neural activity in response to attentional shifts.

    • Main Results:

    • Attentional modulation of activity was observed in face- and house-selective cortical regions.
    • Posterior parietal and frontal regions showed transient activation during shifts between superimposed objects.
    • The temporal dynamics of brain activity provided insights into attentional control processes.

    Conclusions:

    • The findings elucidate the neural basis of object-based attention.
    • Specific cortical regions and frontoparietal networks are involved in selecting objects nonspatially.
    • This research advances our understanding of how the brain manages attention in complex visual scenes.