Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Visual Agnosia01:12

Visual Agnosia

Visual agnosia is a condition characterized by the inability to recognize visually presented objects despite having normal vision. For instance, a person with visual agnosia can describe the shape and color of an object but cannot identify or name it. This impairment does not affect their visual field, acuity, color vision, brightness discrimination, language, or memory. An example of this condition in a social setting is someone at a dinner party asking for "that silver thing with a round end"...
Color Vision01:24

Color Vision

Color perception begins in the retina, the light-sensitive layer at the back of the eye. Two main theories explain how colors are seen: the trichromatic theory and the opponent-process theory. The trichromatic theory, proposed by Thomas Young in 1802 and extended by Hermann von Helmholtz in 1852, suggests that color vision is based on three types of cone receptors in the retina. These cones are sensitive to different but overlapping ranges of wavelengths corresponding to red, blue, and green.
Association Areas of the Cortex01:21

Association Areas of the Cortex

Association areas are regions of the cerebral cortex that do not have a specific sensory or motor function. Instead, they integrate and interpret information from various sources to enable higher cognitive processes such as memory, learning, and decision-making. Some key association areas include the following:
Prefrontal Association Area: This area is located in the frontal lobe and is involved in planning, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. It connects with primary motor areas,...
Parallel Processing01:20

Parallel Processing

The brain processes sensory information rapidly due to parallel processing, which involves sending data across multiple neural pathways at the same time. This method allows the brain to manage various sensory qualities, such as shapes, colors, movements, and locations, all concurrently. For instance, when observing a forest landscape, the brain simultaneously processes the movement of leaves, the shapes of trees, the depth between them, and the various shades of green. This enables a quick and...
Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex01:14

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

The cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost layer, is pivotal in processing complex cognitive tasks, emotions, and various sensory inputs and executing voluntary motor activities. This intricate structure is divided into three primary functional areas: the motor areas, sensory areas, and association areas.
Motor Areas
The motor areas located in the frontal lobe are central to controlling voluntary movements. This region is further subdivided into the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex.
Vision01:24

Vision

Vision is the result of light being detected and transduced into neural signals by the retina of the eye. This information is then further analyzed and interpreted by the brain. First, light enters the front of the eye and is focused by the cornea and lens onto the retina—a thin sheet of neural tissue lining the back of the eye. Because of refraction through the convex lens of the eye, images are projected onto the retina upside-down and reversed.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Dissociating spatial frequency reliance from adversarial robustness advantages in neurally guided deep convolutional neural networks.

ArXiv·2026
Same author

What makes good exemplars of a scene category good? Evidence from deep neural nets.

Vision research·2025
Same author

Image memorability is linked to facilitated perceptual and semantic processing.

Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)·2025
Same author

Real-world Statistical Regularity Impacts Inattentional Blindness.

Consciousness and cognition·2024
Same author

The Brain's Sensitivity to Real-world Statistical Regularity Does Not Require Full Attention.

Journal of cognitive neuroscience·2024
Same author

Highly memorable images are more readily perceived.

Journal of experimental psychology. General·2024
Same journal

Vestibular function drives gaze stability in locomoting macaques.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Region- and layer-specific glutamatergic synapse development in the nascent cortical hierarchy.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Endogenous peptide derived from c-Cbl-associated protein counteracts its inhibitory effect on enteric neural crest cell colonization in Hirschsprung disease.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Drowsiness alters the neural dynamics but not the core computations of multisensory integration.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
Same journal

A Matter of Parameters: Tailored Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Enhances Cortico-Thalamo-Cortical Circuit Resonance.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
Same journal

Proactive visual and motor prioritization differentially scale with cue reliability.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 17, 2026

Measurement of Neurophysiological Signals of Ignoring and Attending Processes in Attention Control
09:37

Measurement of Neurophysiological Signals of Ignoring and Attending Processes in Attention Control

Published on: July 5, 2015

Competition in visual cortex impedes attention to multiple items.

Paige E Scalf1, Diane M Beck

  • 1Beckman Institute and Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA. pscalf@uiuc.edu

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience
|January 8, 2010
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Our ability to focus on multiple things is limited not by attentional control, but by how well our brain can represent multiple attended items, especially when they compete.

More Related Videos

Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking
05:58

Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking

Published on: August 29, 2018

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity
06:46

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

Published on: March 18, 2019

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 17, 2026

Measurement of Neurophysiological Signals of Ignoring and Attending Processes in Attention Control
09:37

Measurement of Neurophysiological Signals of Ignoring and Attending Processes in Attention Control

Published on: July 5, 2015

Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking
05:58

Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking

Published on: August 29, 2018

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity
06:46

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

Published on: March 18, 2019

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Visual Attention

Background:

  • Traditional theories suggest limited attentional capacity stems from difficulties in directing attention to multiple items.
  • The neural mechanisms underlying the simultaneous representation of multiple attended items remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether the difficulty in simultaneously attending to multiple items arises from an inability to effectively represent them.
  • To explore the role of neural competition in limiting the effectiveness of attention when applied to multiple stimuli.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure blood oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals in visual cortical area V4.
  • Compared the effects of attention on BOLD signals when attending to one stimulus versus three simultaneously competing stimuli.

Main Results:

  • Attention failed to enhance the BOLD signal in area V4 when directed to three simultaneously competing stimuli.
  • This ineffectiveness was specific to situations where the attended stimuli competed within the visual cortex.

Conclusions:

  • Neural competition can impede the effectiveness of attention when representing multiple items simultaneously.
  • Limitations in representing multiple attended items, rather than just attentional control sources, contribute to restricted attentional capacity.