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Updated: Dec 30, 2025

Measurement of Neurophysiological Signals of Ignoring and Attending Processes in Attention Control
Published on: July 5, 2015
Decoding of the other's focus of attention by a temporal cortex module
Hamidreza Ramezanpour1,2,3, Peter Thier1,4
1Department of Cognitive Neurology, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany; hamidreza.ramezanpour@uni-tuebingen.de thier@uni-tuebingen.de.
Abstract:
Faces attract the observer's attention toward objects and locations of interest for the other, thereby allowing the two agents to establish joint attention. Previous work has delineated a network of cortical "patches" in the macaque cortex, processing faces, eventually also extracting information on the other's gaze direction. Yet, the neural mechanism that links information on gaze direction, guiding the observer's attention to the relevant object, has remained elusive. Here we present electrophysiological evidence for the existence of a distinct "gaze-following patch" (GFP) with neurons that establish this linkage in a highly flexible manner. The other's gaze and the object, singled out by the gaze, are linked only if this linkage is pertinent within the prevailing social context. The properties of these neurons establish the GFP as a key switch in controlling social interactions based on the other's gaze.
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