Cerebral Cortex, Vol. 12, No. 11, 1124-1131,
November 2002
© 2002 Oxford University Press
Two Attentional Processes in the Parietal Lobe
1 Department of Neurology and Neurological Surgery, Washington University, , 2 Department of Radiology, Washington University, , 3 Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Washington University and , 4 Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Washington University, St Louis, MO 63110, USA
Address correspondence to Gordon Shulman, Department of Neurology, Box 8111, 660 S. Euclid, St Louis, MO 63110, USA. Email: gordon{at}npg.wustl.edu.
We report fMRI evidence for two attentional processes in parietal cortex. Subjects matched a feature, cued by a word, to a test display of moving colored dots. Either color (red, green) or motion direction (left, right) was cued on mixed scans while only one dimension was cued on blocked scans. An event-related paradigm separated the preparatory activity generated by the cue from the subsequent activity related to the test display. One attentional process specified task information while a second process was motion selective. During the cue period, a pure effect of task specification was observed in left frontal cortex while combined effects of task specification and motion selectivity were observed in left posterior parietal cortex. The frontal task-specification signal may have been the source of the corresponding signal in parietal cortex. Effects of task specification generalized over cue dimension, indicating that the information was coded in a sufficiently abstract form to affect color and motion processing. During the subsequent test period, task-specification and motion-selective signals were again observed in left parietal cortex. Task specification did not significantly affect occipital motion-selective regions, such as MT+, however, indicating that this process did not influence the lower cortical tier of the motion processing stream. These results provide evidence for general and specialized task representations within left parietal cortex during task preparation and execution.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  K. T. Hill and L. M. Miller Auditory Attentional Control and Selection during Cocktail Party Listening Cereb Cortex, July 2, 2009; (2009) bhp124v1. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 J. B. Hutchinson, M. R. Uncapher, and A. D. Wagner Posterior parietal cortex and episodic retrieval: Convergent and divergent effects of attention and memory Learn. Mem., May 23, 2009; 16(6): 343 - 356. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 J. P. Mitchell Inferences about mental states Phil Trans R Soc B, May 12, 2009; 364(1521): 1309 - 1316. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
W. E. Huddleston and E. A. DeYoe The Representation of Spatial Attention in Human Parietal Cortex Dynamically Modulates with Performance Cereb Cortex, June 1, 2008; 18(6): 1272 - 1280. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. P. Mitchell Activity in Right Temporo-Parietal Junction is Not Selective for Theory-of-Mind Cereb Cortex, February 1, 2008; 18(2): 262 - 271. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
P. Molenberghs, M. M. Mesulam, R. Peeters, and R. R. C. Vandenberghe Remapping Attentional Priorities: Differential Contribution of Superior Parietal Lobule and Intraparietal Sulcus Cereb Cortex, November 1, 2007; 17(11): 2703 - 2712. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 C. Cavina-Pratesi, K. F. Valyear, J. C. Culham, S. Kohler, S. S. Obhi, C. A. Marzi, and M. A. Goodale Dissociating arbitrary stimulus-response mapping from movement planning during preparatory period: evidence from event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. J. Neurosci., March 8, 2006; 26(10): 2704 - 2713. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. T. Serences, J. Schwarzbach, S. M. Courtney, X. Golay, and S. Yantis Control of Object-based Attention in Human Cortex Cereb Cortex, December 1, 2004; 14(12): 1346 - 1357. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
T. Liu, S. D. Slotnick, J. T. Serences, and S. Yantis Cortical Mechanisms of Feature-based Attentional Control Cereb Cortex, December 1, 2003; 13(12): 1334 - 1343. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 G. L. Shulman, M. P. McAvoy, M. C. Cowan, S. V. Astafiev, A. P. Tansy, G. d'Avossa, and M. Corbetta Quantitative Analysis of Attention and Detection Signals During Visual Search J Neurophysiol, November 1, 2003; 90(5): 3384 - 3397. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
G. d'Avossa, G. L. Shulman, and M. Corbetta Identification of Cerebral Networks by Classification of the Shape of BOLD Responses J Neurophysiol, July 1, 2003; 90(1): 360 - 371. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
S. V. Astafiev, G. L. Shulman, C. M. Stanley, A. Z. Snyder, D. C. Van Essen, and M. Corbetta Functional Organization of Human Intraparietal and Frontal Cortex for Attending, Looking, and Pointing J. Neurosci., June 1, 2003; 23(11): 4689 - 4699. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|