Study
Offers New Clue on How Brain Processes Visual Information
Provides Insight into Neural Mechanisms of Attention
Two types of attention
are utilized in the selective attention process – bottom up and top down.
Bottom-up attention is automatically guided to images that stand out from a
background by virtue of color, shape or motion, such as a billboard on a
highway. Top-down attention occurs when one’s focus is consciously shifted to
look for a known target in a visual scene, as when searching for a relative in
a crowd.
Provides Insight into Neural Mechanisms of Attention
(July 25, 2012) Ever wonder how the human brain, which is constantly
bombarded with millions of pieces of visual information, can filter out what’s
unimportant and focus on what’s most useful?
The process is known as selective attention and scientists
have long debated how it works. But now, researchers at Wake Forest Baptist
Medical Center have discovered an important clue. Evidence from an animal
study, published in the July 22 online edition of the journal Nature
Neuroscience, shows that the prefrontal cortex is involved in a previously
unknown way.