http://www.cse.psu.edu/~rtc12/CSE597E/papers/treismanFeatIntegration.pdf

A feature-integration theory of attention

Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268

Bartlett viewed thinking as a high level skill exhibiting ballistic properties that he called its “point of no return”. This paper explores one aspect of cognition through the use of a simple model...

/pdf/orienting-of-attention-2bi7r8jak3.pdf

Orienting of attention

Attention and Effort

The two basic phenomena that define the problem of visual attention can be illustrated in a simple example. Consider the arrays shown in each panel of Figure 1. In a typical experiment, before the arrays were presented, subjects would be asked to report letters appearing in one color (targets, here black letters), and to disregard letters in the other color (nontargets, here white letters). The array would then be briefly flashed, and the subjects, without any opportunity for eye movements, would give their report. The display mimics our. usual cluttered visual environment: It contains one or more objects that are relevant to current behavior, along with others that are irrelevant. The first basic phenomenon is limited capacity for processing information. At any given time, only a small amount of the information available on the retina can be processed and used in the control of behavior. Subjectively, giving attention to any one target leaves less available for others. In Figure 1, the probability of reporting the target letter N is much lower with two accompa­ nying targets (Figure la) than with none (Figure Ib). The second basic phenomenon is selectivity-the ability to filter out un­ wanted information. Subjectively, one is aware of attended stimuli and largely unaware of unattended ones. Correspondingly, accuracy in identifying an attended stimulus may be independent of the number of nontargets in a display (Figure la vs Ie) (see Bundesen 1990, Duncan 1980).

Neural Mechanisms of Selective Visual Attention

Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading

This article presents a theory of selective attention that is intended to account for the identification of a visual shape in a cluttered display. The selected area of attention is assumed to be controlled by a filter that operates on the location information in a display. The location information selected by the filter in turn determines the feature information that is to be identified. Changes in location of the selected area are assumed to be governed by a gradient of processing resources. Data from three new experiments are fit more parsimoniously by a gradient model than by a moving-spotlight model. The theory is applied to experiments in the recent literature concerned with precuing locations in the visual field, and to the issue of attentional and automatic processing in the identification of words. Finally, data from neuroanatomical experiments are reviewed to suggest ways that the theory might be realized in the primate brain.

Theory of attentional operations in shape identification.

The spatial extent of attention to visually presented letters and words was investigated using a probe technique. The primary task required subjects to categorize (a) five-letter words, or to categorize the middle letter of (b) five-letter words or (c) five-letter nonwords. The probe task required the subjects to respond when the digit 7 appeared in one of the five letter positions. Probe trials were inserted at the onset of letter and word processing in Experiment 1 and 500 msec after letter and word processing in Experiment 2. In both experiments, probe trials produced a V-shaped function of reaction times across probe positions for the letter-categorization task for word and nonword stimulus conditions. In contrast, a relatively flat reaction time function was found for the word-categorization tasks. An analysis of the data based on a quantitative model of attentional spotlight distributions suggests that the spotlight width in the letter tasks is one letter space, and the spotlight width in the word task is typically five spaces.

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xhp/9/3/371.pdf

Spatial Extent of Attention to Letters and Words.

Positron emission tomographic scans were recorded from human subjects following an object-identification task, one version of which required attentional selection and the other version of which did not In one experimental session, the attention-demanding displays were presented in the left visual field and the nonattention displays were presented in the right visual field In a second session, the sides of the displays were reversed Analysis of the scans indicated that, averaged across the 2 sessions, the pulvinar showed greater glucose uptake when it was contralateral to the display of the selective attention task than when it was contralateral to the display of the nonattention task The pattern of the data indicated that the degree of the attention task effect on pulvinar glucose uptake may differ between the hemispheres In view of known connections between the pulvinar and cortical areas that mediate object identification, the present finding suggests that the pulvinar operates interactively with these cortical structures when an identification process demands selective attention

https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/10/2/613.full.pdf

Positron emission tomographic measurements of pulvinar activity during an attention task

/pdf/basic-processes-in-reading-perception-and-comprehension-26p2lol3y8.pdf

David LaBerge

Papers

Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading

Theory of attentional operations in shape identification.

Spatial Extent of Attention to Letters and Words.

Positron emission tomographic measurements of pulvinar activity during an attention task

Basic processes in reading : perception and comprehension