With this contribution I explore the relationship between attention development in modern archers and attention as a cognitive requirement for ancient bow hunting – a techno-behaviour that may have originated sometime between 80 and 60 thousand years ago in sub-Saharan Africa. Material Engagement Theory serves as a framework for the inextricable interrelatedness between brain, body and mind, and how practicing to use bimanual technologies shapes aspects of our cognition, including our ability to pay attention. In a cross-disciplinary approach, I use (...) cognitive-motor neuroscience to demonstrate the role of attention in modern archery and highlight brain regions that are activated or ‘pressured’ during aiming with attention. One of these areas, the precuneus together with the default mode network, serves as neurological hub for accurate bimanual material engagement practiced over a distance. The likely development of the precuneus, in tandem with the unique globularisation of the human skull, can be traced in the Homo sapiens fossil record since about 160 thousand years ago, reaching the modern range by around 100 thousand years ago within a continuum of brain modification. Variation in human neuro-genetic adaptations since our split from the Denisovan and Neanderthal groups further suggest differences in attention as a cognitive trait between recent big-brained humans. I suggest that these observations may serve as bridging theory for understanding how some aspects of the sapient ability to pay attention was developed. (shrink)

In this article we argue for an extension of Pere Alberch’s notion of developmental morphospace into the realm of cognition and introduce the notion of cognitive phenotype as a new tool for the evolutionary and developmental study of cognitive abilities.

When people manipulate a moving object, such as writing with a pen or driving a car, they experience their actions as intimately related to the object’s motion, that is they perceive control. Here, we tested the hypothesis that observers would feel more control over a moving object if an unrelated task drew attention to a location to which the object subsequently moved. Participants steered an object within a narrow path and discriminated the color of a flash that appeared briefly close (...) to the object. Across two experiments, participants provided higher ratings of perceived control when an object moved over a flash’s location than when an object moved away from a flash’s location. This result suggests that we use the location of spatial attention to determine the perception of control. If an object goes where we are attending, we feel like we made it go there. (shrink)

By the late 1990s, several converging trends in economics, psychology, and neuroscience had set the stage for the birth of a new scientific field known as “neuroeconomics”. Without the availability of an extensive variety of experimental designs for dealing with individual and social decision-making provided by experimental economics and psychology, many neuroeconomics studies could not have been developed. At the same time, without the significant progress made in neuroscience for grasping and understanding brain functioning, neuroeconomics would have never seen the (...) light of day. The paper is an overview of the main significant advances in the knowledge of brain functioning by neuroscience that have contributed to the emergence of neuroeconomics and its rise over the past two decades. These advances are grouped over three non-independent topics referred to as the “emo-rational” brain, “social” brain, and “computational” brain. For each topic, it emphasizes findings considered as critical to the birth and development of neuroeconomics while highlighting some of prominent questions about which knowledge should be improved by future research. In parallel, it shows that the boundaries between neuroeconomics and several recent sub-fields of cognitive neuroscience, such as affective, social, and more generally, decision neuroscience, are rather porous. (shrink)

Artists, art critics, art historians, and cognitive psychologists have asserted that visual artists perceive the world differently than nonartists and that these perceptual abilities are the product of knowledge of techniques for working in an artistic medium. In support of these claims, Kozbelt (2001) found that artists outperform nonartists in visual analysis tasks and that these perceptual advantages are statistically correlated with drawing skill. We propose a model to explain these results that is derived from a diagnostic framework for object (...) recognition and recent research in cognitive neuroscience on selective visual attention. This research demonstrates that endogenous shifts of visual attention enhance the encoding of expected features in the visual field and inhibit the perception of potential distracters. Moreover, it demonstrates complementary roles for spatial schemata and motor plans in visual attention. We argue that artists develop novel spatial schemata, which enable them to recognize and reproduce stimulus features sufficient for adequate artistic production in a medium, and that these schemata become encoded as motor plans as artists develop technical proficiency in a medium. We hypothesize that artists' perceptual advantages can therefore, be explained by the role spatial schemata and motor plans play in selective attention. (shrink)

Sustained neural activity during the delay phase of spatial working memory tasks is compelling evidence for the neural correlate of active storage and maintenance of spatial information, however, it does not provide insight into specific mechanisms of spatial coding. This activity may reflect a range of processes, such as maintenance of a stimulus position or a prepared motor response plan. The aim of our study was to examine neural evidence for the use of different coding strategies, depending on the characteristics (...) and demands of a spatial working memory task. Thirty-one and 44 participants performed a spatial working memory task while we measured their brain activity using fMRI in two separate experiments. Participants were asked to remember the position of a briefly presented target stimulus and, after a delay period, to use a joystick to indicate either the position of the remembered target or an indicated non-matching location. The task was designed so that the predictability of the response could be manipulated independently of task difficulty and memory retrieval process. We were particularly interested in contrasting conditions in which participants could use prospective coding of the motor response or had to rely on retrospective sensory information. Prospective motor coding was associated with activity in somatomotor, premotor, and motor cortices and increased integration of brain activity with and within the somatomotor network. In contrast, retrospective sensory coding was associated with increased activity in parietal regions and increased functional connectivity with and within secondary visual and dorsal attentional networks. The observed differences in activation levels, dynamics of differences over trial duration, and integration of information within and between brain networks provide compelling evidence for the use of complementary spatial working memory strategies optimized to meet task demands. (shrink)

Fronto-parietal activity has been frequently observed in fMRI and PET studies of attention, working memory, and episodic memory retrieval. Several recent fMRI studies have also reported fronto-parietal activity during conscious visual perception. A major goal of this review was to assess the degree of anatomical overlap among activation patterns associated with these four functions. A second goal was to shed light on the possible cognitive relationship of processes that relate to common brain activity across functions. For all reviewed functions we (...) observed a consistent and overlapping pattern of brain activity. The overlap was most pronounced for the bilateral parietal cortex , and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex . The common fronto-parietal activity will be discussed in terms of processes related to integration of distributed representations in the brain. (shrink)

Dissociative style is mostly studied as a risk factor for dissociative pathology, but it may also reflect a fundamental characteristic of healthy information processing. Due to the close link between attention and working memory and the previous finding of enhanced attentional abilities with a high dissociative style, a positive relationship was also expected between dissociative style and verbal working memory span. In a sample of 119 psychology students, it was found that the verbal span of the high-dissociative group was about (...) half a word larger than of the medium and low-dissociative groups. It is suggested that dissociative style may be one of only very few individual differences that is directly relevant to consciousness research. (shrink)

Working memory, an important posit in cognitive science, allows one to temporarily store and manipulate information in the service of ongoing tasks. Working memory has been traditionally classified as an explicit memory system – that is, as operating on and maintaining only consciously perceived information. Recently, however, several studies have questioned this assumption, purporting to provide evidence for unconscious working memory. In this paper, we focus on visual working memory and critically examine these studies as well as studies of unconscious (...) perception that seem to provide indirect evidence for unconscious working memory. Our analysis indicates that current evidence does not support an unconscious working memory store, though we offer independent reasons to think that working memory may operate on unconsciously perceived information. (shrink)

Executive functions are of vital importance in the process of active cognition, which is thought to be associated with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. As a valid brain stimulation technology, high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation has been used to optimize cognitive function in healthy adults. Substantial evidence indicates that short-term or single anodal tDCS sessions over the left DLPFC will enhance the performance of executive functions. However, the changes in performance and cortical activation of executive functions after modulation by repeated anodal (...) HD-tDCS is as yet unexplored. This study aims to examine changes in three core components of executive functions produced by nine HD-tDCS sessions, and to use functional near-infrared spectroscopy to bilaterally record DLPFC neural activity. A total of 43 participants were divided randomly into two study groups to complete nine interventions. Our results demonstrate that the enhancement of cognitive flexibility in the anodal group was significantly better than that in the sham group. Additionally, a Stroop effect-related decrease in oxygenated hemoglobin concentration in the DLPFC was observed in the anodal group but not the sham group. In conclusion, our study found that repeated anodal HD-tDCS sessions can significantly promote cognitive flexibility, one of the core components of executive function, and that alterations in DLPFC activation can enhance our understanding of the neuroplastic modifications modulated by HD-tDCS. (shrink)

The prevalence of mobile phone addiction has increased rapidly in recent years, and it has had a certain negative impact on emotions and cognitive capacities. At the level of neural circuits, the continued increase in activity in the brain regions associated with addiction leads to neural adaptations and structural changes. At present, the spontaneous brain microstates that could be negatively influenced by MPA are unclear. In this study, the temporal characteristics of four resting-state electroencephalogram microstates related to mobile phone addiction (...) tendency were investigated using the Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale. We attempted to analyze the correlation between MPAT and corresponding microstates and provide evidence to explain the brain and behavioral changes caused by MPA. The results showed that the total score of the MPATS was positively correlated with the duration of MS1, related to phonological processing and negatively correlated with the duration of MS2, related to visual or imagery processing, and MS4, related to the attentional network; the score of the withdrawal symptoms subscale was additionally associated with duration of MS3, related to the cingulo-opercular emotional network. Based on these results, we believe that MPAT may have some negative effects on attentional networks and sensory brain networks; moreover, withdrawal symptoms may induce some negative emotions. (shrink)

We assessed the automaticity of spatial-numerical and spatial-musical associations by testing their intentionality and load sensitivity in a dual-task paradigm. In separate sessions, 16 healthy adults performed magnitude and pitch comparisons on sung numbers with variable pitch. Stimuli and response alternatives were identical, but the relevant stimulus attribute (pitch or number) differed between tasks. Concomitant tasks required retention of either color or location information. Results show that spatial associations of both magnitude and pitch are load sensitive and that the spatial (...) association for pitch is more powerful than that for magnitude. These findings argue against the automaticity of spatial mappings in either stimulus dimension. (shrink)

In 1895 in the Project for a Scientific Psychology Freud tried to integrate psychology and neurology in order to develop a neuroscientific psychology. Since 1880 Freud made no distinction between psychology and physiology. His papers from the end of the 1880s to1890 were very clear on this scientific overlap: as with many of its contemporaries, Freud thought about psychology essentially as the physiology of the brain. Years later he had to surrender, realizing a technological delay, not capable to pursue its (...) ambitious aim, and until that moment psychoanalysis would have to use its more suitable clinical method. Also, he seemed skeptical about the phrenology drift, typical of that time, in which any psychological function needed to be located in its neuroanatomical area. He could not see the progresses of neurosciences and its fruitful dialogue with psychoanalysis, occurred also thanks to the improvements in the field of neuroimaging, which has made possible a remarkable advance in the knowledge of the mind-brain system and a better observation of the psychoanalytical theories. After years of investigations, deriving from research and clinical work of the last century, the discovery of neural networks, together with the free energy principle, we are observing under a new light the psychodynamic neuroscience in its exploration of the mind-brain system. In this narrative review we summarize the important developments of the psychodynamic neuroscience, with particular regard to the free energy principle, the resting state networks, especially the Default Mode Network in its link with the Self; finally we suggest a discussion by approaching the concept of Alpha Function, proposed by the psychoanalyst Wilfred Ruprecht Bion, trying to speculate about the connection with neuroscience. (shrink)

From the conception of Baddeley’s visuospatial sketchpad, visual working memory and visual attention have been closely linked concepts. An attractive model has advocated unity of the two cognitive functions, with attention serving the active maintenance of sensory representations. However, empirical evidence from various paradigms and dependent measures has now firmly established an at least partial dissociation between visual attention and visual working memory maintenance e thus leaving unclear what the relationship between the two concepts is. Moreover, a focus on sensory (...) storage has treated visual working memory as a reflection of the past, with attention as a limiting resource. This view ignores what storage is for: immediate or future action. We argue that rather than serving sensory storage, attention emerges from coupling relevant sensory and action representations within working memory. Importantly, this coupling is bidirectional: First, through recurrent feedback mechanisms, action coupling results in the enhancement of the appropriate sensory memory representation. Under this view, unattended memories are currently not coupled to an action plan, but are not necessarily lost and remain available for future tasks when necessary. Second, through the very same feedback projections, attention serves as the credit assignment mechanism for the action’s outcome. When the action is successful, the associated representations are being reinforced, leading to more robust consolidation and more rapid retrieval in the future e thus explaining performance benefits for attended memories without assuming that attention serves as the maintenance mechanism. By firmly grounding VWM in the action system, the new framework integrates a range of behavioural and neurophysiological findings and avoids circularity in explaining the role of attention in working memory. (shrink)

This paper aims to clarify the relationship between consciousness and attention through theoretical considerations about evolution. Specifically, we will argue that the empirical findings on attention and the basic considerations concerning the evolution of the different forms of attention demonstrate that consciousness and attention must be dissociated regardless of which definition of these terms one uses. To the best of our knowledge, no extant view on the relationship between consciousness and attention has this advantage. Because of this characteristic, this paper (...) presents a principled and neutral way to settle debates concerning the relationship between consciousness and attention, without falling into disputes about the meaning of these terms. A decisive conclusion of this approach is that extreme views on the relationship between consciousness and attention must be rejected, including identity and full dissociation views. There is an overlap between the two within conscious attention, but developing a full understanding of this mechanism requires further empirical investigations. (shrink)

This thesis investigates the relationship between eye movements, mental imagery and memory retrieval in four studies based on eye-tracking experiments. The first study is an investigation of eye movements during mental imagery elicited both visually and verbally. The use of complex stimuli and the development of a novel method where eye movements are recorded concurrently with verbal data enabled the above-mentioned relationship to be studied to an extent going beyond what previous research had been able to do. Eye movements were (...) found to closely reflect content and spatial layout while participants were listening to a spoken scene description, while they were describing the same scene from memory, and while they were describing a picture they had previously seen. This effect was equally strong during recall from memory irrespective of whether the scene visualised had originally been inspected visually by the participants or whether it was constructed whole-cloth from long-term memory. It was also found that eye movements "to nothing" appeared both when the participants were visualising scenes while looking at a blank screen and when they were doing so in complete darkness. The second study explored an effect frequently observed in the first study, involving a "scaling-down" during recall of participants' gaze patterns to an area smaller than that occupied by the stimulus encoded. It was found that this scaling effect correlated with spatial-imagery ability: the gaze patterns of participants with weaker spatial-imagery ability were closer in size to the encoded scene than the gaze patterns of those stronger in spatial-imagery ability. In the third study, the role of eye movements during mental imagery was investigated in four experiments where eye movements were prohibited during either the encoding phase or the recall phase. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that maintaining central fixation during visual or auditory encoding, respectively, had no effect on how eye movements were executed during recall. Thus, oculomotor events during recall are not reproductions of those produced during encoding. In Experiments 3 and 4, central fixation was instead maintained during recall. This turned out to alter and impair scene recollection, irrespective of the modality of encoding. Finally, in the fourth study, the functional role of eye movements in relation to memory retrieval was further investigated by means of direct eye-movement manipulation in the retrieval phase of an episodic-memory task. Four conditions were used: free viewing on a blank screen, maintaining central fixation, viewing within a square congruent with the location of the objects to be recalled, and viewing within a square incongruent with the location of the objects to be recalled. The results obtained show that gaze position plays an active and facilitatory role during memory retrieval. The findings from these studies are discussed in the light of current theories regarding eye movements during mental imagery and memory retrieval. (shrink)

The present empirical study investigates limitations of human visual working memory. The experiments of the present work involve the experimental paradigm of change detection using simple geometrical objects in the form of rectangles of different colour, length, and orientation. It can be shown, that a limited performance in the temporary storage of visual information has multiple sources. Limitations of VWM can be attributed to a limited capacity or a limited duration, but also to limitations in retrieval, which so far has (...) found only little attention. Key findings of the present study show, that a capacity limitation cannot be described by a simple and generally valid size of the store. It is in fact generally acknowledged that the capacity limitation of VWM is object-based, which means that the capacity can roughly be determined by the number of visual objects. However, it could be shown that the complexity of the objects has an influence on memory performance: Experimental evidence shows, e.g., that memory performance decreases, when an object is characterized not only by one feature, but by a number of features. The results are explained by increased storage demands for the binding of the features. Other key findings of the present study relate to the process of retrieval of information from VWM. For example, an asymmetric performance pattern could be observed: In a change detection task a memory performance was observed that corresponds to a capacity of 3 - 4 objects. In contrast a drastic decrease of performance corresponding to a capacity of only 1 object was observed, when the task was to find a matching item among changed distractors. These results lead to the idea of a change signal, by which the empirical data can be explained. The change signal is elicited by a local mismatch between the information stored in VSTM and perceptual online information. The retrieval process is efficient, when the change signal can be used in the memory task. However, retrieval is extremely limited, when in the presence of multiple changes a less efficient strategy has to be applied. In the course of the present study, moreover, it became evident that there are various links between VWM processes and visual attention. Visual attention is probably crucial for feature binding in VWM. In retrieval the change signal probably involves mechanisms of visual attention. The present study could, therefore, contribute to a clarification of the relation between VWM and visual attention. (shrink)